Don’t look now, but Scots have shot at MWC title

MONMOUTH, Ill. — Only SID's with too much time on their hands may be thinking this, but the Fighting Scots’ path to a Midwest Conference football championship is not as far-fetched as Monmouth College fans might think.

Yes, the Scots lost a showdown game at St. Norbert on Sept. 20, and at the time, it seemed like that would be game, set and match for Monmouth’s chances to prevent the Green Knights’ bid for an unprecedented “five-peat” of MWC titles.

But Monmouth has now won four straight games since that disappointing 38-15 loss, and at 5-1 in the league (5-2 overall), the Scots remain just a game back of the Green Knights, who still have two very tough dates ahead of them. St. Norbert’s main MWC rival, fourth-place Ripon, is on the schedule this weekend, while the Green Knights also have to play third-place Lake Forest on Nov. 8. Both games will be road trips for SNC. If St. Norbert loses both contests, Monmouth could win the league title outright, and if the Knights fall only to Lake Forest, it could create a three-way tie, and the obscure “most quarters led in MWC play” tiebreaker would be needed to determine which team advances to the NCAA playoffs.

Monmouth’s remaining schedule is much milder than St. Norbert’s, as the Scots have games against the league’s fifth-, sixth- and ninth-place teams, starting with Saturday’s Homecoming date at 1:30 p.m. against Illinois College at Bobby Woll Memorial Field. Monmouth has won six straight games against the Blueboys, and the Scots will also bring a two-game winning streak over Carroll into their Nov. 1 meeting and a four-game victory streak against Knox into the Nov. 8 Bronze Turkey showdown.

The Scots’ most recent win was a 50-14 rout of Lawrence University, and coach Steve Bell attributed the victory to his team’s ability to turn up its level of intensity a notch or two from a 30-20 squeaker against Grinnell the week before.

“I thought we came out ready to play, which we didn’t against Grinnell,” he said. “We were extremely physical on both sides of the ball. Our running game had a lot of success, and it’s because we were getting a hat on a hat and really coming off the ball well.”

On the other side of the line of scrimmage, Bell realizes his team didn’t play a perfect game – after all, the Scots surrendered 117 rushing yards to LU’s Justin Berrens – but, he said, “we had a lot of plays (seven) where we held them to negative yardage. We also tackled relatively well. The challenge was to step it up defensively, and we did that.”

While Berrens broke a couple nice runs, the Vikings’ other star, receiver Zach Michael, was a non-factor, catching just three passes for 27 yards. The reason?

“Two words,” said Bell. “Ryan Bast.”

The Scots’ coaching staff assigned the sophomore defensive back to Michael wherever he was on the field, and the result was that Michael was never able to get off to a big day.

“Ryan matched up with him all day long – our best defensive back on their best receiver,” said Bell. “He did a great job.”

While Lawrence’s attack revolves around Berrens and Michael, Monmouth showed that it’s multi-dimensional offensively. Six different players scored touchdowns, including fullback Adam Chorazy, who scored twice and is a perfect example of just how difficult it is to stop MC.

While receivers like Nathan Gaskill, Tyler Snyder and Jason Killion draw much of the attention, and running backs Oscar Scott and Todd Sabean seem to pick up all the yardage, Chorazy quietly goes about his business, then is present for the knockout blow close to the goal-line. He caught TD passes of 14 and 6 yards and now has six touchdowns in his career.

“It’s a great situation for us to have so many good running backs,” said Bell. “I thought Todd Sabean ran very well against Lawrence (97 yards on 13 carries), and we also have guys like Oscar, (Ed) McCracken, (Jason) Myers and Chorazy.”

Scott finished with a career-high 144 yards and one touchdown, and McCracken also scored once. Quarterback Rob Purlee was 13-of-20 for three TDs, with Killion also hauling in a scoring strike. In all, Monmouth gained 543 yards of total offense, with 322 coming on the ground.

As Bell looks ahead to the Illinois College game, he sees a Blueboy team that is similar to what Monmouth was four years ago in Bell’s first season at MC.

“IC has a new coach, and their offense is not in a groove yet,” said Bell. “I don’t want them to start their groove against us. It takes time with a new coach, and I know, because I was there. This is about the time of the season that we started hitting offensively that first year.”

Monmouth’s offense is hitting well enough to be ranked second in the MWC, and the matchup figures to be interesting since IC enters the game ranked second defensively.

“The big thing I said to the team,” concluded Bell, “is that we need to become consistent. We play a good game, a not-so-good game, a good game, and then not good again. We’ve got to stop that inconsistency and show that we can string together some good games.”

If they can string together three more, there’s a chance that Monmouth just might get to extend their season by a couple weeks with their first postseason berth since 1989.

Seriously.