More Questions For Wesley

No. 7 Wolverines loss Saturday may have opened the team's eyes

Sept. 25, 2007

By Pat Coleman

Special to CSTV.com from D3football.com

	PAT COLEMAN Pat runs D3hoops.com and D3football.com and offers regular analysis on CSTV.com. E-mail here!

        ---   Column Archive   --- FOOTBALL 12/13: Expect A Physical Stagg Bowl 12/7: Semifinal Predictions 11/30: A Successful Shuffle 11/11: Clear At The Top 11/7: What's The Scenario 10/31: Like Fine Wine 10/25: Wheaton Persevering Despite Injuries 10/9: Capital Defense Gets Chance To Shine 10/2: Schollie-less South 9/25: More Questions For Wesley 9/20: More Than A Tradition Of Winning M. BASKETBALL 3/02: Tournament Regional Breakdown W. BASKETBALL 3/01: Now This is a Tournament!

Wesley College's Saturday started with some bad news and only got worse.

Thanks to a bit of good timing, the No. 7 Wolverines had a showcase game on their hands. Wesley, which reached the Division III football semifinals in 2005 and 2006, went deep into the offseason with just nine games on its schedule but lucked out when Montclair State agreed to drive from northern New Jersey down to Dover, Del., to fill its Week 4 open date.

Only one problem -- nobody told the officials.

Since the game was a late addition to Wesley's schedule, coach Mike Drass, who also is the school's athletic director, neglected to let the officials' assigner know that a crew would be needed. So a game that was scheduled to start at 1 p.m. on a NASCAR Busch Series race day in Dover was delayed for three hours.

Thankfully, Wesley has lights.

"If you live long enough, you see everything," Drass said by phone. "It's my responsibility. Fortunately for us, we were able to get a crew in and they did a great job. I talked to [Montclair coach] Rick [Giancola] and asked if he'd ever seen it before and he never had."

It's the fourth week of a five-week test for Wesley, which opens the season with five playoff contenders in five weeks: North Carolina Wesleyan, Delaware Valley (Pa.), Widener (Pa.), Montclair State and Huntingdon (Ala.). The Wolverines are coming off a second consecutive pounding at Wisconsin-Whitewater in the national semifinals and lost their all-time leading passer and most feared defender. And this past week they finally slipped after winning 23 consecutive home games and 15 regular season games in a row, losing to Montclair State, 27-26.

"Montclair is a really good team but we had our opportunities," said Drass. "We have over 450 yards of total offense and had a tailback (Mike Pennewell) run for 213 yards, but we just can't turn the ball over five times and expect to win.

"We've talked all year to our kids that ball security is at a premium, and we've worked really hard on it, but it's come back to bite us."

The question of the preseason has yet to be answered -- will Jason Schatz be able to fill the shoes of Chris Warrick, the program's all-time leading passer? Schatz, who played wide receiver last season, was 17-for-37 passing for 204 yards and a touchdown but threw three interceptions and fumbled. Three of the four turnovers came in the red zone. And while Schatz can't pass to himself, he has the leading receiver from last season (Michael Clarke) and 2005 (Larry Beaver) to throw to.

"I think Schatz really has made a lot of progress," said Drass. "We usually talk about seven plays in a football game that determine the outcome -- I'm sure he's the first to want some of those back. Even in a loss to a good team, there's a learning process. Hopefully we learn from the mistakes we've made and take more of a sense of urgency."

Wesley has lost 10 fumbles and thrown six interceptions in its four games this season, with only eight takeaways, an average of minus-two per game. The Wolverines were just short of plus-one in 14 games last season.

The major change on defense has been the loss of All-American Mario Harris in the secondary. While he intercepted just two passes from his strong safety position, he broke up 13 other passes and generally brought an attitude to the Wolverines' back seven that isn't easy to replace.

"The thing Harris always lent to our defense was he wasn't the best pass defender, but he would knock the socks off you," said Drass. "There's something to be said for putting the fear of the Lord into receivers on crossing routes."

Up front, it's defensive end Bryan Robinson, the two-time South Region defensive player of the year, who is tied for the team lead with two sacks through four games after recording 13.5 last year.

Wesley is hoping to avoid having the 2007 season end the way 2005 and 2006 did, when it lost at UW-Whitewater by the combined score of 102-13. The losses, coming on the heels of two hard-fought playoff wins against Mary Hardin-Baylor (Texas), ranked in the top five both seasons, are something Drass isn't able to explain.

"I know this. If anyone saw the film from our Whitewater games, they saw a team take the field and it was like a mugging," he said. "Whitewater jumped on us right away and bloodied our nose and we never recovered. One year we took the opening kickoff out of bounds at the one-yard line. Both years in a few minutes we were down two or more scores.

"We hadn't been in that kind of hole [very often], and as much as you try to coach around it, you can't simulate it. I remember in '05 at halftime telling the guys, `I don't care if it's 223-0, a new NCAA record, just play hard every play.'"

Wesley has no safety net if it hopes to make the playoffs and get a rematch with either Whitewater or Mary Hardin-Baylor. While 21 conferences have automatic bids to the 32-team field, the Wolverines' Atlantic Central Football Conference is not one of them, having just four Division III members. That leaves Wesley fighting for one of three bids in "Pool B" -- the group set aside for the 30 schools without automatic bids. Failing to get a berth could get them thrown into the remaining at-large pool, but those bids rarely go to teams with more than one loss.

"We have to take that sense of urgency to every game, every practice, every film session," Drass said. "Last week in practice, we told them they had a lack of focus, that they were not getting the job done, and it could come back to bite us.