A year ago, Ryan Larsen had a bad feeling.
In fact, after his Carnegie Mellon football team wrapped up its 2023 season with one loss, Larsen didn’t gather his players to watch the unveiling of the NCAA Division III playoff brackets.
“What I didn’t want to do was bring our team together and have them be disappointed, especially feeding into the bowl game,” Larsen said. “Our philosophy was, ‘Hey, we’re not going to do that.’ We were pretty sure we were going to be left out, and the really small chance we would’ve gotten in wasn’t worth [risking] the heartbreak.
“We kind of said, ‘Let’s do the mature thing here,’” he added. “I watched it, obviously, alone in my living room, and expected it to go the way it did.”
What a difference a year makes.
Not only did Presidents’ Athletic Conference co-champion Carnegie Mellon learn Sunday night it had qualified for the NCAA Division III playoffs for the third time in four seasons, but also the Tartans also got some additional better news.
No. 13 Carnegie Mellon (9-1) received a bye through the first round of the newly instituted 40-team playoff bracket and will host Centre (8-2) for a second-round contest at noon Nov. 30 at Gesling Stadium in Oakland.
Larsen — he did bring his team together on campus to watch the bracket unveiling live Sunday night — said he was thrilled to celebrate with his veteran team, which includes seven graduate students and 18 seniors.
“I thought we would be on kind of that border of getting a first-round bye or playing a home game in the first round,” Larsen said. “Based on the NPI rankings, that’s kind of where I thought we would fall. I’m obviously ecstatic that we got both out of the situation.”
Much like a season ago, the lone blemish on Carnegie Mellon’s resume in 2024 was a 17-10 loss to Grove City. The Tartans fell to the Wolverines, 21-14, in 2023 before qualifying for the ECAC Asa S. Bushnell Bowl.
This time around, though, Carnegie Mellon tied for a three-way share of the PAC regular-season title with Grove City and Washington & Jefferson.
The Tartans defeated the Presidents in overtime, but W&J knocked off Grove City later in the season to give all three teams identical 9-1 records to finish off the season.
W&J earned the PAC’s automatic bid to the NCAA postseason by virtue of having the best point-differential between the three first-place teams.
“Being in that room together, seeing your name go up there, seeing that you’re hosting, getting to know that all these seniors and fifth-year guys get another opportunity to play at home, is just an unbelievable feeling,” Larsen said.
And Carnegie Mellon, Larsen especially, will have some familiarity with its second-round opponent.
Centre, a private liberal arts college in Danville, Kentucky, qualified for the postseason after clinching a share of the Southern Athletic Association championship with a victory Saturday against Sewanee.
Larsen said he is familiar with Centre because he was an assistant coach from 2012-14 at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, which competes in the SAA.
“I’ve actually coached against Centre in two sports,” said Larsen, who was Rhodes’ offensive coordinator in 2014. “When I was at Rhodes, I also coached lacrosse. So, I coached against Centre in three football games and, I think, four lacrosse games. So, I know them pretty well.”
Longtime coach Andy Frye leads Centre. He has the most wins in school history during his tenure, which dates to 1998.
The Colonels are making their first trip to the NCAA playoffs since 2018.
Quarterback Jack Gohmann has thrown for 2,656 yards, completing 64% of his passes, with 29 touchdowns and 13 interceptions. His top three targets in the passing game are Blake Busson, Scotty Brown and Carter Chandler, who all have 40 catches apiece this season.
Busson has a team-high 701 yards and seven touchdowns, while Brown has 472 yards and eight scores and Chandler has 442 yards and eight touchdowns of his own.
Carnegie Mellon will counter with one of the nation’s top defenses. The Tartans’ defense finished the regular season second in the nation in total defense with an average of 203.4 yards allowed per game.
Linebackers Robert and Thomas Coury, along with Evan Roper and Moon product Logan Young, lead the veteran Tartans’ defense.
Quarterback Ben Mills leads a veteran Carnegie Mellon offense, along with running back Tre Vasiliadis and wide receiver Brendan McCullough, a Peters Township graduate.
“Coach Frye has been there a really long time, has done a really phenomenal job with that program,” Larsen said. “You never see them go lower than 7-3. They’re always 7-3, 8-2, 9-1 every year.
“I know with them having a bye and us having a bye,” he added, “both teams are going to be really prepared.”
Despite receiving the PAC’s automatic bid, No. 17 Washington & Jefferson (9-1) will open its NCAA Division III playoff run on the road with a second-round game against Randolph-Macon (9-1) at noon Nov. 30 at the Yellow Jackets’ Day Field in Ashland, Virginia.
Randolph-Macon earned the automatic bid as champion of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference and qualified for the NCAA postseason for the seventh time and the third consecutive season.
W&J, meanwhile, won the PAC for the 27th time and will be making its first NCAA playoff appearance since 2018.
The Presidents are 4-1 against the Yellow Jackets all time. The last game between the schools came in 2000.
Senior quarterback Jacob Pugh, a Thomas Jefferson product, leads W&J’s passing attack, which is one of the best in the country. He threw for 3,011 yards, completing 71% of his passes, with 39 touchdowns and just five interceptions.
Pugh’s top targets are wide receivers Jacob Macosko, a Peters Township graduate, and John Peduzzi, along with tight end Zach Cernuto, a Southmoreland product.
Macosko made 72 receptions for 1,090 yards and 13 touchdowns this season, while Peduzzi had 54 catches for 1,007 yards and 13 scores and Cernuto added 286 yards and six touchdowns.
Randolph-Macon’s stingy defense has allowed an average of just 12.30 points per game this season. The Yellow Jackets allowed an average of 67 yards rushing per game and 170.70 passing yards per contest.
Senior linebacker Daniel Eliasek leads the Randolph-Macon defense with 63 tackles, while fellow senior linebacker Tony Skinner has 62 tackles with two sacks. Senior defensive end Owen Arruza has a team-high five sacks for the Yellow Jackets and defensive end Jeffrey Acheampong has 3½ sacks.
No. 12 Grove City will open its second straight NCAA playoff run on the road as well. The Wolverines will travel to Baltimore, Maryland, for a second-round game at noon Nov. 30 against No. 19 Johns Hopkins (9-1) at Homewood Field.
Both teams are battle tested after deep runs in the NCAA postseason a year ago.
After a historic season during which Grove City earned its first 10-0 regular-season campaign in school history, the Wolverines knocked off Susquehanna in the first round of the NCAA playoffs in 2023 before losing a heartbreaking 25-24 decision to eventual national champion Cortland in the second round the following week.
The Blue Jays, meanwhile, earned the Centennial Conference’s automatic bid this season and advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals a year ago where they fell to Randolph-Macon, 39-36.
Johns Hopkins, which is making its 12th NCAA playoff appearance, is led by a strong defense. The Blue Jays are conceding an average of just 11.30 points per game and won two straight shutout victories to close out the regular season.
Senior defensive lineman Matthew Konkol has 38 tackles, 10 for a loss, with a team-high 6½ sacks, while defensive lineman Will Seibert contributed four sacks and Xavier Newell added 3½ sacks.
The Blue Jays’ defense also had 11 interceptions on the season, led by defensive back Carson Bourdo, who had 52 tackles and three interceptions.
Grove City enters the game with one of the PAC’s most balanced teams.
Wolverines quarterback Logan Pfeuffer, a Peters Township graduate, threw for 2,013 yards, 20 touchdowns and only five interceptions. His favorite target in the passing game is Knoch product Scott Fraser who caught 62 passes for 1,076 yards and 13 touchdowns.
Bruising running back Nico Flati, a West Allegheny product, also rushed for 1,042 yards, while Penn-Trafford product Ian Demeri added 525 yards and 10 scores.
Outside linebacker Ben Bladel, a Moon product, leads a strong Grove City defense. The reigning NCAA sack leader, Bladel had 35 tackles this season, 21½ for a loss, with 10 sacks.
Junior linebacker Caleb Brubaker is the Wolverines’ tackling leader with 66 with two sacks and a team-high five interceptions.
NCAA Division II
No. 11 Slippery Rock has a new lease on life after learning it had earned the No. 4 seed in Super Region One Sunday night to open the 28-team NCAA Division II playoffs next weekend.
The Rock (9-1) will play host to New Haven, Connecticut, (8-2) at 1 p.m. Saturday at Mihalik-Thompson Stadium in the opening round of the NCAA postseason.
Slippery Rock, which has now qualified for the NCAA playoffs for six consecutive seasons, has the second longest active national postseason streak in the country trailing only Ferris State’s 10 straight years competing for a national title.
“It’s great,” said Slippery Rock coach Shawn Lutz of his team’s streak. “It’s hard. We’re going to enjoy that, but we’ve just got big goals. Our goal right now is to win the region. That’s never going to change.”
Slippery Rock was ranked as high as No. 6 in the country before a midseason 28-7 loss to California University of Pennsylvania left the Rock in unfamiliar territory with a regular-season Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference West Division loss and out of contention for a conference title.
“We’ve kind of got that feeling like we’ve got a lot to prove,” Lutz said. “We’re going to take care of this first game, but our goal is to win the region.”
Slippery Rock advanced to the NCAA Division II Super Regional One championship game last season but fell to Kutztown, 28-16.
Lutz said his team is leaning on the adversity it has faced this season.
“Sometimes you need adversity,” he said. “We’ve won so many games in the regular season. Maybe we’ll look back on this saying, ‘We need this to happen for us to have that hunger, that drive, that attention to detail for where we need to go.’ I think these guys realize that nothing’s given. It’s all earned.
“I feel comfortable,” he added. “I feel good that we’re going to come out swinging.”
And that is most certainly true considering the recent history Slippery Rock has with New Haven.
The Rock opened the season with a 22-7 victory against New Haven. The Chargers went on to win their second consecutive Northeast-10 Conference championship.
Lutz, now in his ninth season as head coach and 29th overall at Slippery Rock, said he has never played a team in the NCAA playoffs after facing them in the regular season.
“This is wild,” he said. “You’re not going to complain. Once you’re in, you’re in. It’s easy to watch film because you played them. We watched them against each other, but that’s the first game. People change so much.”
Quarterback Brayden Long threw for 129 yards and two touchdowns to lead Slippery Rock past New Haven earlier this season, while running back Chris D’Or rushed for 83 yards.
The Rock held the Chargers to just 276 yards of total offense.
Long is among the top quarterbacks in the country. He passed for 2,360 yards, 19 touchdowns with just four interceptions and also rushed for six scores in 2024.
The top targets in the Slippery Rock passing attack are Kylon Wilson, who racked up 529 yards with four touchdowns, while Mike Solomon contributed 482 yards with seven scores.
D’Or and Idris Lawrence also provide a potent two-headed rushing attack for the Rock. Lawrence rushed for 683 yards and five touchdowns and D’Or has gained 658 yards and three scores.
New Haven, meanwhile, will turn to three running backs to get going on the ground.
Christopher Ais has rushed for 1,031 yards and eight touchdowns, while Zaon Laney contributed 750 yards and five scores and Justin Felder added 412 yards and five touchdowns as well.
“They run the football,” Lutz said. “They’ve got big linemen that are good. They’re going to run it down your throat, and they’ve got a lot of talent on defense. They’re going to try to shorten the game if they possibly can. At one point, I think they had one of the [top] rushing attacks in the country. They were just running it down people’s throats.
“We’ve got to stop the run and hope to make big plays in the pass game.”
After dropping a tough 21-14 decision to No. 3 Kutztown in the PSAC championship game Saturday afternoon at Adamson Stadium, No. 17 California University of Pennsylvania quarterback Davis Black said he was looking forward to starting “another season” in the NCAA playoffs.
The Vulcans will soon get that chance.
California (8-2) was awarded the third seed in Super Region One and will host East Stroudsburg (10-1) at 1 p.m. Saturday at Adamson Stadium.
The Vulcans are making their first NCAA playoff appearance since 2017, while the Warriors are back in the national postseason for the second consecutive season.
East Stroudsburg’s lone loss of 2024 came against undefeated PSAC champion Kutztown, 27-21, and since that game the Warriors have won seven straight contests, outscoring their competition, 266-109.
Quarterback Sean McTaggart had a strong regular season for East Stroudsburg, throwing for 2,372 yards, 24 touchdowns and just five interceptions, while also rushing for 268 yards and five scores. His top target is senior wide receiver John Siggins, who caught 35 passes for 669 yards and eight touchdowns.
Running backs Tyriq Lewis and Tahir Mills have also been critical for the Warriors’ offense. Lewis has rushed for a team-high 819 yards and touchdowns, and Mills added 795 yards and seven scores.
Black has been a consistent veteran presence for the Vulcans, throwing for 2,344 yards, 17 touchdowns and just three interceptions to go along with his 327 yards and nine scores on the ground.
Wide receiver Eric Willis III has caught 58 passes for 923 yards and six touchdowns for the Vulcans, while running back Bobby Boyd Jr., a McKeesport product, added 667 yards and five touchdowns on the ground.
John is a copy editor and page designer at the Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at jsanta@unionprogress.com.