Mount Union’s Unstoppable Winning Streak: A College Football Dynasty

On November twelfth, twenty sixteen, Division III powerhouse Mount Union, part of the Ohio Athletic Conference, loses its first conference game in over eleven years, ending their streak of one hundred and twelve conference wins, showing how dominant they were as a football team at just any level of competition. Today, we're going to dive into that football team how they got to their greatness in such consistent domination today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day. And today's tribute question is what Mount Union alum led the NFL in receptions in twenty thirteen. Now Union is a private liberal arts university in Alliance, Ohio, and the school was founded in eighteen forty six and they actually preached equality for men and women, which was unusual at the time, and of course, as football grew, they decided to jump in on the action and started their first football program in eighteen ninety three, where their first season they went one and two and wouldn't have their first winning season until eighteen ninety nine, and in nineteen fourteen they would join the Ohio Athletic Conference, the conference they would go on to dominate in the early two thousands, but they didn't always dominate, and it wouldn't be till nineteen eighty five when they would win their very first conference title and the first birth into the Division three INTAA College football playoffs. Now, if you don't know, the actual Division IIE college playoffs started in nineteen seventy three, which might seem crazy to all you that paid attention to only Vision one where they haven't had the playoffs till more recently. And to get into this and to get in you need to win your conference, and they were. This team was led by Ken Wable, who was also in that same year named Ohio Athletic Conference Coach of the Year, but he would retire after twenty four years with Mount Union having a one hundred and twenty three and ninety five record with two ties, and his dedication helped lead them to their new coach who would take them over the top. And their new head coach that took over was Larry Carris, and Larry worked his way up and Larry was an alum of Mount Union and actually played there from sixty seven to seventy where he was a quarterback and set the school record for a ninety five yard touchdown pass. Then he would go on to coach at Bowling Green Johnston High School, and then he would become the offensive coordinator at Mount Union before taking over the head coaching job. So how did they get good? Well, it helped at the program had turned itself around to be a consistent winner when Larry was in oc under the previous head coach. But it was also just Larry's coaching style. He'd be tough on the players, but also be encouraging as well. He wouldn't let you just dwell on the negatives. He'd give you a word of encouragement. Even if he'd just debt at you in front of the team, he would motivate you and make sure that everything ran to perfection. Now, one thing that also helped them is their strategy as a Division III school. That meant they had no scholarships to offer At Division three, players play to play And I coached at a Division III school near Mount Union, and we lost a lot of recruits to Mount Union because what they really like to do is they want to get numbers. The more players you have on the team, the more chances, you have to have success, and it breeds competition and you get the best of the best. So they would regularly start the season with over two hundred on the roster. Now, if you don't know, most Division three schools have between eighty and one hundred players on their team, some less, some more, but they usually average around that Mount and to have two hundred is a large number, especially since the school has just over two thousand students in attendance, which meant ten percent of the entire school played on the football team. It meant the school bought into football and it returned the favor. So Mount Union would regularly have over one hundred freshmen on their team, and they would have these unique practices where not everyone would practice together and they would separate them have freshmen practice alone. In all these different ways they would do things, and it helped breed a culture and a want to grow with the team. The more you wanted to move up, the more you wanted to stay. And it also meant that when they had juniors and seniors playing on Saturday, they had their best players playing. Because as a Division three, when you were relying on freshmen to play, it's a challenge It's something that my team that I coached had to rely on multiple times as we had coaching turnovers, then we had player turnovers, so freshmen played a lot and we struggled because of that, because an eighteen year old going against twenty two year old is a huge gap not only in strength but also mentality. It's a struggle. But also Larry was able to adjust the greatest. Longtime coaches are able to adjust. The game changes over time, as we've seen more recently, changes really quick. So defensive styles change, offensive styles change. You got change whether you run heavy, whether you're pass heavy, and what fits your team the best. And Larry won his first national title against Rowan in nineteen ninety three to win the Stag Bowl thirty four to twenty four. It was the first national championship in school history. And they were able to come back three years later face Rowing again and again win and this was the start. This season was the start of an historic time as this season they started their fifty four game win streak and they lost in the nineteen ninety nine playoffs, and they came back in the two thousand seasons and started another win streak, breaking their previous record, winning fifty five games, they won one hundred and nine games out of one hundred and ten, winning six national titles, and in two thousand and five they would start a win streak versus their conference where they would not lose a game in conference for eleven years, meaning they won one hundred and twelve games in a row, and from nineteen ninety four to two thousand and five they had won one hundred games in conference in a row. They destroyed their conference for over twenty years, basically the entire Larry Carris tenure. This allowed them to win twenty three conferences in his twenty seven seasons, and in twenty thirteen, Karris would retire and become the athletic director for Mount Union, but he left it in good hands as his son Vince Kars took over, won six conference titles and two national championships in the seven years he was their head coach, and in twenty twenty he decided to leave the program head on to Toledo, and then Jeff Dart took over the team, where he has a record of forty two and three with four conference titles and as it's twenty twenty four, Mount Union has the most national titles by any Division three team, and they have more than double of the number two team in Wisconsin Whitewater, who's become an arch rival of them, as between two thousand and twenty seventeen, either Mount Union or Wisconsin Whitewater has won the national championship fifteen out of seventeen years. There have been a little bit more transparency in recent years, but is still a huge margin towards Mount Union in Wisconsin Whitewater and Mount Union is still dominating their conference to this day. And the team actually has sent many players, but even more coaches to higher levels, including Pierre Garson, who actually led the NFL in receptions in twenty thirteen where he played for the Colts and the Washington team. And they've had many other players and they've had others make it as coaches, including Don Capers who actually became a head coach of the Carolina Panthers and the Houston Texans. And even though they're Division three, they play with such quality that you wouldn't know that none of these players are skinting scholarships and to play college football, which is shows they have a love of the game. And if you want to learn more about Division three football. Checkout in the D three FB Huddle where hosts Frank and James recap all that's going on in Eastern regional football, so you can check out what's Mount Union so you know what is going on in Division three football, which continues to grow in popularity more and more. And if you like today's episode, make sure you're subscribed wherever you're listening so you don't miss an episode. And we'll see you tomorrow for more daily sports history and the answer to today's trivia question, what Union alum led the NFL and receptions in twenty thirteen And the answer is Pierre Garson and had one hundred and thirteen receptions for the Washington team in twenty and thirteen.