With playoff berth secured, Scots turn attention to ‘Turkey’

Release Date: November 1, 2005

MONMOUTH, Ill. — Monmouth College secured the first-ever national football playoff berth in school history Saturday with a 35-27 victory at Carroll College, but don’t bother asking coach Steve Bell about postseason scenarios just yet. His Fighting Scots are only looking as far ahead as this Saturday’s “Bronze Turkey” game with ancient rival Knox in Galesburg at 1 p.m.

“(The conference title) doesn’t matter – not yet,” said Bell, whose team improved to 9-0 on the year with its 16th straight win. The victory clinched no worse than a tie for the Midwest Conference championship with St. Norbert, but the Scots own the head-to-head tiebreaker after beating the Green Knights 28-20 in September.

“We’ll celebrate (the title) after we play Knox,” he added.

The Scots hope to be celebrating a 10-0 regular season as well, but Knox, which played its best game of the season on Saturday, has other ideas. The Prairie Fire blanked Illinois College 14-0, holding the Blueboys to negative rushing yards. Meanwhile, their top back, Kevin Megli, got loose for 177 yards, including a 42-yard TD. Knox, now 3-4 in the MWC and 4-4 overall, also has league wins over Lawrence and Grinnell.

“That was a nice win for them,” said Bell. “Their defense did a tremendous job, and they did enough offensively to pick up the win. They want to be able to run the ball, and Megli ran well for them last week.”

For the season, Megli is fifth in the conference with 95.1 yards rushing per game, one slot ahead of Monmouth’s Dante Daniels, who has 851 yards and 12 touchdowns on 159 carries.

Daniels got the Scots on the board against Carroll, but he did so on the receiving end of a pass instead of a handoff. Quarterback Mitch Tanney dumped a screen to the fleet tailback, who raced 30 yards to give the Scots a 7-0 lead less than three minutes into the game. Ryan Bast then intercepted a Carroll pass and returned it 32 yards to the 2-yardline to set up another score, and Bobby Gibbs caught a 33-yard TD pass from Tanney to put Monmouth up 21-0 with 1:28 still to play in the first quarter.

“All the credit goes to the defense for the first two scores,” said Bell, who added that the offense deserved praise for the third TD, which came at the end of a 97-yard, 16-play drive.

From there, Carroll had the edge, but two nice running plays kept the Scots in control on the scoreboard. The first came from Gibbs, who turned a dead-end street into a 16-yard touchdown in the third quarter.

“That was one of the best runs of the year,” said Bell. “He was dead to rights, but he used Coach (Dave) Ragone’s ‘dynamic flexibility training’ to get real low and touch the ground with one hand. They flew over the top of him, he popped up and there was no one there. Bobby was definitely the MVP of the game for us.”

Gibbs carried 17 times for 77 yards and caught three passes for 51 yards.

For the second straight game, Tanney busted a long scoring run, going 40 yards to put the Scots up 35-17 late in the third quarter.

“That play was by design,” said Bell. “He read the backside end. The end followed our running back, so Mitch kept it, and it was ‘See ya later.’ That play was huge for us, especially at that point of the game, because Carroll had just cut our lead to 11.”

In all, Bell was pleased by the victory, and he actually appreciated the fact that the score was close.

“Not since St. Norbert had we had a game that wasn’t decided by the end of the third quarter,” he said. “It was a good thing for us to have at the end of the year. It brings us back to reality. Give Carroll a lot of credit. We knew going in that they would play hard. They’re tough at home, and I knew that a 21-point lead at their place was not good enough.”

NOTES: There must be something about the year ’05 and Monmouth football. With a victory over Knox, MC would have just its second 10-win season. The other came in 1905 and included a 12-6 win over Knox … Monmouth leads the all-time series against Knox 56-50-10. Bell has won all five Bronze Turkey games since he took over as head coach, and the last two games have been decided by an average of 38 points.

Knox last won a game in the nation’s sixth-longest college football rivalry in 1998, when the Prairie Fire capped a string of four straight trophy victories … With a brilliant 18-tackle performance against Carroll that included two sacks, linebacker Justin Zigler moved within two tackles of the MC single-season record of 111. He is tied for the league lead in tackles with Beloit’s Adam Neiffer. “Zigs is the best defensive player in the league, no question,” said Bell … Speaking of sacks, Anthony Goranson recorded three in the game and now has 10 on the year. That figure leads the MWC and is seventh nationally … Now that the Fighting Scots have secured the first-ever national football playoff berth in school history, the questions being asked are “Who will they play?” and “Will they get to play at home?”

Since the MWC champ began receiving an automatic berth in 1999, first-round playoff opponents have included schools from the IIAC (3), CCIW, MIAC and WIAC. Using those numbers, it appears there’s a 50-50 chance that Monmouth will meet the IIAC champion. That league is in the midst of a heated race, with a three-way tie at the top between Central, Coe and Wartburg (Central and Wartburg play Saturday).

Interestingly, Monmouth will begin playing Wartburg as a non-conference opponent next year, and the Scots have a long rivalry (74 meetings) with Coe, which used to belong to the MWC. Other playoff possibilities include North Central and Augustana from the CCIW, St. John’s from the MIAC and UW-Whitewater from the WIAC.

Even Occidental, which is located in Los Angeles, has been mentioned as a possible foe. As for the second question, the MWC champ has had to travel five times for the playoff opener in the six seasons since 1999. The exception was 2003, when St. Norbert hosted Simpson and used the home field advantage to win 27-20 in double overtime.

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