Claire was starting on the Butler University women’s basketball team as a freshman. In the sense that freshmen don’t often get to be in the starting lineup right away on a varsity college basketball team, she was experiencing success. But “success” was the farthest word in mind when Ray reflected on his 2009 football season at Franklin College.
With the football campaign now behind him, Ray was in position to attend his girlfriend's games and support her, the way she had attended his games and supported him, including and especially during that frustrating 2009 season. But Kyle was not showing up for some of Claire’s games, including – and especially – her home games at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
On Dec. 13, 2009, eight days after the Franklin College football team’s postseason banquet, at which Ray had been honored as his team’s most inspirational player for 2009, Claire and the Butler women’s basketball team had a road game at the University of Cincinnati. Interestingly, it was a game Ray decided to attend, but he was largely withdrawn the whole trip. Instead of sitting with her parents in the stands, Claire said, he sat by himself a few rows in front of them.
“After that game, he wouldn’t look at me or give me a hug like he usually did,” she continued. That was unusual, especially given that she had played very well that day – scoring nine points while playing 22 minutes in a reserve role. Plus, the Bulldogs had trailed 30-24 at halftime and came roaring back in the second half to win, 65-48.
“He was acting like he was in his own world,” Claire said. “It’s when I decided I had to evaluate if I could allow this to continue. How long do I wait for him to snap out of it and be more like himself?” … because he was clearly not the Kyle she knew. She reasoned that she had cut Kyle slack for months in empathy with what he was going through in the wake of Rob Ray's death in June … followed by the disappointing 2009 football season.
“I was wrestling with the question of how you put time on (dealing with) grief,” she said. While she didn’t know the answer to that, she did know that she and Kyle needed to discuss at length the festering issues stressing their relationship. This was the closest they’d come to splitting up, she said.
Kyle’s recollection of the talk was as follows:
“It was almost a fight. She called me out on all the stuff I was doing the past months and said she tried to understand because of my father’s death. I didn’t know if we were going to make it. But it then just hit me. Everything she said was justified. It was the truth. I had to hear it at that moment. I’d known I wanted to marry Claire when I was 17,” and the prospect of losing her now – over this – “hit me like a ton of bricks. It was a wakeup call.”
He said Claire reminded him that despite everything he had gone through with his father and the football team, that he “had so many people who were still here for you, but that ‘you’ve got to be receptive to it.’ It took the thought of losing Claire. … That shook me.”
Claire had no quarrel with Kyle’s recollection of the call. She did say that she did not expect immediate change, although she said that at the end of their conversation, she asked him to take some time to think about things and to call her later and tell her what he wanted to do.
She said it wasn’t long before he did a 180-degree about-face. He stopped shutting her out, and he returned to treating her respectfully and as an equal, which he had done before going into his funk in autumn 2009. And he started attending more of her Butler basketball games.
“When I look back, it was a kick in the pants he needed,” she said.
“I knew that was not my personality,” Kyle said of shutting out Claire, “and that I don’t want to live like that.”
While the couple’s breakthrough conversation started the process of healing their relationship, it did not resolve Kyle’s indecision about returning to Franklin College for his senior year. He still wasn’t sure what he was going to do about that just yet, an indecision that carried into the new year.
In January 2010, he continued to attend his football team’s “lifts” – offseason sessions where players meet and go through various fitness routines in the weight room to stay in shape and improve conditioning. But his heart wasn’t in it. “I was distant with everybody. I still had that sting” from the fall season, he said.
Kyle’s immediate family didn’t leave him alone on his island of depression. They pitched in to help.
An important sign that he might stick with the sport came that same month – January 2010 – when Justin Ray paid to register his brother in a physical speed development and training program at Acceleration Indiana, a fitness center that individually crafts exercise programs for athletes to help them achieve their goals.
Kyle accepted his brother’s gift and attended sessions there three days a week all the way into May. His goal was to get faster as well as stronger, and after sticking with the regimen diligently, he said the Acceleration Indiana program helped him achieve both goals.
Anyone who knew Kyle’s situation and the fact that he was enrolled there had to wonder why he would put himself through several months of such intense training if he weren’t at least considering playing football again. And, yes, it did turn out to be a good sign.
To help keep his brother’s passing skills sharp, Justin regularly ran pass routes for Kyle during the offseason at the Indian Creek High School complex in Trafalgar.
For her part, Karen Ray bought and gave Kyle an inspirational, newly published book – Coming Back Stronger: Unleashing the Hidden Power of Adversity by Drew Brees, a former Purdue University, NFL and Super Bowl MVP quarterback. In the book, Brees discusses a torn labrum injury in his throwing arm, the January 2006 surgery to repair the damage and the rehabilitation he went through in the offseason after his final year with the San Diego Chargers, his first NFL team.
Kyle said that in the book, Brees confides about how, after the surgery, no NFL team wanted him except the New Orleans Saints, so that’s where he spent the remainder of his pro career. From 2006-20, Brees led the Saints to nine playoff appearances, seven division titles (including four consecutive from 2017-20), three NFC championships and the franchise’s first Super Bowl title in Super Bowl XLIV against the Indianapolis Colts, earning the game’s MVP in the process.
“Drew Brees is a man of faith, so the book resonated for me,” Kyle said, adding that not only did he decide to return to the team his senior year, but he also used the book title as his mantra: “I’m going to come back strong!”
“I attacked every day. I did what I could control. I went in and worked hard,” just as John Chiarotti had challenged him to do at the postseason football team banquet. “I had to believe I could have success and come back stronger,” he said. “Once I made up my mind that I still had it in me, I just went after it. I worked harder that spring and summer than I ever have.”
Also during the 2009-10 offseason, Justin Ray told his brother that if he returned to Franklin and played football his senior year, Kyle should consider changing his jersey number to 26 to honor their father. Kyle had worn No. 10 in high school (just as their father had), and he had worn No. 10 in his first three years at Franklin College. But Rob Ray wore No. 26 in his years playing wide receiver at Franklin College.
Kyle pursued his brother’s suggestion and approached teammate Kelly Snellenbarger, who had worn jersey No. 26 on offense in 2009. Kyle told Snellenbarger about his dad and what wearing number 26 would mean to him in 2010, Kyle’s senior year. He asked Snellenbarger if he’d mind letting Kyle have No. 26 in 2010, and Kelly agreed.1 As it turned out, Kyle said, Snellenbarger indicated he also was hoping to change jersey numbers, and Snellenbarger switched to No. 35 for 2010.
In an autumn 2010 interview with IndySportsNation.com, Kyle said that every time he put on the No. 26 jersey, he thought of his father. “It almost gives me … more confidence and extra strength to keep going when things aren’t going well, or you know, when I get nervous at all, I just look at that jersey and just remember him.”
When Franklin College football team members showed up for preseason camp in 2010, Kyle Ray said it was clear to him that he was in better physical shape than he had been in years past. “It was clear who had been working hard” in the offseason, he said. And importantly, he noticed how much faster he had gotten from the offseason training.
Despite showing up for Franklin College’s football training camp that summer, Kyle was not 100 percent certain that his 2009 troubles on the playing field were behind him. But his mother said her son had another thing going for him at the time: She was praying for him.
After training camp had begun, Karen attended a team scrimmage on the road. Nick Purichia started at quarterback at the scrimmage, but Kyle got a good amount of time to play, too, and, as she remembers it, Kyle performed very well.
As she rode home in the back seat of a car after the scrimmage, Karen noticed a Bible in a pocket behind the seat in front of her. She reached for it and flipped through the pages. While doing so, she was reminded of some inspirational lines in 2 Samuel 22:31-37. So she turned to those verses, wrote down the citation and gave it to Kyle, suggesting he recite them before each game. She said she refers to the verses as “a quarterback’s prayer.”
The verses read like this, taken from a copy of The New International version of the Bible:
Asked if he used that prayer regularly as his mother had intended, Kyle said that he didn’t have to because his mother prayed it for him every week. He said he and his mother conversed before each game, and during each of those talks, she recited the prayer.
“It helped get my mind into positive thinking,” Kyle said.
Josiah Sears, the Franklin College quarterbacks coach, said the Grizzlies’ football program got a significant boost in the 2010 season with the influx of three key transfer players.
Two of the transfers were running backs. One, Reece Craig, had spent the 2008 and 2009 seasons at Indiana State University, and before that he was an all-conference and all-state running back at Bedford (Ind.) North Lawrence High School. The other, Darryl Stott, a 2,000-yard rusher his senior year at Union City (Ind.) High School, had spent 2008 and 2009, his sophomore and junior years, at Anderson University, where he became just the fourth Ravens running back to rush for 1,000 yards in a season.
Also coming from Anderson was the third transfer, strong safety Luke Hurst, who had played three seasons for the Ravens. Stott and Hurst, in the opinion of Sears, were the Ravens’ top players from 2009. He surmised that they transferred to Franklin because they did not want to go through another 1-9 season as Anderson had endured in 2009.2
Reece Craig, who would have two years of eligibility remaining at Franklin College, also was leaving a troubled program. In his first two years at Indiana State, the Sycamores had gone 1-22, and after announcing his transfer, Craig told his hometown newspaper in Bedford, Ind., that losing had become accepted at the school.3
Two other new players also would be difference-makers in 2010. One was Kyle Linville of Speedway, Ind., a second-year wide receiver who had sat out the 2009 season with an injury. In time, Linville would prove to be the school’s best-ever receiver, if school records are any indication.
Linville still holds the school’s all-time single-season records for receptions (108), reception yardage (1,426), touchdown receptions (21) and points scored (126) as well as career marks for receptions (308), receiving yardage (4,691) and touchdown receptions (53).
The other was freshman Zack Corpe, a defensive back and kick returner from Elkhart (Ind.) Memorial High School. His exploits in his first season with the Grizzlies will be revealed here in short order.
Nick Purichia said he was optimistic about Franklin’s fortunes for 2010 because he – and, he feels, most of the team – considered the 2009 campaign an aberration, a blip on the program’s otherwise straight-line record of success, measured in winning conference championships and qualifying for the postseason tournament. Fueling that thinking would be the fact that the 2010 Grizzlies would be a senior-led team again, just like in 2007 and 2008.
In the days leading up to the team’s opening game at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wis., Coach Leonard spoke a familiar refrain to Kyle Ray and Nick Purichia: He was going to let both seniors get chances to start at quarterback to start the season. In fact, Ray said Purichia ended up playing the whole first quarter against Carthage, and Ray would be on the field the first series of downs in the second quarter.
The Grizzlies were brimming with hope and confidence when they took the field at Carthage for the opener, and they led 13-6 at the halfway point. But they dropped a 30-27 decision in a game that evolved into a quarterbacks aerial battle between Ray and Purichia for Franklin and Carthage’s Evan Jones. Both teams amassed more than 300 yards in the air – 372 for Franklin, 341 for Carthage.
Franklin linebacker Nick Cochran feels Carthage got a huge gift in the third quarter on an officiating no-call that occurred on a pass play whose outcome could have spelled the difference between a Franklin win and the loss they ended up going home with.
Cochran said he had tackled Carthage receiver Jeremy Brown quickly after Brown caught a short pass in the host school’s red zone. He said both he and Brown hit the ground rolling. But Brown popped back up and continued running until he reached the end zone. Cochran is certain that Brown was legally down after his tackle, but game officials said neither of Brown’s knees or elbows touched the ground, and they awarded the host school a touchdown on the play.
Cochran said there were several other Grizzlies near him and Brown at the time of the “tackle,” and all his teammates froze in their tracks after Cochran and Brown hit the turf, thinking the play was over. If they had known Brown had not been officially down, Cochran said, they certainly would have moved in to ensure he was.
Ray and Purichia received opportunities to play in the game, just as they had in the 2009 season opener at Baldwin-Wallace. Against Carthage, Ray completed 17 of 24 passes for 165 yards and two touchdowns, while Purichia completed 15 of 28 for 207 yards and one TD and had two interceptions. A 42-yard field goal that Carthage’s Tyler Funk kicked as time expired in the first half turned out to be the game’s point differential. Funk kicked three field goals in the game; the Grizzlies’ Cole Richards had two.
Despite the narrow loss, Ray pointed to the Carthage game – and specifically, his team’s final drive of the game – as a transformational moment. It was a drive completed in five plays – and just 34 game-clock seconds.
To set it up properly, it might help to know that moments earlier, Carthage had intercepted a Nick Purichia pass and marched 92 yards in 11 plays – and chewed 4:54 off the clock – before scoring, taking a 30-20 lead with 1:23 left in the game. Franklin’s Zack Corpe returned the ensuing kick 24 yards to the Grizzlies’ 29-yard line.
With 1:17 remaining and, more importantly, no timeouts left, head coach Mike Leonard sent Ray into the game at quarterback. That decision was not a surprise; everyone on the team knew Kyle was the go-to quarterback for a no-huddle offense, and that’s what the Grizzlies were going to need at that point.
For the third play, which started at the Carthage 46-yard line, Ray called Zmich’s number again on the same curl pattern he’d run on the drive’s first play. But before throwing the ball, Ray spotted wide receiver Kyle Linville open in a seam down the middle of the field. Ray elected to go for the longer gain and threw to Linville for 19 yards to the Carthage 35-yard line.
But the clock continued running after Linville was tackled, so the Grizzlies offense hurried to the line of scrimmage, where Ray called out the next play. He again called Matt Zmich’s number, this time on a fade pattern to the right sideline. Zmich hauled in the pass, gaining 14 yards before stepping out of bounds to stop the clock after reaching the Carthage 21-yard line.
On the fifth and final play, Ray felt pressure from the rush immediately after the center snap. He stepped left to avoid it, then exited the pocket and turned right to begin a jaunt toward the sideline. As he did, he noticed Linville in the end zone, running in the same direction as Ray – to the right. Ray fired a laser that Linville hauled in just before a defender knocked him down in the end zone. After the touchdown and extra point kick, the score was now 30-27.
The Grizzlies tried an onside kick, but it was unsuccessful. Carthage ran out the clock to clinch the win. Despite the loss, Ray said, that final drive was critical in lifting his spirits and, he felt, putting him in excellent position to be designated driver of the Franklin College offense thereafter, a thought that became prophetic quickly.
Not long after the game, the Grizzlies learned that Purichia had reinjured his shoulder in the game and would require rest for it to heal properly. That meant that Ray would get another opportunity to shine as offensive leader when the Grizzlies took on intrastate and non-conference foe Valparaiso University at Faught Stadium in the team’s home opener the following week.
Unlike
what had happened in the Trine game a year before at almost this exact point of
the season, Ray would neither disappoint … nor relinquish the job.
Before the start of the Valparaiso game on Sept. 11, Franklin College held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to christen Faught Stadium’s new artificial turf (see photo above, a screen grab from a YouTube video used here with permission from Franklin College). Handling the ribbon-cutting are John Chiarotti (yellow shirt) and Franklin College Board of Trustee member Gene Henderson, with then-athletics director Kerry Prather standing behind them.
Unlike a similar opportunity in 2009 against Trine University, Ray fully exploited his opportunity against Valparaiso. In fact, he and Purichia both used the same term – Kyle “lit it up” as offensive leader – to characterize Ray’s outstanding performance. He threw four touchdown passes and had a season and career-high 382 passing yards, which earned him the first of three 2010 Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference Offensive Player of the Week honors.
Indeed, Ray’s performance persuaded head coach Mike Leonard to stop the see-saw strategy and stick with Kyle Ray for the long haul.
The running game also shined against Valparaiso – 169 yards on 55 carries led by newcomer Reece Craig’s 73 yards on 14 carries.
Senior receiver Matt Zmich noted that the Franklin defense “was solid that year” and played at such a high level. So, as much as the offense rolled over opponents, he said, it is important to also recognize how opponents had difficulty scoring against Franklin in 2010.
“Senior year, we were always so confident playing other teams,” Zmich said. “Because (the offense) played our defense every day (during practice),” the offense knew that if it could handle its own defense during those practices, “and we knew it was one of the top defenses in the league … well, Saturdays (game day) kind of seemed easy” by comparison.
Nick Cochran, also now a senior, agreed that the defense rose to the occasion in 2010. He singled out new additions Wes Kaminski, a defensive end, and Luke Hurst, the latter the transfer from Anderson University. And then there was freshman cornerback and kick-returner Corpe, who led the team – by far – in interceptions with eight, one shy of the school single-season record.
Cochran said Hurst, who played safety at Anderson but switched to linebacker at Franklin, played much of the season with a brace on his knee after hurting it early in the season.
In a 56-9 blowout of Bluffton in Week 3, Ray led the Grizzlies to a 42-9 lead by the end of the third quarter. He completed 21 of 28 passes for 300 yards and one touchdown and had one interception. Purichia, returning to action after allowing his shoulder to heal, finished the game at quarterback and marched the Grizzlies downfield and into the end zone twice in the fourth quarter, both on touchdown passes.
The running game continued to be a force as well, collecting 162 net yards on 38 carries. This time, Darryl Stott led Franklin rushers with 61 yards on eight carries. Even the defense contributed to the scoring when linebacker Teddy Henkle returned a third-quarter interception 36 yards for a touchdown.
In Week 4, the Grizzlies won 42-7 at Defiance College. Ray completed 14 of 23 passes for 281 yards and two touchdowns and ran for three other TDs, gaining 43 yards on six carries. His rushing yardage was just 10 fewer than teammate Stott’s 53 on 12 carries.
In Week 5, the previous year’s conference champion, Mount St. Joseph fell, 41-10. Ray completed 19 of 30 passes for 265 yards and had three touchdown passes and one interception. Reece Craig led a Grizzlies rushing attack that amassed 254 total yards. Craig had 132 of those on 22 carries and scored two touchdowns, including one for 54 yards midway through the third quarter. Afterward, Craig was named the HCAC Offensive Player of the Week.
Up next was Rose-Hulman, which fell 56-17. Ray hit the Fighting Engineers hard with missiles, completing 24 of 28 passes for 325 yards and four touchdowns, two of them to Mitch Deffner. Ray’s first pass of the game, a completion to Kyle Linville, put the opponents on their heels from the get-go. It covered 53 yards and set up Craig’s 10-yard touchdown scamper.
Pass defenders Tyler Huls and Zack Corpe helped earn the Franklin defense more props with touchdowns on interception returns. Huls’ pick came in the first half and went for 39 yards, while Corpe’s – covering 73 yards – came in the fourth quarter. Ray was named HCAC Offensive Player of the Week for a second time.
The wins over Mount St. Joseph and Rose-Hulman avenged the Grizzlies’ two conference losses from the previous season.
At Manchester the following week, the Grizzlies’ defense limited the Spartans to a field goal in a 40-3 triumph. And for an encore to his interception return the previous week, Corpe returned a kickoff 80 yards for a touchdown, earning him the HCAC Special Teams Player of the Week. Ray completed 13 of 18 passes for 207 yards. He had three touchdown strikes and two interceptions. Grizzlies’ rushers gained 158 yards on 33 carries, and Craig topped the list with 83 yards on 10 carries.
The numbers looked the same in a 69-10 win at Anderson the following week. Ray completed 14 of 20 passes for 191 yards, had four touchdown passes and an interception, while Craig rushed for 82 yards on nine carries and two touchdowns.
Against the Ravens, Corpe added to his remarkable pass larceny feats by returning not one, but two interceptions for touchdowns, the first for 21 yards, the second for 45 yards. His two thefts were among five for Franklin; joining him were Zach Ruark, who also grabbed two (for 44 total return yards) and Aaron Daniels had one. The defense also recovered three fumbles in the game, making it responsible for eight total Ravens turnovers. Corpe’s performance earned him the honor of HCAC Defensive Player of the Week.
Franklin returned home for its final two regular-season games, starting with a 60-0 romp over hapless and winless Earlham College.
Darryl Stott was the star of the game, gaining 111 yards rushing on nine carries and scoring four touchdowns – three on the ground, including a 58-yard scamper that opened scoring in the first quarter and one on a 15-yard pass from Ray in the second quarter. Stott’s performance earned him the HCAC’s Offensive Player of the Week honor. Ray also threw touchdown strikes to Craig for 25 yards, Ryan Momberger for 18 yards and Matt Zmich for 62 yards.
In all, Ray completed 14 of 20 passes for 254 yards against the Quakers, while Franklin ball carriers gained 273 total yards on 56 carries. Ten different receivers caught passes from Ray and Purichia in the game. The Franklin defense held Earlham to six total first downs (one by penalty), 91 yards passing and 27 yards rushing on 31 attempts, for an average of 0.9 per carry.
It should be noted that Earlham’s football program had been struggling for years (the 6-4 record in 2000 had been its most recent winning season). Furthermore, that 2010 season was the first in a string of seven out of nine seasons in which Earlham would go winless (0-10), the exceptions being 1-8 in 2012 and 2-8 in 2013. After the 0-10 season in 2018, school officials suspended the football program, and as of 2023 it remained suspended.In the week following the conquest of Earlham, D3football.com returned Franklin College to the Top 25 rankings, its first appearance there in more than a year. “It’s awesome to be ranked, but it does not mean anything until we prove it Saturday,” Ray told The Franklin, the school student monthly magazine, referring to the final regular-season and conference game, the annual rivalry matchup against Hanover.
Although a win would guarantee the Grizzlies a share of the conference title, Hanover and Defiance – each with only one conference loss – were hoping for undefeated Franklin to lose in the season finale that would enable either or both of them to grab a share of the crown. And Hanover would have a say in the matter.
Ray said the Grizzlies did not want to settle for a share of the title. “We want to win it outright,” he told The Franklin. “We’ve been playing well all year. We just have to finish the job on Saturday.”
Against Hanover, a game that Ray would tell The Franklin afterward was the biggest of his career, Franklin jumped to a 21-7 lead in the first quarter. Enjoying such an early lead was key, head coach Mike Leonard told The Franklin afterward. The teams then traded scores before the Panthers closed to within 28-23 in the second quarter. But Darryl Stott’s 1-yard run with 1:12 left in the first half boosted the Grizzlies’ lead to 35-23 at halftime.
Ray connected with Matt Zmich for a 7-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter, and Franklin went ahead 42-23. After Hanover scored on its second safety of the game in the fourth quarter, Franklin closed the scoring with 59 seconds left when Ryan Momberger hauled in an 11-yard throw from Ray, the quarterback’s fifth TD pass of the game. The extra-point kick failed.
Ray completed 34 of 41 passes for 361 yards. Eleven of the throws went to Zmich, and three of those were for touchdowns, the most Zmich had ever scored in a single game in high school or college. In all, Zmich had 101 reception yards. Teammate Ryan Momberger caught six for 135 yards and one score.
The HCAC honored Ray by naming him the conference’s Offensive Player of the Week, his third such designation of the season. Zack Corpe nabbed two more interceptions, and teammate Nick Cochran had one interception and led the team with eight solo tackles.
Although official game statistics do not indicate that Purichia got into the contest, Nick said he was on the field for a few offensive plays at the end. Those would be his final moments of college football.
Reece Craig led Franklin rushers with 79 yards on 14 carries against Hanover, while teammate Darryl Stott was close behind with 76 yards on 16 carries.
Craig, who joined the team in 2010 after transferring from Indiana State where he had spent two seasons, gave an interview to his hometown newspaper, the Bedford (Ind.) Times Mail, after the Hanover game. He was effusive in his delight with his season-long experience with the Grizzlies.
“This has been such a great year,” he told the Times-Mail. “To come to a team that is in it together, cares about each other and plays great football is what it’s about.
“I wasn’t sure how it would go, but these guys just embraced me like I’d already been here for two years, and that’s an incredible feeling. It’s unexplainable, but there’s a camaraderie that’s just special. Everyone is on the same page here, we’re all similar kids, and we’re out for each other and the same goals.”
At the end of the season, the Grizzlies named Kyle Ray their Most Valuable Player, and the HCAC named Ray the conference Offensive MVP of the Year, Zack Corpe the Freshman of the Year and Mike Leonard the Coach of the Year for the fourth time.4
The 2010 HCAC champion Grizzlies qualified for the postseason tournament and drew as its first opponent undefeated and No. 1-ranked Wisconsin-Whitewater, also the defending D3 champion.
“We were significantly better (in 2010),” said linebacker Nick Cochran, “but not better than Whitewater. We felt like for at least the first half there was a chance. As I said before, at Franklin, we never think we’re out of a game when we’re a couple touchdowns behind. And I’d never seen coach Leonard as fired up at halftime as I did that game.”
The Warhawks scored 10 points early in the third quarter to move ahead, 31-14, and Franklin answered with a 7-yard touchdown on a pass from Ray to Zmich with 2:16 left in the quarter, to reduce the deficit to 31-21.
But then Whitewater kicked things up a notch, scoring three unanswered touchdowns that completed scoring in the game. The Warhawks won, 52-21, and not only advanced to the second round but would eventually repeat as champion, beating fellow D3 power Mount Union, 31-21, in the title game. The Warhawks also would repeat as champion in 2011, 2013 and 2014.
Purichia said head coach Leonard came up to him near the end of the Whitewater game and asked him if he were interested in seeing some playing time. Purichia said he told him he would be glad to enter the game.
The coach said he’d let Nick know if he were going to send him in, but Purichia said no summons to play ever came. It was so cold that day, Purichia noted, that Leonard might wisely have thought better of putting Nick in a position to try and perform “cold” under those conditions.
Matt Zmich (shown at left making his third-quarter touchdown reception vs. Wisconsin-Whitewater in a Ralph Greenslade photo) hauled in 17 passes for 171 yards – both career bests for him.
“There were not a lot of explosive plays” among those receptions, Zmich said. “I averaged only about 10 yards per catch. I was never a speedy guy. I was a security blanket for Kyle, as his clock was really fast” to get rid of the ball because of the defensive pressure.
But whereas the Warhawks had 157 yards rushing in the game, Franklin finished with 11 on 26 attempts. That means Grizzlies runners gained just 0.4 yards each time they carried the ball. Levell Coppage led Warhawks rushers with 134 yards on 20 carries, including a game-long scamper of 55 yards for a touchdown in the second quarter. Coppage would more than double that yardage the following week against Trine University.
Franklin linebacker Nick Cochran said he was impressed by Coppage. He said that before the game, he was surprised how Coppage was getting so much pre-game publicity because he wasn’t nearly as burly of a back as Coppage’s teammate, Booker Stanley, who had played for the University of Wisconsin from 2003-05.
Coppage was agile, fast and a great straight-line runner, Cochran said. “I remember the play (in the second quarter) when we thought we had him bottled up (at the line of scrimmage) but then he hit a seam and was off on a long run” – for 55 yards and a touchdown.
Ralph Greenslade’s photo of Coppage spying a seam on his way to a 13-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter appears below, with the Grizzlies' Nick Cochran
(85) and defensive back Zane Schroeder (25) being blocked on the right and Rex
Olds (51) and Teddy Henkle (36) trapped in a scrimmage line pile on the left.
At the conclusion of the season, Coppage would be named D3football.com’s NCAA Division III Offensive Player of the Year and his head coach, Lance Leipold, as Coach of the Year. Today (2022), Leipold is head football coach at the University of Kansas.
D3football.com also named Kyle Ray as the quarterback of its All-America first team; Trine’s Eric Watt would be named quarterback of the D3football.com third team, to which Franklin College offensive center Chad Schenkel also was named.
Whitewater landed two other players on the first team offense, another player on the first team defense, one player on the third team defense and still another player as an honorable mention defense selection. The loss to Whitewater concluded the season for Franklin, which finished with a 9-2 record (6-0 in the HCAC). It also concluded Kyle Ray’s college career.
Ray’s 174.48 passing efficiency rating in 2010 was second only to Eric Watt’s 182.05 in Division III – and fourth in all of college football. Furthermore, Eric Watt’s 182.05 was second only to the 182.63 of Boise State’s Kellen Moore (Division I) and matched the 182.05 of Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton of Auburn. Ray’s 174.48 was the next best in all of college football that season.5
Ray ranked 11th in Division III competition in total offense with 291.3 yards per game.
Kolby Harrell tossed high praise and expectations in the direction of his very good childhood and high school friend Kyle Ray, who since 2016 has been head football coach at Heritage Christian High School in Indianapolis.
“I can make this prediction,” Harrell said. “Kyle Ray has the ability to be the best football coach, no question about it. He is a student of the game. … His dedication is reflected in how, in basketball, Kyle would say, “ ‘I want to make 100 free throws,’ and I’d stay there and retrieve the ball for him. We’d stay there until he did it. Then we’d go inside.”
At the end of 2009, Kyle’s then-roommate Coty Bragdon earned his final credits needed for his degree in recreation from Franklin College. He graduated in January 2010 and then entered the work force. Before Coty left Franklin College for good, Kyle invited Coty to join him, Justin and the Harrell brothers, Kolby and Alex, on a trip to Orlando, Fla., to see the Champs Sports Bowl game between Miami University and the University of Wisconsin. Coty gladly came along.
“Justin Ray was a huge fan of Miami,” Bragdon said. Justin left the game disappointed; the Badgers of the Big Ten won the game, 20-14, which was played in 40-degree temperatures, a bit unusual for that part of the country, even in winter, although hardly unusual for the Badgers.
Coty said he came back to campus to see a couple games in 2010, and that helped reassure him that Kyle “was in way better spirits” than he had been in 2009. “He was like the Kyle I remember. That season, it was his team.”
At some point in 2011, Kyle’s last semester at Franklin College, Kyle learned about a website where athletes could create and submit a profile (including archival video clips) about themselves that any pro teams could access if they were looking for players and free agents they had not signed as draft choices. Kyle filled out a profile for himself, and he said this led to a couple of possible opportunities to play pro ball.
Soon after he activated his profile, he received an inquiry about possibly playing in the German Football League for the 2011 season. But that league’s season was being played at that very moment – simultaneous to Kyle’s last semester at Franklin College, and Kyle didn’t want to jeopardize his prospects to earn a degree.
In summer 2011, he received a call from a player personnel representative of the Utah Blaze of the Arena Football League, inviting Kyle to try out for the team because injuries had thinned the team’s depth chart at quarterback, and Kyle agree to come to Utah. The personnel representative told Kyle he’d be one of two athletes invited to the tryout.
He remembers it was the Fourth of July weekend, and he excitedly told friends and family about the call. “I was feeling pretty good” about his 50-50 chances of passing the tryout, he said.
When he arrived in Utah, he found that three quarterbacks actually had been invited, and that he was the only one without any AFL experience. One of the two others left early, though. He stayed in Utah two weeks, but Kyle did not make the roster, and he returned home.
In October 2015, five years after Kyle Ray’s senior year at Franklin College, he returned to Franklin and joined his mother, brother and sister in attending activities associated with the induction of Rob Ray into the Franklin College Athletics Hall of Fame.
Kyle Ray seized the opportunity at Applebee’s to tell Chiarotti how important the retired coach’s words of encouragement were to him in December 2009. The picture here is a family photo of Justin, Karen, Kyle and Leslie Ray holding the plaque that the family received at Rob’s Franklin College Athletics Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2015.
Kyle said he always relates the story of Chiarotti’s random act of kindness when Kyle is called on to give motivational talks – whether it’s at chapel gatherings at Heritage Christian School, or at churches where inspirational speakers are needed for various groups or organizations.
He describes what Chiarotti did for him as “the power of encouragement, especially to someone you might not know very well. John saying that to me was almost like God saying it to me. John was like Mr. Franklin College (at the time). Everybody knew him.”
John Chiarotti passed away on Nov. 30, 2020, at the age of 75. His Dec. 11 funeral Mass at St. Rose of Lima Church in Franklin was live-streamed, and mourners were invited to participate in a vehicular procession from the church through downtown Franklin to Branigin Boulevard, ending at the gates to Stewart “Red” Faught Stadium, where he lay in repose for several hours so mourners could pay their respects.
His obituary published in the Johnson County Daily Journal on Dec. 5 ended with a quote of John’s:
No matter what you do in life,
you do it to the highest standard of which you are capable.
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Footnotes:
1 - For many seasons, Franklin College had as many as 90 to 100 players on their football rosters, so duplicate jersey numbers were shared by many players. Users of duplicates could play only offense or only defense in a game. In 2010, No. 26 also was worn by senior defensive back Zane Schroeder for much of the season. Duplicate numbers can present headaches for stats keepers and researchers who turn to university athletics websites for information. At least two 2010 opponents (Carthage College and UW-Whitewater) unfamiliar with the number sharing situation at Franklin mistakenly used Schroeder’s name instead of Kyle Ray’s in their post-game reports.
2 - If indeed those were Stott and Hurst’s reasons for transferring, they were pretty valid. Anderson would have a 3-7 season in 2010. In the next 12 years after that, the Ravens had season records, in order, of 1-9, 0-10, 0-10, 2-8, 2-8, 1-9, 1-9, 2-8, 3-7, 1-4 (Covid year), 1-9 and 1-9.
3 - June 22, 2010, edition of the Bedford Times-Mail, Page B1.
4 - At the time he stepped down as head coach after the 2019 season, Mike Leonard had been named HCAC Coach of the Year seven times.
5 - According to archived statistics available at ncaa.org
Tomorrow in Chapter 15: Back to Cruise Control
Previously in "On Hoosier Gridirons":
Chapter 2: Mastering the Spread
Chapter 3: The Kicker With the Ever-Present Smile
Chapter 4: Like Father, Like Son
Chapter 5: Where Legends Played
Chapter 6: A Moonlight Graham Moment
Chapter 7: 'Clearly the Best' Small-School Teams in Indiana
Chapter 9: Farewell, Levi ... and Welcome, Pup!
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