In the 2000s, Levi Knach played quarterback for Columbia City (Ind.) High School and, after that, played the same position for another season and a half at Tri-State University in Angola, Ind.
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Those photos of Knach and Kenobi, a black Labrador, can warm the hearts of most animal lovers.
A good decade before he and Kenobi endeared themselves to the world, Knach was the primary signal-caller for the Tri-State University football team in 2006, his freshman year of college.
His career at Columbia City High School had been admirable. In his senior year, 2005, his passing yardage per game (218.4) ranked ninth in the state among the top 10 quarterbacks in all school classifications and was third-best among Class 4A schools.
Also on that list were senior Matt Rogers of Indian Creek High School (sixth at all class levels with 229.8, which was tops in 2A) and junior Eric Watt of South Newton (second in the state at all class levels with 251.2, which was tops in Class A), according to statistics compiled by the Indiana High School Athletic Association. But Knach also was among the highest on the top ten list in interceptions yielded with 15; Rogers had six and Watt nine. The only QBs with more interceptions than Knach on the list were Knox’s Dusty Manns (2A) with 19 and Spud Dick of Lawrence Central (5A) with 16.
Knach recalls working hard to get himself into top physical shape before that first year of college in 2006 because he aspired to be the starting quarterback for the Thunder. Knach was joining the team at the same time as newly hired head coach Matt Land. Land came to Tri-State after four seasons as head football coach at Fort Wayne South Side High School (2002-05) and a season coaching the Fort Wayne Freedom of the United Indoor Football League (2005).
Knach’s physical training efforts in advance of his debut at Tri-State didn’t hurt; he indeed got the job as starting quarterback in 2006. Unfortunately, Tri-State won only two games that year – a 21-7 decision over Olivet College and a 38-37 squeaker over Wisconsin Lutheran. The Thunder finished with a win-loss record of 2-8. The most optimistic of Thunder fans would suggest that 2-8 was a marked improvement over the 2005 season, when Tri-State had gone 0-10.
As for Knach’s stats for 2006 ... he completed 48.6% of his passes (85 of 175 for 1,084 yards, or an average of 108.4 per game), his passing efficiency rating was 109.92 – which ranks about in the middle of all Tri-State/Trine quarterbacks from 2001 through 2021 – and he had 11 touchdown passes, a number almost fully offset by the 10 interceptions he gave up.
Still, he felt that because he had started at quarterback the entire 2006 season, he had a lock on the job in 2007. He said he was so confident about returning as starter that he did not prepare and train during the offseason nearly as much or as hard as he had the previous offseason.
At the 2007 preseason camp, Knach got a dose of reality when he saw the considerable skill and talent of freshman Eric Watt – the same Eric Watt who had appeared on the statewide Indiana high school passing yardage stats sheet with Knach near the end of the 2005 season.
Unlike Knach, Eric Watt worked extremely hard in 2007 to stay in optimum physical shape before arriving at Tri-State for camp, just as he had for the past several summers when he was at South Newton High School. Year-round training had become part of Eric’s regimen. Watt made an immediate impression on the team’s quarterbacks coach, then 64-year-old Dan Simrell, affectionately referred to as “The Godfather” by Thunder players and coaches because of his considerable experience in the profession.
He also served as head coach at Division II University of Findlay (Ohio) and had worked as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at the University of West Virginia.
In 2007, after spending several seasons as head coach of the Bologna Warriors in the Italian Football League, he returned to the United States.
Simrell and his wife lived in a home along a lake not far from the Tri-State campus. He still had an itch to coach, so he met with Tri-State football staff to discuss coaching the team’s quarterbacks. He said he would do it as long as he was not required to be involved in recruiting. They agreed.
Simrell recognized Watt’s potential immediately in that 2007 preseason camp. “My first impression was that he was a tall, skinny lad with excellent ability. He was good – really good.”
An important bonding moment for Simrell and Watt came early on when Eric told Simrell that he had made an official recruiting visit to Toledo, Simrell’s alma mater and a school where Simrell also had coached for several years.
In Tri-State’s opening game at Manchester University that season, Levi Knach did well enough to lead the Thunder to a 14-9 win even though the team struggled.
The game marked the debut of freshman wide receiver Paul Curtis, and one of the scores in the 14-9 win was Curtis’ first college touchdown reception. Because the 27-yard score was his first in college, Curtis remembers the play well:
“It was a curl route. I was one on one with the corner, and I broke his tackle and ran the distance.”
That same reception also would be notable as the last touchdown pass Levi Knach threw in his college career.
The Thunder struggled yet again the following week at home against Defiance College and were trailing 13-3 with 5:40 left in the fourth quarter.
That’s when Simrell said he turned to head coach Matt Land and asked, “Why don’t you put the pup in (the game)?”
Up to that point, in conversations with Tri-State coaches, Simrell had frequently referred to freshman Eric Watt as “the pup.” Land agreed with the suggestion and sent “the pup” into the game. “We knew we had to do something quick, and he (Eric) was the better passer” between him and Knach, Land said.
What happened next gave Knach reason to fear for his job security.
On their first offensive possession with Watt behind center, the Thunder started from their own 38-yard line. Watt threw two incomplete passes, the second the result of a dropped ball by Sam Hartman.
On third down, he threw again to Hartman, who caught the ball this time, but gained only 7 yards, presenting a fourth-and-3 situation. Tri-State called time out to devise a play to ensure it would get a first down; at 10 points down this late in the game, the Thunder were not going to punt.
On the fourth-down play, Watt ran for 15 yards, earning what would have been a first down, but the Thunder were penalized 5 yards for a motion violation. With the ball now at the Tri-State 40-yard line and the Thunder needing 8 yards to earn a new set of downs, Watt threw incomplete, but this time, Defiance was called for pass interference, which gave the offense an automatic first down, and the ball was placed at the Defiance 45 yard-line.
On a second-and-12 play from the Defiance 47, the Thunder gained 5 yards on a Watt pass to Curtis, and on third-and-7, Watt threw 8 yards to Hartman, giving the Thunder another first down and the ball at the 19-yard line.
A first-down pass to Curtis for 18 yards put the ball on the 1-yard line with another first down, and after a 5-yard delay of game penalty, Watt threw again to Curtis, this time in the end zone for a touchdown, concluding an eight-play 62-yard drive in just 3 minutes and 10 seconds. After the extra-point kick, Tri-State had reduced the deficit to 13-10.
The Thunder successfully executed an onside kick on the ensuing kick-off, regaining possession at their own 40-yard line, and their offense returned to the field with Watt again at quarterback.
Tri-State went backward 7 yards on a first-down sack, and two Watt incompletions followed. On fourth-and-17, a cool and composed Watt connected with Hartman for 26 yards, moving the ball to the Defiance 14-yard line. After a 4-yard pickup on a pass to Luke Hickok, Watt threw high toward Adam Kurtz, who was running a fade pattern into the corner of the end zone.
Watt had used the fade pattern often at South Newton High School, most notably on the oft-used “Welsh Special,” so he had the mechanics down pat. The pass was on target, and Kurtz hauled it in for the score. After the extra-point kick, Tri-State led 17-13.
Coach Land’s recap of that last few minutes of the game captured the essence of the stunning turn of events:
After entering the game, Land said, Watt “went bang, bang touchdown, we got an onside kick, and bang, bang, bang touchdown. We had a minute left on the clock, and we had to defend them (from scoring again, and did). Pretty poetic beginning to an unbelievable career.”
Thunder interior linebacker Courtney Pearson intercepted a pass that ended Defiance’s next possession, after which Tri-State ran out the clock when its offense took over possession. The Thunder were now 2-0 to start a season for the first time since 1998.
Eric’s performance rallying the Thunder to victory is the game that first popped to mind when Ron Watt was asked if there were any game in his son’s career that stood out for him.
Levi Knach had seen Watt’s potential during the preseason, and he had watched “the pup” demonstrate to everybody – teammates, coaches and fans in the stands – what he could do when a game was on the line.
“After that game, I went through a mental thing,” Knach said. “I’d been a starter all my years in high school and my freshman year in college. But then I got complacent. Eric Watt was better than me, for sure.”
Knach’s concerns were confirmed during the next week of practice, when coaches had Watt handle quarterback duties with the first team during drills.
The change resulted in Knach going through a new pre-game “routine” beginning the following weekend when the team traveled south to play Franklin College in another non-conference game. Throughout his high school years and the 2006 season with Tri-State, Knach said, he would get butterflies just before kickoff. But not on Sept. 22, 2007, at Faught Stadium in Franklin, where the Thunder would play the 1-1 Grizzlies, who had lost a close one at Wabash College, 35-33, the previous weekend.
In the Franklin motel room the night before the game, Knach remembers eating dinner with Watt and fullback Mikael Glidden. “I had zero nerves,” Knach said. “Eric had a credit card (to pay for meals); I had no money, and I stuffed myself on pizza and everything.”
When Knach’s account of the Franklin game eve was shared with Watt, Eric chuckled lightly. After a pause, his only response was that he thinks the credit card was his mother’s, not his.
Everyone else on the team, Watt included, always made a point to eat moderately the night before and the morning of a game so they aren’t bloated or sluggish – or experience digestive discomfort – when they had to exert themselves on the field of play. Clearly, Knach’s actions that night – and the following morning – fit the definition of self-destruction.
The next morning, while his teammates ate modest breakfasts, Knach filled up on biscuits and gravy.
Weather conditions on game day, Knach said, were the hottest and most humid he had ever experienced. Knach’s memory isn’t too far off; a check of historical weather records for Franklin, Ind., shows the high temperature there that day was 82 degrees. Knach said that at kickoff time, he felt glad that he was not going to have to play in those conditions.
Watt did start at quarterback at Franklin, but Knach’s plan to take the day off along the sideline backfired late in the second quarter. On a broken pass play, Watt scrambled out of the pocket and started running down the sideline. As a Franklin defender made the tackle, he spun Watt awkwardly, and Tri-State's freshman quarterback felt something wrong in his left knee.
“It
hurt enough that I had to leave the field in a limp,” Watt recalled. “I was
scared; I didn’t know what was going on” with the injury, he said. He went into
the locker room, where he stayed the rest of the contest. Tests later showed that
he had sprained the knee’s medial collateral ligament.
Watt was unable to play the following week, so Knach started and played the whole game at Alma in the Thunder’s first Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association game on the 2007 schedule. The Thunder led 10-7 at halftime, but they turned the ball over four times in the second half, and Alma capitalized on enough of them to win easily, 28-10.
It was after the frustration against Alma that Knach decided he’d had enough of football. He knew he didn’t put in the effort to get into proper shape for the season, and given what had happened in the past few games, he felt – to use his expression – “burned out.” And, he knew that Eric Watt was the Tri-State quarterback, not just of the future, but of right now, and that as soon as Watt were healthy, Knach would be a sideline regular.
Knach didn’t want to be a backup, not even for Eric Watt.
In a meeting with the head coach and other coaches that week, Knach told them he was burned out and wanted to leave the team. Knach said head coach Land told him in no uncertain terms that Knach was not going to quit, no doubt at least in part because of the uncertainty of Watt’s immediate return. So Knach left the office and went off to stew a bit longer.
As it turned out, Watt was healthy for the next game, a home contest against Kalamazoo, and he led the Thunder to victory, 17-14. In the days after that win, Knach went back to talk to the coaches. This time, he didn’t say he wanted to leave. He told them he was going to leave.
“I told them I was still burned out, and I was ready to check out,” Knach said. “They said ‘Yeah, we can tell.’ It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I love football. The coaches were awesome about it.”
Matt Land had no quarrel with Knach’s version of what happened in the player’s sophomore season. “Levi was a great leader, person and player. I liked Levi,” Land said, adding that Knach’s story is an example of “how people win or lose in sports.”
Knach did leave the team right then and there. He finished his classes that semester at Tri-State, then took night classes at the school’s campus in Fort Wayne for the second semester before dropping out of college altogether. In the not-too-distant future, he applied for and got the conservation officer job with the state of Indiana's Department of Natural Resources, a job he still holds today, serving out of the Angola office. In 10 years, he would enjoy adoring social media notoriety from his relationship with Kenobi, the black Labrador.
After another home win over Adrian the following week, the Thunder’s record was 4-2. Then they went on the road and dropped games to Olivet and Hope, but they were competitive in each contest. They concluded their schedule with home wins over Wisconsin Lutheran and Albion, which ranked second-last and third-last, respectively, in the conference standings.
Tri-State finished 2007 with a 6-4 record, a dramatic improvement over the Thunder’s final records in each of the previous four seasons – 2-8 in 2006, 0-10 in 2005, 2-8 in 2004, and 0-9-1 in 2003. The most recent winning season, 6-3 in 2002, now seemed like eons ago. And 2007 was the first time Trine had won all of its home games since 2001.
Junior linebacker Courtney Pearson set a school record with his 148 total tackles during the season. His 80 solo tackles were second in the nation in NCAA Division III. He also had seven pass breakups, four sacks, three interceptions (including the key one against Defiance) and two fumble recoveries. Coaches in the MIAA voted him a share (with Olivet defensive back Marc Miller) of the MIAA’s Most Valuable Defensive Player award, and he was named to the MIAA’s defensive first team.
Interestingly, Eric Watt made no direct reference to Levi Knach, his fellow quarterback, when reviewing his freshman year at Tri-State in interviews for this story. He simply said he got into the second game of the season in the fourth quarter when the team was behind 14-0 (it actually was 14-3), “and we came back to win.”
Eric was a man of so little words … “a leader by what he did,” said quarterbacks coach Dan Simrell. “He didn’t say two words.”
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The 2008 season – Eric’s sophomore year – was notable for several things. For one, it was the first academic year that the institution long known as Tri-State University would operate under a new name, Trine University, whose nicely landscaped north entrance is shown below in a Joe Konz photo from 2015.
For more than 120 years, the school had been Tri-State – first Tri-State Normal College, then Tri-State College and, finally, Tri-State University. The “Tri-State” moniker recognized how the institution drew the vast majority of its students from Indiana, Ohio and Michigan because of its location in northeast Indiana, near the Hoosier state’s borders with the two other states.
Hoping to market itself to students from beyond just the tri-state area, school officials chose the surname of a Tri-State alumnus, Ralph Trine, and his wife, Sheri, both university benefactors and trustees, philanthropists and owners of Vestil Manufacturing Inc. in Angola.
In addition to the new name, Trine also was changing its school colors, which long had been royal blue, red and white. Beginning with the 2008 season, they were navy blue and gold.
Thirdly, in 2008 the football field’s new artificial turf was ready to see its first game action. Thunder defensive back Andrew Pickford said that in the one year he had played on Tri-State’s grass field, the turf had been the best he’d ever played on. But he said he’d always preferred artificial turf, so he had no objection to the change.
Teammate Eric Watt said he’d never played on a high school football field that had anything but grass turf. The South Newton High School Rebels’ 2004 game against Tri-County was played on artificial turf, but that was at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis, not at a school. Watt agreed that the Trine grass playing field in 2007 was very good.
And finally, 2008 was the start of a memorable three-year run of success in Trine football history, one in which the Thunder would go undefeated in two regular seasons, and almost – by a single point – make it through a third regular season unbeaten. They would go undefeated while winning three consecutive MIAA championships, too, and they would qualify to play in the NCAA Division III postseason tournament in each of those three seasons.
Eric Watt had established himself as the starting quarterback after his impressive freshman year behind center. The Thunder started the 2008 season, however, without receiver Paul Curtis for the first four games, the minimum time doctors told him he would need to heal a broken right hand.
Watt was asked whether Trine used any kind of gestures or hand signals akin to “the look” that Ben Welsh said was used at South Newton High School.“The hand signals Trine used were a bit more structured,” Watt said. “We had a handful of audibles/checks depending on how the defense lined up. My favorite play call was with Paul, and he was basically one on one on an island. We could change to three different routes: hairpin out, fade, or a post. It was our bread and butter.
“A lot of the other checks were with our quick three-step passing game, and I could change the route combo on either side of the field. We did have a similar play to ‘black,’ but it was only out of one formation and one play to either JaVontae (Hence) or Mario (Brown), which hit big (for large gains) a couple times.”
Trine got past its first two 2008 opponents, both non-conference foes, with relative ease. Manchester fell, 41-13, and so did Defiance, 42-14. Two more non-conference games remained on the schedule, and one of them was up next. It was part of the annual home-and-home series with Franklin College. It would be played at Shive Field in Angola, and it coincided with the host school’s annual homecoming observance.
Franklin came into the game ranked 14th in small-college polls and had won the first four games in the schools’ annual series that had started in 2004.
In the 2008 contest, even though the Grizzlies kept turning the ball over and giving Trine short fields to work with – Trine scored five times on drives of 39 yards or less – Franklin was still in the game in the fourth quarter.
Trine took an early 10-0 lead on an 8-yard Watt pass to tight end Troy Hirschy and a 23-yard field goal by Jeremy Howard, both coming after the home team recovered fumbles by the Grizzlies. Franklin rallied with 20 unanswered points, getting two of three touchdowns after cashing in on a fumble recovery and an interception of its own. Trine squeezed in another score just before halftime on a 2-yard touchdown run by Mikael Glidden. The extra-point kick failed, so Franklin led at the midway point, 20-16.
Franklin grabbed a 27-23 lead early in the fourth quarter on a 6-yard pass from senior quarterback Chad Rupp to Logan Deffner. The Trine offense stalled on its next possession, but it didn’t take long for the Thunder to get the ball back.
Still deep in his team’s own territory on Franklin’s next offensive possession, Rupp threw to Tony Gregory on the right side, but Thunder defensive back Aaron Shoemaker wrestled the ball from Gregory for an interception. The Trine offense took possession with yet another short field; the ball was on the Franklin 35-yard line with 8 minutes and 40 seconds left in the game.
On the first offensive play of the possession, Watt connected with Scott Hartman on a 34-yard pass play, putting the Thunder within one yard of another score.
On the next play, freshman receiver Mario Brown lined up split left then went into motion to his right as Watt called out the signals. On the center snap, Watt pitched the ball to Brown, now on Watt’s right, and Brown hurdled players from both teams and landed in the front right corner of the end zone for the go-ahead touchdown.
There was plenty of time left for Franklin to respond, but Trine’s defense stiffened on both of their opponent’s final two possession. And when Trine’s offense got the ball after the second of those possessions, Watt put his feet in motion to ensure the Thunder offense would hold onto the ball – and to shave time off the clock. Key to accomplishing both objectives was a Watt run for 15 yards to the Franklin 49-yard line on a third-and-13 play with just over 2 minutes remaining.
Trine prevailed, 30-27, notching its first victory in the Trine-Franklin series. It also was the school’s first win over a ranked opponent as an NCAA Division III member, which it had become in 2004.
Watt and running back Jeff Langley led their team in rushing with 59 and 50 yards, respectively; Watt got his on 17 carries, Langley on 15.
Coach Land said the Thunder regarded the win over Franklin as huge.
“That was a big game for us. We had it circled. Coach Leonard and I are really good friends. He’s a great coach, a great man. We have a great relationship and always have. But they were one of the teams in the Midwest that had it going, right? So that would have been a big signature win, and it said, ‘We belong.’ And we celebrated every win. Wins in football – you only get 10 (games) a year, you know, that you’re guaranteed, so you celebrate every win as much as you can because they’re hard to get. It’s hard to win a game, and when you do, you should enjoy it.”
The Grizzlies’ Nick Cochran said he felt that Franklin’s 2008 team was better than Trine’s, even though the Thunder prevailed.
“We had five turnovers in that game, and we lost two starters to injury early in the first half,” Cochran said, referring to linebacker Teddy Henkle and wide receiver Austin Garrell. “Everything that could go wrong for us that day, did go wrong.”
A week later, the 3-0 Thunder survived a scare at winless Hope in a see-saw scoring affair that saw a rarity – an opposing quarterback who outperformed Eric Watt in the passing game. Hope’s Jake Manning completed 32 out of 49 passes for 497 yards and four touchdowns. Hope wide receiver Kyle Dietrich had 14 receptions for 285 yards, and teammate Scott Snyder had 11 receptions for 164 yards.
Watt’s numbers weren’t too shabby, though. He threw 34 times and completed 19 for 321 yards and a touchdown. What the Thunder did better than Hope was run the ball. Their ball carriers had 135 net yards on 42 carries, although top rusher Jeff Langley gained only 59 yards on 16 carries. Watt himself gained 39 yards on 11 carries.
The outcome came down to a key Trine special teams play: a blocked extra-point kick attempt by defensive lineman Christian Verley after Hope’s second-quarter touchdown. It certainly made the difference in the final score, 31-30. Teammate Andrew Pickford said Verley was skilled at blocking kicks and credited him for blocking a good number of them in his years at Trine.
The Thunder came home for consecutive conference wins, 45-20 over Alma and 21-10 over Olivet, improving their season record to 6-0 (3-0). Paul Curtis attempted to return to play in the Alma game, wearing a splint that he said he found to be too restrictive. He didn’t play much, and he would sit out the game against Olivet.
After beating Olivet, Trine got another scare at 2-5 Kalamazoo, returning to Angola with a 36-35 win.
Like Hope three weeks earlier, Kalamazoo attacked Trine with a heavy passing game, amassing 432 yards in the air. But quarterback Brandon Luczek, who threw 57 times and completed 32 and had four touchdown passes, also gave up five interceptions. Luczek turned out to be the Hornets’ leading rusher as well – 53 net yards on 13 carries. Receivers Jimmy Semelsberger and Cory McCain each had 151 total reception yards.
Watt threw three touchdown passes and his total passing yardage of 278 was pretty decent, but the Thunder had a balanced offensive attack again. They gained 197 net yards rushing, led by Jeff Langley’s 51 net yards on 13 carries followed by Watt’s 49 yards on nine carries. In his return to action, Curtis caught four passes for 80 yards.
This time, the victory came down to the last touchdown of the game, a 6-yard pass from Watt to tight end Troy Hirschy, bringing the Thunder to within one at 35-34. Instead of settling for a 35-35 tie by going for the single-point conversion kick, the Thunder gambled on a two-point conversion. Watt connected with Thomas Wyman for the score, and it made the difference – with just 1:23 left on the clock.
Up next was a trip to Adrian (Mich.) College in a game that would pit undefeated teams against each other as well as determine the MIAA championship. It was a defensive battle in which cold temperatures and a driving wind – gusts of over 25 miles an hour – wreaked havoc on the kicking and passing games. Adrian’s rushing offense was ranked 12th best in NCAA D3 football coming into the game, but the Trine defense held the Bulldogs to 35 rushing yards – on 35 carries – and had six sacks of Adrian quarterback Troy Niblock.
The Adrian defense was pretty good, too, the highlight of which came when the Bulldogs stopped the Thunder offense from getting into the end zone from inside the 5-yard line on each of four downs.
On a second-and-four play at the Adrian 35-yard line with 11:18 left in the second quarter, Watt took off on a bootleg right and ran it to the 11-yard line before being forced out of bounds on the right side of the field. A few plays later, on a fourth-and-goal play-action pass from the 2-yard line, Watt hit Troy Hirschy in the left corner of the end zone. Hirschy caught the ball with both arms extended while falling to the turf, but when the arms-extended ball hit the turf during Hirschy’s fall, game officials ruled it a no-catch, and the Thunder turned over the ball.
Later in the second quarter, Trine scored on a safety when linebacker Tab McNally snared Adrian quarterback Niblock in the end zone, stood him up and drove the quarterback backward before officials blew the whistle to end the play. Jeremy Howard attempted a 35-yard field goal with 2 seconds left in the first half, but the ball sailed wide right.
The score remained 2-0 until the fourth quarter, when the Thunder nearly notched a second safety. McNally again corralled Niblock inside the end zone near the goal line, but this time the quarterback managed to fall in bounds at the one-yard line
Not long afterward, the Thunder executed a 39-yard drive in six plays. On the final play of the drive, from the 25-yard line, Watt shuffled to his right after a play-fake before throwing to Paul Curtis in the end zone, who caught the ball on the run, moving left to right before falling to the turf.
Curtis said he had run a deep drag route, and a video of the play on YouTube looks as though Watt’s pass was pretty much on target. Curtis said that he fell afterward because he needed some effort to make the grab, suggesting the pass wasn’t as accurate as it appeared in the video. He did say that, however, with a huge chuckle.
“I bailed out Eric again,” he added, quickly following it with another hardy chuckle … and then: “I had to make another great catch so he could look good.”
His effort on the play wasn’t the only reason why Curtis remembers the touchdown. After getting up on his feet after the catch, he gave Adrian fans and the school’s band members seated behind the end zone a brief “shush” motion with his hand in front of his mouth.
“The student section had been ugly the whole game” toward Trine players, including Curtis, the receiver said, so he decided to issue a quick motion silencer without saying a word.
He says that even though he didn’t say anything to the fans, game officials probably could have penalized him for his action, ostensibly on the premise that his gesture fit the definition of a taunt. But he said he’s certain game officials were aware of the verbal abuse the home crowd was giving Trine players that day, and they refrained from throwing a flag, a no-call that Curtis felt was appropriate.
Curtis says he rarely talked trash during games. “I usually let my game to the talking. I’m all about the character. I’m more likely to just laugh at you” than trade trash talk, he said. Even though Curtis was not penalized, coach Land said his player’s gesture “was discussed” after the game.
Adrian threatened late in the game. On a drive that started on the Adrian 20-yard line, the Bulldogs reached the Trine 48-yard line when Niblock completed a 41-yard pass to Patrick Reagan, giving the home team the ball at the Trine 7-yard line.
The Bulldogs’ Myke Johnson carried the ball to the 3-yard line on the first-down play, but the second-down play ended in a 3-yard loss, and on third down, Niblock was sacked for an 18-yard loss, putting the ball at the Trine 24. The stiff winds blew Justin Warner’s field-goal attempt wide left. Trine’s 9-0 lead help up for the win and sealed the MIAA championship.
Land described the victory as hugely important. “It always is when it’s a rivalry game and it’s for the conference championship. Adrian was always our biggest rival, and we really didn’t like them. Actually, at that point, we really didn’t like anybody. We always played with a chip on our shoulder.”
The Thunder had an easy win (34-12) over non-conference foe Kentucky Christian to end the regular season the following week, a game in which Curtis suffered a hip-pointer, forcing him to miss half of the game. He would see limited action the following week in Trine’s first appearance in an NCAA Division III tournament game.
Second-ranked Trine hosted 25th-ranked Wheaton College, whose offense amassed 404 total yards but also turned the ball over four times. Nevertheless, Wheaton did score twice – and that was enough because its defense held Trine out of the end zone in the 14-0 victory.
“Our offense was moving the ball the whole game,” Andrew Pickford said. “I think we got into the red zone five times! But we just stalled there. It was one of the coldest games I ever played in. I think it also was the only game the guys in our class (of 2011) ever lost on our home field.”
Watt completed 20 of 48 passes for 278 yards, threw one interception and led Thunder rushers with 42 yards on 15 carries. The loss ended Trine’s season at 10-1.
At the end of the season, the MIAA named Courtney Pearson its defensive MPV again. And Watt, Glidden, freshman receiver Lemar Qualls (in his only season at Trine), tight end Troy Hirschy and offensive lineman James Greenlee were named to the offensive first team. Named to the MIAA defensive first team were linebackers Pearson and Joe Curtis, lineman Erik Walker and defensive back Corrie Lotta, who had made the first team as a kick-return specialist in 2007. Jeremy Howard was named to the first team as a kick specialist in 2008.
Although Eric Watt was named MIAA offensive player of the week on two occasions during the year, Adrian senior quarterback Troy Niblock – who won that same honor just once (and shared it with another player) – was named MIAA Most Valuable Player. Curiously, Niblock also made the offensive first team – but as a running back, not a quarterback.
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Trine entered the 2009 season with high hopes of repeating as Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association champion. The Thunder won their first two games of 2009, although their 16-14 win in the opener at Manchester University – which would finish the year at 5-5 – certainly gave some pause to those expectations.
In the Manchester game, “our offense was just not clicking,” defensive back Andrew Pickford said. “I don’t know why. Maybe it was because the game was on a Thursday night. We eventually figured it out.”
The Thunder fell behind 14-0 then crawled back into the game, eventually pulling ahead on a fourth-quarter Jeremy Howard field goal. “But we should have won by a lot,” Pickford said.
Two weeks later, the Thunder rolled over Defiance (Ohio) College at home, 40-9. The rout apparently gave pollsters enough confidence in Trine to reward the school with a national ranking of 22 among Division III teams on the Monday before the next game, another non-conference tilt.
That third game would be at Franklin College, the final meeting in the two schools’ six-years-long series.
Tomorrow in Chapter 10: Waiting Their Turns
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
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