NCAA Division III Playoffs Bracket
ABILENE, Texas – A crowd of 300 McMurry University fans, faculty, staff, students, administrators players and coaches erupted Sunday afternoon when the War Hawks heard their name called. The 2011 football squad became the first NCAA Playoff team in school history and will face Trinity in San Antonio Saturday in the first round.
The War Hawks, a Division III school since 1996, earned their first berth as a program. A stunning turn around after going 16-63 from 2001 to 2008, head coach Hal Mumme's arrival in 2009 began the program overhaul and led McMurry to Sunday.
Mumme admitted he was anxious Sunday even though many predicted McMurry would get in.
“It's like waiting for a child to be born; it's pretty tough, especially when they do it one at a time,” the third-year head coach said. “The ones I've been in before they give you a little heads up, so we really didn't know until for sure until they called our name.”
Mumme said the thing he was most proud of about making the playoffs is the journey many of the seniors made after going 0-10 in 2008 under head coach Donny Gray.
“I think the first thing is our seniors, and most of those guys were here when I got here, and that's my first thought,” Mumme said. “I'm proud for them and we've made some good memories for this whole team and they get to leave here as the first NCAA playoff team in history.”
McMurry is 8-2 overall and carried a 7-1 American Southwest Conference record. Trinity finished 10-0 and 6-0 in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference to take the SCAC automatic bid. The Tigers were ranked No. 3 in the NCAA Division III South Region rankings Wednesday while McMurry was No. 5.
Trinity beat Austin College 7-6 Saturday to complete its first perfect regular season since 2005. McMurry defeated Mississippi College 63-38 to secure a second-place finish in the ASC for the first time since 1999.
Both teams are nationally ranked with Trinity at No. 15 on the D3football.com poll and No. 11 in the AFCA; while McMurry is No. 20 and No. 24 respectively.
The two teams have one common opponent in Texas Lutheran, which McMurry defeated 60-16 Oct. 16 and Trinity won 43-14 Sept. 10. The last time the two teams played was Mumme's first game as head coach at McMurry Sept. 3, 2009 when the Tigers edged McMurry 31-26.
Mumme said that McMurry won't be worried too much about lack of playoff experience.
“Well we're not really going to think about it that way. Next Saturday we get to play football again, and these guys love playing the game,” Mumme said. “That's the way we've approached every game. Really about three games ago I told them if they wanted to know what postseason play is like, they were already in it; Because if we lost a game, then obviously we wouldn't be here.”
The winner of Saturday's game, scheduled for Noon, will play the winner of ASC automatic qualifier Mary Hardin-Baylor and Redlands (Calif.).
