Mines will get its share. Chad Friehauf was sure of that a lot late Saturday afternoon, whilst he wished for a barrel of rum and sugar 300 kilos to stay in entrance of Ferris State’s defensive position.

“You’re not going to go from 0-100 in a single day,” Friehauf, the previous Mines quarterback and this system’s first winner of Division II’s Heisman, the Harlon Hill Trophy, informed me Saturday after his Orediggers fell to Ferris’ Bulldogs, 41-14, in this system’s first-ever look within the NCAA DII nationwide championship sport.

“Every a type of (soccer) lessons type of introduced their very own factor to this system. And coach (Brandon) Moore was in a position to construct off of final 12 months’s journey to the Ultimate 4 this 12 months in reaching the nationwide championship. Hopefully, subsequent 12 months, they’ll take it one step additional and win a nationwide title. Coach Moore is an excellent coach. So it’s time to be an Oredigger, for certain.”

Each 4 to five years, one helluva bunch of engineers leaves this soccer program higher than they discovered it. Friehauf was one of many first stars of The Bob Stitt Revolution, some 20 years in the past. He jogged my memory that not each stage of the climb has been linear since.

He additionally famous that for each step again, and Saturday’s scoreboard stung like salty sweat in an open wound, one other group finally acquired up, dusted issues off, and stored pushing. Stored climbing. They’ll be again.

“The final two seasons, reaching the Ultimate 4 (in 2021), clearly that was one thing that had by no means been accomplished earlier than,” mentioned Friehauf, who co-founded the corporate ReadyList Sports activities, which produces an interactive soccer playbook and studying instrument, together with former Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer. “Folks ought to be happy with the place this system’s been.”

And prouder nonetheless, ex-Orediggers quarterback Justin Dvorak added, of the place it’s going.

“This season did increase the bar,” Dvorak, Mines’ 2016 Harlon Hill winner, texted me from the center of the Gulf of Mexico, the place he tried to catch as a lot of the sport as Mom Nature and his rig would permit from 160 miles off the Louisiana shoreline.

“The fellows have been one win away from being nationwide champs and had a Harlon Hill winner (in QB John Matocha). This was after a training change and an 0-2 begin, which might be obstacles for any staff. However Mines by no means flinched.”

Which is what made all that wobbling early on towards the Bulldogs so confounding, in hindsight. This was the Bulldogs’ third journey to McKinney ISD Stadium for a Division II championship rumble in 5 years, and Ferris seemed extra relaxed from the leap. In addition they seemed quite a bit larger. And sooner.

Mines has some dudes. Ferris has DUDES, all caps. Bulldogs quarterback Mylik Mitchell (14 completions on 18 makes an attempt) is a Kent State switch who threw his first collegiate go all the best way again in September 2016 … at Penn State. Wideout Brady Rose (87 yards receiving and speeding, 48 yards passing) was MLive.com’s Michigan Participant of the 12 months in 2020.

You may coach a heck of an engineer methods to break up the ‘A’ hole, however you’ll be able to’t coach peak. Ferris introduced a roster with 33 guys listed at 6-foot-4 or taller. Mines got here to the social gathering with 20. The Bulldogs featured 34 dudes who weighed 275 yards or extra. The Diggers sported 20.

That measurement/pace hole put Mines on the again foot from the beginning. Ferris marched 79 yards on simply seven performs on its first offensive drive for a 6-0 lead, the primary time the Orediggers hadn’t scored first in a sport since Oct. 8 towards Colorado Mesa.

“Ferris State is the defending nationwide champion,” Dvorak mentioned, “so you need to convey your ‘A’ sport if you play a staff like that.”

Alas, that ‘A’ sport got here too late. The Nerd Herd hung in there, trailing 13-0 with two minutes to go till halftime when the ultimate minute of the second quarter turned an uphill climb right into a pleasant jog up Mount Princeton.

With 32 seconds left within the second quarter, Ferris’ CJ Jefferson took a pitch 19 yards for a rating to push the result in 19-0 earlier than the additional level. On the opening play from scrimmage on the following Mines drive, Matocha’s go was intercepted at his personal 31 by the Bulldogs’ Sidney McCloud, who zipped the opposite means for a pick-6 and a four-score lead that fairly properly iced it with 9 seconds earlier than the break.

“I feel, in all probability, the perfect staff gained,” Friehauf noticed. “I don’t suppose the rating was indicative of the extent of play — I don’t suppose they have been that significantly better than Mines. It was a type of issues the place if you happen to get a block right here, or a completion there …”

Even when Ferris used a stiff arm to maintain Mines away at arm’s size, the Orediggers by no means stopped swinging. Matocha even landed a couple of blows late, together with a 14-yard landing heave to Josh Johnston within the fourth quarter that minimize the Bulldogs’ result in 34-13.

“I’m stunned at how many individuals acknowledge the Faculty of Mines and speak about it as a ‘soccer faculty,’ which is an entire 180 to after I was there,” Friehauf mentioned. “It was a faculty for engineers … at any time when I noticed somebody carrying a Mines t-shirt, they didn’t even know Mines had a soccer staff. Now they know.”

So does the nation. And to listen to Friehauf inform it, McKinney was one other of these milestone locations on a program’s journey. Simply not the ultimate one.

“I acquired a lot of texts all through the sport and had an opportunity to observe a bit right here and there,” Dvorak mentioned. “Hopefully, subsequent 12 months, I’ll be capable to make it.”