Top 10 national semifinals of the expanded playoff era |
|
<- No. 6 |
No. 4 -> |
|
| Photo by Larry Radloff, d3photography.com |
The 2017 bracket saw Mount Union slated to go on the road in the semifinals for the second consecutive season if everything broke right, and it did. The Purple Raiders ended up at UW-Oshkosh for the right to go to the Stagg Bowl.
The ball bounced right for them as well, eventually. But it didn't start out that way. Mount Union gave up three huge plays in the first half and a pick-six on the first drive of the second half and UW-Oshkosh took back a two-point conversion back for a defensive score and had a field goal attempt lined up on the final play of the game ... and despite all that, the Purple Raiders still rallied from a 25-point third-quarter deficit and booked their ticket back to the Stagg Bowl with a 43-40 win.
The Purple Raiders rolled up 20 unanswered points in the final six minutes of the third quarter. Quarterback D'Angelo Fulford found Luke Herrington for a couple of key plays, including a 3-yard touchdown catch to end an eight-play drive. The Titans went three-and-out and Fulford led another scoring drive, taking the final play in himself on a 13-yard run through the defense. And then Oshkosh made a mistake, as quarterback Brett Kasper fumbled the ball on the 13. Jawanza Evans-Morris scored two plays later to cut the lead to 35-30 with 1:43 left in the third, but Fulford's two-point conversion pass went through Morris' hands.
The Titans managed a 36-yard field goal by Turner Geisthardt to extend the lead back out to 38-30, and even though Petruccelli ended a 69-yard drive with a 1-yard TD run, Fulford fumbled the ball on the two-point conversion attempt and Titans linebacker Derrick Jennings Jr. ran it back for a defensive two-point conversion, giving the Titans a 40-36 lead.
Louis Berry picked off Kasper on the next drive, setting up the Purple Raiders on the 40, leading to an Evans-Morris touchdown with 5:41 left which gave the Purple Raiders their first lead since the first play of the second quarter. Kasper threw a second interception that allowed Mount Union to burn more time off the clock as the Purple Raiders pinned Oshkosh on its own 15 with 2:30 left.
From there, it seemed Oshkosh had one last shot, as they got down to the 29 with one second left and got out of bounds. They rushed Geisthardt onto the field for a 46-yard attempt, which was low but Mount Union had gotten a last second timeout. The second attempt was also no good, and Mount Union survived.