The season is history: seven straight championships
By Justin Matter
Staff Writer

Last Saturday, the Britons won their seventh consecutive MIAA conference championship.

According to Pete Schmidt, head coach and director of athletics, this is a first in the conference's 98-year history.

"We're also the first of any college or university in the state of Michigan who has won seven consecutively, so its kind of historical," he said.

In Saturday's game, the Britons overcame Alma after a tough first half, and proved the victors with a final score of 38-28.

"Alma's had a good season; they only had one loss coming into the game," said quarterback Kyle Klein, Roscommon junior. "We knew it was going to be a tough game and that they were going to be one of the better teams we'd played this season.

"The first half we really didn't play all that well - we were down at halftime 14-10, and it was kind of disappointing because it was the seniors' last game and we didn't want them to go out with a loss.

"We came out in the second half, played really well and scored 21 points in the third quarter, and basically put the lead up where they couldn't catch up with us."

According to Klein, the players are happy to have won the league title, but the narrowing possibility of entering the playoffs is not sitting well with most of them.

"It's not assured that we won't make the playoffs, but it doesn't look very good," he said.

"It's too bad we were beaten earlier in the season because now we're playing as well as anyone. That's disappointing, but it's been a good season; we won the league [with an overall record of 8-1], so everyone's happy with that," Klein said. The team showed definite improvement through the season's progression.

"We started out kind of slow and shaky but we're playing really well now," said Christopher Barnett, wide receiver and Gennessee junior.

Barnett said that the team covered the Alma game well, but that people were making mistakes and not playing up to speed. "We had people who were new to the system, and it always takes a while for that to work. People just started playing like they should be playing, and we began to improve."

Schmidt expressed similar views. "We couldn't be more pleased with the progress of our team. I think we have improved greatly over the course of the season, and right now we're playing as good a game of football as we did when we were in the playoffs last year, so we've really shown great progress," he said.

According to Schmidt, the players' efforts to improve the fundamentals of the game contributed largely to the team's success. "We really didn't change anything, they just began to work very hard and that effort resulted in this improvement. We had a number of positions on our team with inexperienced players, so as they gained experience, the team improved."

Schmidt added that the concern early in the season about the quality of the team's running game faded as it improved significantly, and that the overall defense has improved a lot in the last three weeks of the season.

"The strengths of the team were the performance of the offensive line and the performance of the defensive line," Schmidt said. "These two units really carried the team this season."

One factor that will significantly influence next year's team is the graduation of 15 seniors. "They've been an outstanding class and we're going to miss them," Schmidt said.

"During their four years here they are 39-3, with four conference championships and a national title, so it's quite an accomplished class," he added.

The departure of so many graduates would seem to hurt the team, but Schmidt pointed out that there are many good young players to take over for the seniors. "We hope they will step up and fill [the seniors'] shoes - though they're certainly some big shoes to fill."