The Hillsdale College football team’s season came to an end on Saturday in disappointing fashion, as the Chargers fell to Wayne State in a tight ballgame on the road, 20-13.
The Chargers entered the fourth quarter with a six-point lead and a chance to go up by two possessions, but Wayne State’s Anthony DeDamos returned an interception 85 yards to set his team up with excellent field position to take the lead.
“There’s a very fine line between winning and losing,” head coach Keith Otterbein said. “That big turnover, it was humongous. In a defensive struggle you can’t afford to do that.”
Wayne State’s physical and athletic linebackers caused problems all day for the Chargers.
“[Wayne State] moved their linebackers around a lot,” offensive lineman Justice Karmie said. “They’re phenomenal athletes. We had a couple decent running plays but we couldn’t get the running game going like we wanted to.”
Wayne State put two extra safeties in the box throughout the contest, hampering Hillsdale’s running game. The Chargers finished with just 52 yards on the ground.
“They’re legitimately strong and they got their safeties involved,” Otterbein said. “They played more man-to-man defense especially on first and second down so it made it pretty tough to run the ball.”
With the loss, the Chargers finish the injury-plagued 2014 season with a 4-7 record and a 4-6 record in GLIAC play.
Otterbein and his coaching staff have a lot to do before next August comes around.
“We’ve got to look at our football team and make some evaluations on whether we’ve got the right guys in the right spots,” Otterbein said. “We’ve got to put our best players in their best spots to make us the best football team we can be. We have to discuss position moves, then we have to discuss and determine where out most critical needs are in recruiting and invest our scholarship money there.”
The Chargers are losing 20 seniors to graduation, six of whom are starters.
“It’s tough to lose that senior leadership but we have a lot of guys coming back,” Karmie said. “We had a really young team this year so honestly just the feeling in the team right now is that we’re hungry and we’re tired of being mediocre for the last two years.”
Otterbein’s team will be hard at work this offseason to improve.
“[We’ll] challenge our current players to attack the weight room and develop that kind of strength where, when people look at us on tape and when they’re done playing us they’ll go and react, ‘Oh, those guys were strong,’” Otterbein said. “We’ve got some great potential. Our young guys have got to get bigger, stronger and faster in the offseason.”
The team knows improvement doesn’t simply mean getting stronger.
“We have the ability to play at the highest level, we just need to improve on our mental approach,” quarterback Mark LaPrairie said. “Everything we do this offseason needs to pour into our collective confidence and chemistry, from weight lifting to running to film study to walking to class with teammates.”
Otterbein thinks his players are on the right track already.
“In terms of being prepared mentally, physically and emotionally, they did a great job,” Otterbein said. “Our seniors did a great job of keeping the family together through some tough times.”
A long offseason awaits Hillsdale’s football team, but the Chargers are ready to attack it to make Team 123 the best it can be.