It started on Thursday.
Actually, perhaps, last Saturday after the final horn at St. Thomas; but, certainly, it started on Thursday. If you’ve been around football for a while, you know what IT is -- the Buzz. That feeling - “this is special,” “this is where we turn the corner,” “there’s no going back from this.”
From now on, The Expectations will always be this high.
Presbyterian College Football Head Coach Steve Englehart gave the Laurens County Touchdown Club on Thursday some perspective on how the Blue Hose got to the point of playing for a 10-2 record in the home finale against Marist.
The week before, they had to travel to frigid Minnesota. “Those St. Thomas guys were BIG, big Minnesota guys. After we won, one of our players told me, ‘Coach, they were big for nothing.’” He pointed to a 7-minute Blue Hose offensive drive in the 4th quarter that put PC up by two touchdowns as the game’s defining moment.
“We have an outside chance of making the (NCAA D1 FCS) playoffs,” Englehart said. “This would be only the 3rd time in 113 years that we would have 10 wins (in a season). We have 31 seniors, and most of them have been with us 4 years. Their first season, they were 1-10 - this Saturday they have a chance to WIN 10 games. We want to recognize and honor what they have done for this program.”
Two days later at about the same time (the TD Club meets at noon and the PC-Marist kickoff was at 1), on Faith Community Day with Pastor Mark Entrekin, the stadium voice of the Clinton Red Devils subbing for Clinton Mayor Randy Randall, PC alum and the stadium voice of the Blue Hose, Presbyterian College Football had said thank you to, actually, 34 Seniors, big #99 Robert Porter, a grad student defensive lineman from Livermore, Calif., had driven the sword into the stone, and they were ready to boot the ball. Three hours and 9 minutes later, PC Football had that tenth win, on a Justin Montgomery 5-yard touchdown run with 46 seconds on the game clock. Marist - which brought a 2-game win streak into Bailey Memorial Stadium - had played the second half with their backup quarterback and took a lead with 2:11 to play on a 2-yard scoring run and a 2-point conversion pass.
If the Blue Hose were ever going to fold up the tent, say “great season anyway,” and turn the page indoors to PC basketball, this was it. But, this time, it didn’t happen.
Englehart, whose son Ty playing at reserve quarterback, was among the Seniors honored pregame, said about the comeback win, “Just happy for these Seniors - 10 losses to 10 wins. I put on my PowerPoint on Thursday, I put 10 up at the very top of the very first slide, and I didn’t think that would make me emotional.
“And, that first slide, right when I looked at that 10, all of that first year, 10 losses and everything we went through came flooding back.
“I got emotional right off the bat.
“For these guys, the guys that have been here for four years to not run from it, to stick with it; and even for the guys who have been here for three years they came in, they came to a 1 and 10 program, and took a chance and a belief that we were going to get turned around, and I’m just proud to them.”
When you’re hired to build back a program, it is “coaches-speak” - “Just believe and work, and everything will turn around” - and it sugar-coats what’s going to have to be the hard work and heart-break it’s going to take to be a winner again. Englehart agreed, but said for the PC coaches there were simple, straight forward words.
“We told them our message and what we’re all about, you know, and they worked extremely hard every off season and they just kept building and growing, and growing together. They became more and more connected as a team and it’s special. Now, the trick is to keep this going because the freshmen who came in, they’ve only seen 10 and 2, they don’t know how the hard is.
“It’s a tribute to not only the players, but to our administration giving us the things that we need to be successful.”
And, oh, that thing that Englehart mentioned at the Touchdown Club about the NCAA Division 1 FCS national playoffs: nay, that’s not going to happen for the 2-loss Presbyterian College Football Team this season.
They were passed over by the FCS.
The national title will be decided in a bracketed playoff among 11 conference winners who got automatic bids and 13 at-large bid recipients - PC would have had to qualify at-large, since its two losses were within the Pioneer Football League.
That opened the door for Drake to win this year’s PFL championship with Saturday’s win over Morehead State.
PC and Drake did not meet head-to-head this season.
Blue Hose Football lost 2 games by a total of 17 points. Finishing 8-3 overall, Drake lost to South Dakota State and South Dakota (both in the FCS playoffs) and to St. Thomas (remember, that team from frigid Minnesota. Winner of 7 of their last 8 games of the season, Drake had an important PFL, 3-point win over San Diego.
Drake travels to South Dakota for its first-round game. The winner of that game plays Southern Conference champion Mercer, whom PC handed a season-opening loss to by a 15-10 score (PC also beat Furman of the Southern Conference this season).
Some upsets might have figured into PC not being chosen for the playoffs - Harvard was upset by Yale in The Classic, so Yale got the Ivy League’s automatic bid and Harvard fell into the at-large selection category.
North Dakota State is the overall #1 seed, followed by #2 Montana State, #3 Montana, and #4 Tarleton State. FCS playoff games will air across the ESPN networks, starting this Saturday.
The FCS National Championship will be Jan. 5.
INDIVIDUAL HONOR
ST. LOUIS, Mo. – Less than 24 hours after what can be considered a career-best performance (and a much-needed one in a tight game), sophomore kicker Jett Jackson of the Presbyterian College football team has been chosen for the PFL Special Teams Player of the Week award.
Announced on Sunday afternoon, Jackson gets the nod after hitting three-of-three field goals in a season-ending W over an upset-minded Marist opponent, connecting from distances of 39, 41, and 34 yards.
Thanks in large part to Jackson’s nine individual points, the Blue Hose were able to overcome a late Marist rally and finish the season with ten wins for the third time in school history and also go 6-0 at Bailey Memorial Stadium this year.
This is the third time in a row that PC has been chosen for a PFL weekly award following the regular-season finale: Brooks Russ-Martin was named the Defensive Player of the of Week after a Morehead State win back in 2023, while Carter Szydlowski got that same accolade last year after a three-point triumph versus then-#23 Butler.
TRIFECTA
- Things were relatively cozy for Presbyterian at the halfway point of Saturday’s encounter, ahead 13-0 with six of those points coming from Jackson’s left leg. However, it took a last-minute touchdown from Presby’s regularly-explosive offense to get the job done and confirm win number ten. They wouldn’t have reached their end goal without Jackson, who nailed one field goal in each of the first three quarters.
- Overall, the Florida native went 8-of-11 on field goal attempts this season. He made six of his final seven kicks from October 11 onward, which included a career-high-tying 42-yarder at St. Thomas in the week prior to Marist.
- In the past three seasons under head coach Steve Englehart, a different PC kicker has had at least one game with three successful field goals: Mack Mikko in 2023, Peter Lipscombe in 2024, and now Jackson in the ’25 curtain call.
Game aerticle & 71 more photos here.
Coach E's Monday comments here.
