West Chester head coach Bill Zwaan. Photo by Mike Corsey.

There’s a chill in the air and in college football November is the month to remember, it’s usually when the biggest rivalry games are played and – especially at the lower levels – when the conference championships get decided. There are playoff births on the line.

That’s where West Chester finds itself, fighting for a postseason invitation after suffering their first loss of the year. In a battle of undefeated, top 10 teams Bloomsburg took down the Golden Rams 41-10.

The result was somewhat shocking in that it was so one-sided. Since Bill Zwaan became head coach at West Chester in 2003, the Golden Rams and Huskies have played 15 times, including three meetings in the playoffs, with Bloomsburg winning nine times and West Chester six.

The average margin of victory prior to this year’s contest was seven points with the game more often settled by three points or less (seven times) than by double digits (five times).

“We’re down,” said Zwaan, “because we had high, high expectations for the season and we were on our way toward a lot of those expectations. Now, we can still do a lot of stuff with season but we can’t win the PSAC East and we won’t win the PSAC Championship.”

Zwaan, who is approaching 100 wins as West Chester head coach, felt that his team may have been too confident going into the game with the Huskies.

“I think our kids thought they are better than they were,” he said a few days after the game. “They thought they were going to handle Bloomsburg on their field. When Bloomsburg came out and hit us in the mouth, we didn’t handle it very well and we’ve got a ton of kids who played in the final four last year. It was really disappointing.”

Zwaan, who is second on the all-time list in wins at the school behind only W. Glenn Killinger (147 wins), has been in this position before. Last season, they lost to Bloomsburg in the regular season and still made the playoffs. They would avenge the loss to the Huskies en route to the second national semifinal appearance in Zwaan’s tenure.

“They thought we were better,” Zwaan said when asked if he was surprised the team was so down considering they’re in a similar position to last season. “They thought we had that situation last year, we’re ready for it, we won’t let that happen.”

In the initial regional rankings, which is what the NCAA uses to seed playoff teams for the Division II tournament, the Golden Rams were fourth in their region. If things remain the same over the final weeks of the season, that would mean a home playoff game in the first round. If they advance, they would be on the road against the top-seeded team in the region which would have had a first-round bye.

Of course, the Golden Rams could still move up — or down — in the rankings.
“We’ve had a lot of discussion, mainly with the leaders on the team,” Zwaan said. “There’s a lot of things we’ve got to get answered.”
In college football that’s what November is for.

Email Rock Hoffman at Rock@footballstories.com