2007 Carthage Football Review/2008 Season Outlook

2007 Season Review

The 2007 Carthage College football team overcame a fair share of adversity.  Riddled by a campus-wide staph infection for the first month of the season, the coaching staff rarely knew who might be available for practice or for games.  Despite the uncertainty, the Red Men ripped through their non-conference schedule, picking up wins over Carroll College (Wis.), 35-7; Lakeland College, 35-16; and Whittier College, 35-28.  The latter was a difficult travel assignment in Whittier, Calif.  “We’ll take this one and head back to Kenosha 3-0,” said head coach Tim Rucks (69-58-1, 13 years at Carthage/78-91-4, 18 years overall) afterward. “ We’re winning, but we haven’t controlled a football game yet.  Running the ball continues to be a big concern of mine.  If we’re going to survive in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin, we’re going to have to run the ball.  We’re not there yet, and we have to get there.”

With the start of CCIW play, it looked like Carthage might not survive, as the Red Men lost back-to-back games at Elmhurst College, 30-15, as well as their homecoming game against Illinois Wesleyan University, 35-31.  “It seemed like 60 turnovers against Elmhurst,” admitted Rucks.  “You can’t win football games with as many turnovers as we had.  It started on the first play of the game and just kept going.  We did a good job of controlling the clock, and the defensive played well.  The turnovers just killed us.  We knew Illinois Wesleyan was going to be a battle.  We needed something big, especially in the second half, and I thought we could hold them down.  All of the sudden, at 0-2, we were in a situation that we didn’t like and didn’t expect.  We had to change it.  There were no other options.  We had to stay together and fight through our problems, as a team, and get back to playing Carthage College football.”

From that point, Carthage re-grouped and ran off four-straight conference wins over North Park University, 40-18; Augustana College (Ill.), 33-28; Millikin University, 38-28; and No. 4 Wheaton College (Ill.), 35-28.  “Augustana (Ill.) was a big, big win, especially considering all the adversity we’d been through.  Most people didn’t give us much of chance, but we hung in there.  I told our guys at halftime to just keep playing, and good things would happen.”

“We’ll give you some strange games, that’s for sure,” said Rucks after the Millikin win.  “Normally, you don’t turn the ball over seven times and win games.  I didn’t know which direction this team was going at halftime.  I thought we played the first half like we had never been coached before.  I challenged them at halftime and told them our season hung in the balance.”

Carthage stunned No. 4 Wheaton (Ill.), 35-28, on the next-to-last weekend of the season.  After falling behind, 10-0, the Red Men scored 21 unanswered points in the second quarter.  “That win was special,” said Rucks.  “It was an unbelievable performance to win a game against the No. 4 team in the country.  Our kids just played hard, and they left everything on the field.”

With a topsy-turvy CCIW race going on around them, the Red Men found themselves playing for a possible NCAA at-large berth on the final weekend of the season.  Playing host to North Central College, Carthage had an outside chance at berth with a win and an 8-2 record.  The Red Men fell to the Cardinals, 56-10, to finish with a 7-3 mark and their fourth-consecutive winning season.  “I never envisioned that kind of game—I fully expected North Central to be a close contest,” said Rucks.  “We made mistakes all over the field, and North Central was too good a team for that.  It wasn’t lack of effort—it was just a bad day.”

Post-Season Honors

Carthage tight end Bryan Bergman (graduated-senior, Elk Grove, Ill., 37 receptions for 421 receiving yards) was named Associated Press third-team Little All-America, American Football Coaches Association first-team All-America and “D3football.com” second-team All-America.  Bergman is Carthage’s first-ever AFCA All-American and the first member of the AP Little All-America squad since defensive back Ray Threlkeld was named to the 1977 team.  Bergman and place kicker Matt Denny (graduated-senior, Griffith, Ind., 11-of-17 field goals, 36-of-36 extra points) were also named “D3football.com” first-team All-North Region.

Seven Carthage players were named 2007 All-CCIW, including four to the first team.  The first-team all-conference honorees were Bergman, Denny, safety Donovan Moore (graduated-senior, Spring Grove, Ill./Richmond-Burton, 67 tackles, three interceptions, two forced fumbles, 39.3 punting average) and cornerback Franko Shenault (graduated-senior, Hanover Park, Ill./Roselle-Lake Park, 51 tackles, one interception, seven passes broken up).  Quarterback Brennan O’Boyle (Sr., Chicago, Ill./Brother Rice, 1032 passing yards, 217 rushing yards, 12 touchdown passes), wide receiver Jeff Koeneman (Jr., Barrington, Ill./Palatine-Fremd, 757 yards, 9 touchdowns) and linebacker Nate Hughes (Sr., Antioch, Ill., 49 tackles, three sacks, two interceptions) were named second-team All-CCIW. 

The Quarterbacks

The Red Men split the season with two quarterbacks.  Returning-starter Brennan O’Boyle won the job in training camp but injured a knee in the season-opening game against Carroll (Wis.).  Dan DeBouef (Jr., Lemont, Ill., 1264 passing yards, 14 touchdown passes), who never even attempted a pass in three brief 2006 game-appearances, completed 30-of-42 passes for 316 yards and four touchdowns in the following week’s game against Lakeland, setting Carthage game records for both completions and yards.  “We knew what a great quarterback Brennan O’Boyle was,” said Rucks after the Lakeland game, “but you have to watch Dan DeBouef on a day-to-day basis to know how good he is.  He has no ego, and he is all about just going to work.  I couldn’t even get him to a post-game radio interview.  Sometimes, great things happen to people, and he deserved it.”

O’Boyle returned in the Oct. 6 Illinois Wesleyan game but suffered an ankle injury in the following week’s game at North Park.  DeBouef started the Oct. 20 Augustana (Ill.).  The two players split time against Millikin on Oct. 27, and O’Boyle started the last two games of the season against Wheaton (Ill.) and North Central.  The two quarterbacks combined to set season records for pass completions (209), pass attempts (355), passing yardage (2,358) and touchdown passes (27).

Another Solid Season

“We were happy with the 7-3 season in many ways.” said Rucks at the end of the season.  “We started out the conference season at 0-2, so to finish that well and to play in a final game with something at stake was pretty great.  We battled through a lot of adversity.  Nothing came easy for the 2007 team, but nothing they did surprised me.  I was really proud of their effort, and we have a great nucleus of returning players for 2008.”