Wisconsin-River Falls completes dream season with Stagg Bowl victory for first NCAA Division III championship

The Wisconsin-River Falls football team endured nearly two decades of losing at the start of the 21st century. It hadn’t appeared in the NCAA Division III playoffs in nearly 30 years. And playing in its first national championship game, it was going against the definitive powerhouse program of the division.

And somehow, none of that mattered. The Falcons are Division III champions.

The Falcons completed a historic, surprising season by rallying for a 24-14 victory over North Central (Ill.) in the Stagg Bowl on Sunday night, Jan. 4, at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton, Ohio.

“I’m sure the whole town of River Falls is going crazy right now,” Falcons coach Matt Walker said in the postgame news conference.

Walker’s roster includes 67 Minnesotans playing for a program located about 30 minutes east of St. Paul, led by Kaleb Blaha, the senior quarterback from Fridley who was recently named the winner of the John Gagliardi Trophy as Division III’s top player.

“We knew we could win this game,” Blaha said. “Everybody believed it, everyone stayed up and stayed together.”

The Falcons (14-1) ended a 29-game winning streak for the defending champion Cardinals, who were making their sixth consecutive appearance in the Stagg Bowl.

The Falcons did not have the same pedigree. Wisconsin-River Falls had 19 losing seasons in a row from 2001 to 2019. The 48-year-old Walker, hired in 2011, was coach for much of that time, going 3-27 over his first three seasons.

“These current players I say should always get the most credit, and they do. But it felt like we were playing for a lot more than just our players today,” Walker said. “These guys know guys that were on my 0-10 teams and 1-9 teams and 2-8 teams. They know guys in the community that love Falcon football. It felt like we were playing for so many more people today. So proud of everybody involved.”

The 2020 season was wiped out by COVID-19, but Walker said that was when he was able to make “some bold decisions” to change the direction of the program. Since then, the Falcons have been consistent winners; they are 44-13 over the past five seasons. But they were never able to make the NCAA playoff field until now, their first appearance since 1996.

“We didn’t look like a college football team when I first got here. That was first,” Walker said. “Then we weren’t competitive; we had to get competitive. And then we started to win some games, but could we really climb our way up in the best league in the country? Could we really do that? That was the next step. And then we did.

“And then, the next one of getting in the tournament, and winning some playoff games, and making a run ... in one year, the next three or four steps all happened.”

Blaha passed for 291 yards and a touchdown and rushed for 128 yards and two TDs to finish his season with 4,971 passing yards and 1,218 rushing yards and 59 touchdowns (41 passing and 18 rushing). His 6,189 total yards this season broke Joe Burrow’s NCAA all-divisions single-season record of 6,039 yards in 2019 for Louisiana State.

“I did know about it coming into the game that I was close, because people were telling me. I wasn’t going to do research on my own,” Blaha said. “But when I finally saw it up on the scoreboard, I guess I really wasn’t focused on it at all, but I was like, ‘That’s pretty cool.’

“I was only able to do that because of this whole team. All of our receivers, running backs, tight ends, everybody making plays, our O-line doing all the blocking for me to be able to get so many yards, and then our defense really just getting us so many opportunities to get the ball and go score. It feels really good, but definitely a whole team thing.”

Timm, a senior linebacker from Shawano, Wis., had 13 tackles, recovered a fumble and had two sacks. His sack in the red zone in the final minute of the first half was followed by an interception by Taylor Sussner at the 9-yard line, which helped the Falcons go into the intermission trailing only 14-10.

“We knew they were going to take at least one shot in the end zone,” said Sussner, a freshman from Chaska. “He ran a skinny post. I just saw the quarterback’s eyes and saw him release it, and I saw the ball in the air and was like, ‘I’m just going to go get it.’ ”

BOXSCORE: Wisconsin-River Falls 24, North Central (lll.) 14

The Falcons’ first possession of the second half ended without points when they were stopped on downs inside the North Central 10-yard line. But on their next possession, Blaha finished off a seven-play, 59-yard drive with a 7-yard run to give Wisconsin-River Falls its first lead of the game, 17-14 with 2:51 left in the third quarter.

Jack Olson’s interception and 15-yard return gave the Falcons a first down at the North Central 12-yard line and Blaha promptly scored on a 12-yard run on the first play. The PAT made it 24-14 with 8:44 left, and Wisconsin-River Falls was able to hold from there with a pair of fourth-down stops.

“I thought the game was a reflection and reminds me of this football team. It wasn’t going our way early, it wasn’t easy early, and this group just kind of hung in there,” Walker said.

The Cardinals scored on two of their first three possessions, getting touchdown runs of 48 and 2 yards from Donovan McNeal to take their 14-3 lead with 11:07 left in the first half, but they failed to score on their final seven possessions. Three ended on punts, two on downs and two on interceptions.