Stagg Bowl Matchup Set

Mount Union squeaked by North Central, 41-40, while UW-Whitewater got by Mary Hardin-Baylor, 16-15, to advance to the Division III championship game.  This is the eighth matchup between the two schools in the championship game in the last nine years.  The only exception was last year's matchup between St. Thomas and Mount Union.  It is also Mount Union's ninth straight appearance in the championship game, their 16th appearance in the last 18, and their 17th in the last 21.  That is a pretty ridiculous run.

Banking's Big 4

From Businessweek:

Don’t be so sure. Five years after the system was held at gunpoint by a massively interconnected and over-risked Wall Street, the country’s six biggest banks—JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), Wells Fargo (WFC), Goldman Sachs (GS), and Morgan Stanley (MS)—are now 37 percent larger than they were in the depths of the financial crisis. These institutions make more than four out of every 10 loans and tote two-thirds of the banking system’s $14.4 trillion in assets, according to WkndNotes, a private newsletter e-mailed to traders and brokers by investor Eric Peters....JPMorgan Chase is about the size of the entire British economy and holds 12 percent of all cash in the U.S. Unpack its corporate letterhead and you will find old Fortune 500 stalwarts like Washington Mutual, Providian, Chemical Bank, Banc One, Bear Stearns, and Great Western, among many other absorbed institutions. Bank of America, which snapped up Countrywide and Merrill Lynch (and pretty much all Merrill Lynch has snapped up) accounts for about a third of all U.S. business loans, while Wells Fargo (think Wachovia-First Union-CoreStates and the Money Store) makes a quarter of all mortgage loans.

 This is not quite the era of the Trusts, but these four are huge.

Not Much Defense

Here are the statistics from Mount Union's 62-59 win over Wesley:

Wesley	Statistics	Mount Union
29	FIRST DOWNS	18
25 1 3	Passing Rushing Penalty	8 9 1
25% (2 of 8)	THIRD DOWN EFFICIENCY	35% (6 of 17)
0% (0 of 0)	FOURTH DOWN EFFICIENCY	33% (1 of 3)
635	TOTAL OFFENSE	447
70 9.1	Total Offensive Plays Average gain per play	72 6.2
633	NET YARDS PASSING	280
35-52 12.2 3-32 4	Completions-Attempts Net yards per pass play Sacked: Number-Yards Had intercepted	16-27 10.4 3-20 0
2	NET YARDS RUSHING	167
18 0.1	Rushing Attempts Average gain per rush	45 3.7
6-219	PUNTS: Number-Yards	6-201
36.5	Average	33.5
97	TOTAL RETURN YARDS	239
2-9 11-88 0 0	Punt Returns: Number-Yards Kickoff Returns: Number-Yards Interception Returns: Number-Yards	2-76 6-81 4-82
11-110	PENALTIES: Number-Yards	8-85
2-2	FUMBLES: Number-Lost	0-0
3-20	SACKS: Number-Yards	3-32
0 0	INTERCEPTIONS: Number-Yards	4-82
27:33	TIME OF POSSESSION	32:27

633 passing yards and 2 rushing yards?  9.1 yards per play?  Wow.  Mount Union wasn't dominating, but they will be in the Division III semifinals next week versus North Central.  Mary Hardin-Baylor will host Wisconsin-Whitewater.

Georgia Southern Runs Over Florida

ESPN:

Kevin Ellison ran for two touchdowns, Jerick McKinnon had a huge score late and four-touchdown underdog Georgia Southern stunned Florida 26-20 Saturday without completing a pass.
No lower-division team had ever beaten the Gators, who won their previous seven games against Football Championship Subdivision teams by an average of 45 points.
So this was a shocker, even though Florida (4-7) lost its sixth consecutive game and secured its first losing season since 1979.
"Very disappointed for our program, an embarrassment (to be) in this situation," Gators coach Will Muschamp said. "It's all disappointing. It's hard to measure it at this point."
Georgia Southern (7-4) ran for 429 yards -- all of the team's offense and the most against Florida since Nebraska rolled up 524 in the 1996 Fiesta Bowl. The Eagles also became the first team this season to beat an FBS team without completing a pass. They were 0 for 3.
McKinnon finished with 125 yards rushing, including a 14-yard touchdown with 2:57 remaining. Ellison added 118 yards on the ground, scoring on runs of 45 and 1. Fullback William Banks also gashed the Gators, getting 94 yards up the middle. His 53-yarder on a third-and-2 play set up the winning score.
Florida had a chance to win it, thanks partly to two missed extra points.
Skyler Mornhinweg, making his second consecutive start in place of Tyler Murphy (shoulder), got the Gators in scoring territory, but his final two throws fell incomplete. He had Quinton Dunbar open in the corner of the end zone on third down from the 17, but his pass floated high. He tried to force one to Solomon Patton on the final play, but two defenders broke it up.

Wow, a Division I-AA (soon to be I-A, I'm not going in for FCS and FBS) school comes into Gainesville and beats Florida without completing a pass.  That is amazing.  I knew Florida was bad this year, but I didn't realize they were that bad.