The most remarkable streak in sports came to an end this weekend: Mount Union College lost a football game.
Its end came exactly 11 years after it began. The Purple Raiders survived a couple of close calls along the way, but they could not outlast a very good Ohio Northern football team Saturday.
A 21-14 loss to the Polar Bears was the Raiders’ first regular-season defeat since a 23-10 loss to Baldwin-Wallace on Oct. 15, 1994. Starting seven days later, Mount Union started a streak that reached 110 regular-season wins in a row.
Kind of puts USC’s puny 28-gamer in perspective, doesn’t it? I don’t know if the Purple Raiders will start a brand-new streak next week, or if this loss is the beginning of a reunion with mere mortality for them, but I salute their achievement, all of which was done in an environment of no athletic scholarships. Congratulations to Ohio Northern for busting the streak, and major kudos to Mount Union for its consistent and longlasting excellence.
Schools like Mount Union remember that student-athletes are students first. To go 110 games without a loss in football is more than twice as long as the great Oklahoma run of the mid 1950s (47 games) . Some might say that Division III competition isn’t as good as Division I-A, but the turnover of students is similar.
Division I-A sports may be where the money is, but Division III sports is where the heart and soul are. Hats off to Mount Union!
California’s De La Salle had a 113-game streak broken in 2001. One of the local powerhouses played (and lost) to them out here.
I wouldn’t know about high school football winning streaks; my school started out its varsity football life something like 1-29 while I was there.