Augsburg football is the new MIAC contender in town

The NAIA started sponsoring football in 1956. Two teams were chosen from the 25 affiliated conferences to play for the 1956 and '57 championships, and then the playoff field was expanded to four in 1958.

Gustavus Adolphus, winning or sharing eight MIAC titles in the 1950s, was among the four invitees. The Gusties lost a road game in the semifinals to the school that's now Northern Arizona.

The playoff remained four teams in the mid-'60s, when the MIAC had this astounding three-year run: St. John's won titles in 1963 and '65, and Concordia (Moorhead) shared the 1964 title with Sam Houston State after a 7-7 tie.

And that's where it started: this run of decades where MIAC football almost always has come down to St. John's and a couple of other power programs.

Concordia was one of those for a very long time. It wasn't always thus, but it seemed like three was the magic number for MIAC football: Johnnies, Cobbers and an interloper.

Then, starting in 1996 and with tremendous consistency, along came Bethel.

This was followed in 2008, when Glenn Caruso was hired at St. Thomas, and awoke that snoozing Goliath. And so it became Johnnies, Tommies, Royals … one of 'em going to the NCAA Division III playoffs, and often two.

Then, whoosh. St. Thomas left for Division I athletics in 2021.

Macalester returned to play football, and St. Scholastica was admitted despite its substandard athletic facilities up there in Duluth. What has been left in football is a cumbersome two-division system that has led to St. John's vs. Bethel in the title game, after also meeting in a regularly scheduled game.

Concordia is never easy, but the Cobbers haven't been extra-good since 2017.

What MIAC football needs is the "Third Team." Show of hands?

"Over here," said Derrin Lamker, the Augsburg coach. "And as a team that could be playing for the championship. Bethel beat us 30-27 last year on the last week of the schedule. Another touchdown late, we would've been in the title game."

Lamker was a record-breaking quarterback when the Auggies won the MIAC with Jack Osberg as coach in '97. That was the second MIAC football title for Augsburg. The first came in 1928.

Bottom line: history suggests placing Augsburg in a Big Three for MIAC football qualifies as naivete. Then again, Lamker did win a largest-school Prep Bowl title with Osseo in 2015, after taking over the Orioles in very tough times.

"The year before we came here there were 44 players on Augsburg's football team," Lamker said Friday. "We had 121 players report for the start of practice on Sunday. Two have left. Right now, we're at 119.

"And we're going to be different than every other team in our conference. Seventy percent of our roster will be minority students. We have a tremendous staff, and we recruit hard, but we also recruit the schools where the students are going to take a serious interest in Augsburg.

"We have kids from a big variety of economic backgrounds. We have 27 kids working the night shift at FedEx right now, loading trucks, and then coming to football practice in the morning."

Cade Sheehan is the quarterback, a senior academically but with two years of eligibility. He's 5-foot-9 and up to 177 pounds, after being a 145-pound wrestler at Rochester Mayo.

"Lost six matches as a senior, to a total of four wrestlers," Sheehan said. "I finally made it to the state meet, and wound up in third place."

Augsburg will have a huge offensive line casting shadows over Sheehan. That's doable, as the coaches rave about the way he gets the ball through seams with a rocket arm — a Division III Drew Brees.

The Auggies need better luck on defense, losing nine starters on defense to injuries in 2022. This included linebacking twins Hamsa and Leban Kahin, who are back and outstanding.

What has surprised Sheehan about Augsburg?

"Coming to a college in the big city, I figured people would go their own way after classes," Sheehan said. "The surprise has been the homey atmosphere. Everybody gets to know everybody … not just football players, people all around campus."

Do you have the receivers to challenge your head coach's passing records?

"We're loaded," Sheehan said. "Dominic Smith and Braden Tretter both have been all-conference. And this young fellow, Tyrone Wilson, from a school with a bunch of small towns … he will be very good."

Wilson's high school would be New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva.

Beware the Auggies?

Might as well run with that. The MIAC needs the Third Team.