Findlay Banking On Historic Home Playoff Debut To Spark A New Era
Findlay Banking On Historic Home Playoff Debut To Spark A New Era
The Oilers post their best D2 season in years with 10 wins and a home playoff game this weekend.
Kory Allen has not had fun this year.
On the surface, that seems like a strange thing for the head coach of the Findlay football team to say.
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The fourth-year Oilers coach, who took over the program in 2022 after 16 years as an assistant, just led Findlay to its best regular season since it joined NCAA Division II, winning 10 games for the first time since 1997 and booking a home playoff game for this weekend in the process.
Instead, Allen offered a different perspective on the Oilers’ year to date.
“It hasn’t been fun. It’s been satisfying,” Allen said. “This is not just interview speak. … We’ve put our head down and just went and went and went and went and went. And if you do that, you don’t have time for fun. You find satisfaction. (And) these guys find satisfaction in physically beating someone and preparing. But I don’t think fun’s on the top of our list.”
Clearly, it’s been strictly business at Findlay this year — or, to take it a step further, the act of “carrying violence” everywhere the Oilers play, as graduate running back Jayden Farmer put it.
Whichever identity it may be for Findlay, it’s working.
The Great Midwest Athletic Conference co-champion and holder of the league’s automatic bid to the D-II playoffs, the No. 2-seeded Oilers roll into Super Region 3 play at 1 p.m. Saturday in first-round action against Minnesota State, which will act as Findlay’s first-ever home playoff game since moving up from NAIA ahead of the 1998 season.
It’s a huge step forward for the program, which has had peaks and valleys since that hallowed 1997 season in which it won the NAIA D-II national title. Since joining the NCAA, the Oilers have only made the playoffs on two prior occasions, making it to the second round in 2017 before a one-and-done trip in 2021.
Allen, who has seen low lows (such as a 1-10 season in 2010) and now high highs during his time at Findlay, proudly wears the underdog moniker and uses it as fuel to the Oilers’ fire. And as they welcome the Mavericks, a two-time national runner-up and frequent fixture in the playoffs, he expects his team to show off more of the same grit.
“If you look at the University of Findlay history books, some things haven’t been done here since 1997,” Allen said. “We’re grateful for the opportunity to play in the second season, but we understand when you talk about knowing who you are, we don’t want to prance around like we’re in a parade. We’re the underdogs, and we know that’s not just the spread in a game. That’s a mindset.”
The Oilers play like it’s a mindset, too.
In Findlay’s 10 wins to date, they’ve rarely come the easy way. Four of the Oilers’ victories have come in one-score games and they’ve given up a touchdown or less on defense five times. That makes it little surprise that Findlay is among the top five teams nationally in scoring defense, giving up a measly 12.2 points per game, and had the best rushing defense in G-MAC play with an average of just 54.2 yards allowed on the ground.
That worked wonders in what was arguably the toughest G-MAC slate in conference history, which saw a record three teams (along with Ashland and Northwood) make the Super Region 3 bracket. The Oilers started 10-0 and 8-0 in league play, beating both Northwood and Ashland in back-to-back weeks to clinch the G-MAC’s auto-bid and at least a share of the league title.
A rivalry loss against Tiffin to end the regular season stung a bit, but with postseason play already locked up, it ended up being a timely reminder for Findlay that it can’t let its focus slip — especially in win-or-go-home football games.
“Even in some of the close games that we had, sometimes you can get away with making a few mistakes when you’re, honestly, just better than the team,” graduate defensive back Johnny Harris said. “When you play teams that are even to you, if you make too many mistakes, they are going to capitalize just like we capitalize when we play teams. … I think going into this week, that’s something that we just need to focus on our details and being where we need to be.”
Minnesota State, with a top-five win in its back pocket this season (against Augustana on Nov. 8), is exactly the type of team that can take over when presented with opposing miscues. But in front of what’s shaping up to be a raucous environment in Findlay this weekend, the Oilers’ rough-and-ready style will be looking to put on a show 28 years in the making.
For people who have been around the Findlay program for a while now, they’ll be hoping that Saturday — and maybe beyond — will be worth all of that waiting.
“I’m sure I can speak for all of us; our careers here are coming to an end,” fifth-year senior fullback Tristan Cross said. “We’re at the needle point right now, and I know that all of us are just very hungry to get another opportunity to go out there and prove it, and we want to keep proving it over and over again. We want to keep creating more opportunities to go prove it again.”
When Are The First Playoff Matchups?
The first round of the D2 NCAA playoff will take place on Nov. 22. All 32 teams will take the field to determine the round two games slated for kickoff on Nov. 29.
When Is The NCAA D2 National Championship Game?
The D2 National Championship will be held in McKinney, Texas, on Dec. 20. The two remaining teams will square off for the national title.
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