Linfield brings winning ways

Consider Scott McQuilkin duly impressed.

As the athletic director at Whitworth College for the past nine years, he has learned how much time, effort and money is needed to build a quality NCAA Division III football program.

So when discussing Linfield College and its remarkable run of 49 consecutive winning seasons – the longest such streak in the history of college football at any level – McQuilkin can only marvel.

“Obviously, it’s a tremendous accomplishment and one we have great respect for,” he said of the unparalleled record achieved by the defending D-III national champion Wildcats, who invade the Pine Bowl on Saturday afternoon for a crucial NWC game against Whitworth.

“We have great admiration for their coaches and administrators and what they’ve been able to do.”

Saturday’s game, which kicks off at 12:30, will feature two teams expected to finish at or near the top of the NWC standings this year. But Whitworth (2-1 overall, 0-0 in the NWC) remains a decided underdog against the unbeaten and tradition-rich Wildcats (3-0 overall, 1-0 in the NWC), who are ranked No. 1 in both the D3football.com and American Football Coaches Association polls and riding a 16-game winning streak that matches the longest in school history.

Linfield owns a lopsided 25-3-2 edge in the series and hasn’t lost to the Pirates since 1975. Since suffering that 21-14 setback in the Pine Bowl, the Wildcats have posted a 19-0-1 record against the Bucs, outscoring them 664-291 and winning the last 12 meetings.

In addition, Linfield has four national championships – three as an NAIA institution – and boasts a 381-90 record since suffering its last losing season in 1955.

Whitworth senior defensive tackle Austin Richard has been on the wrong end of the score in the Pirates’ last three games against Linfield, but he harbors little resentment over the Wildcats’ longtime dominance.

“Obviously, we have a lot of respect for their program and what they’ve done,” Richard said. “This is my fourth year starting against them, and each year it seems like our pace in practice picks up for them. It’s fun to get a chance to play a team like them, because there’s always a lot of media attention, and we get recognized from that.

“With them winning the national championship last year, it just helped put our conference on the map even more. It’s all pretty awesome.”

Richard has played against Linfield twice in Maxwell Field in McMinnville, Ore., and he likes the way the community supports the Wildcats.

“That’s probably one of the loudest places I’ve ever played at,” he said of Linfield’s newly renovated 4,000-seat stadium. “They’re really passionate about their team over there. Their fans stand along the sidelines just heckling us and rippin’ on us all game long. It’s a fun place to play, because their fans care so much about their team.”

Still, there is more to Linfield’s success than strong fan support.

Both McQuilkin and Pirates coach John Tully think the Wildcats’ success and consistency is from the in-state recruiting pipeline they have built.

“It seems like every high school in the state of Oregon has a coach that played at Linfield, and that helps tremendously,” said Tully, who is 0-10 against the Wildcats since taking over the Whitworth program.

“What they’ve been able to do is produce a good number of former players who have gone into coaching in Oregon communities,” added McQuilkin. “And as a result of that, they’ve developed a great feeder system that has contributed a great deal to their ability to recruit.”

McQuilkin would like to think Whitworth has narrowed the talent gap on the Wildcats in recent years, thanks, in part, to its recent facility improvements and the stability of the Pirates’ coaching staff.

And the fact that the Bucs played Linfield as close as anyone during the 2004 regular season before losing 48-37 on the road would seem to indicate as much.

“I know some guys on their team, and they told me that we played them the second-toughest – beside their national championship game (a 28-21 win over Mary Hardin-Baylor) – of anybody all year,” Richard said. “We’ve got a lot of confidence we can hang with them now.”

And while Tully, who has led the Pirates to a 33-17 record over the past three seasons, respects what the Wildcats have done, he makes no claim of aspiring to become another Linfield.

“We want to be as good a program as we can be, but we don’t model ourselves after anybody,” he said. “We just strive to be Whitworth.”