Season Review: Football hopes strong finish to another solid season provides momentum into offseason
By Tim Glon
ADA — A strong finish in 2019 resulted in another solid season for the Ohio Northern football team under 16th-year head coach Dean Paul.
The Polar Bears were 6-4 overall and finishing tied for third in the 10-team OAC with a 6-3 league record.
After a 3-3 start, ONU won three of its final four games, including one touchdown victories over Baldwin Wallace and Heidelberg in the final two weeks of the season.
Northern posted an upper division finish in the Ohio Athletic Conference for an impressive 23rd time in the past 25 seasons.
"We have certain team goals each season," Paul said. "We want to compete at a national level, make the playoffs, be in the national polls. After each season, we evaluate ourselves to see if we have reached the those goals. If not, we look to see how big of a gap there is between where we are and where we want to be. Our strong finish, with wins over two teams that were receiving votes in the national poll and were in the playoff discussions during the season, shows up the gap is not very big."
"We made some adjustments during the season and our players responded. It was a significant improvement and important for our program. Now we need to build on it as we head into 2020."
Ohio Northern also made a presence on a national level individually, as three players were named All-America and another earned Academic All-America honors, the largest haul for the program since 2005.
Senior linebacker Mark Niles, junior running back Christiaan Williams and sophomore running back Brock Martin were each named All-Americans.
Niles was named Second Team All-America by the American Football Coaches Association and D3football.com after leading the OAC in tackles for the second consecutive year (11.9 tackles per game).
Williams joined Niles on the D3football.com team, marking the second consecutive season he earned All-America honors. He led the league in rushing with 1,362 yards, an average of 6.1 yards per carry.
Williams was named Second Team All-America as a sophomore in 2017 and Honorable Mention as a junior in 2019.
Martin was named Second Team All-America by the Associated Press as an all-purpose player. He finished the season with 644 all-purpose yards by running, receiving and running back kicks. He played running back, H-back, tight end and was a regular on special teams.
Senior offensive lineman Ethan Hale was named Second Team Academic All-America by the College Sports Information Directors of America. Hale started all 10 games this season at left guard in his first full-time season as a starter.
A total of 11 Polar Bears were named All-Conference.
Niles led the list of 11 by receiving the Gene Slaughter Award as the league's most valuable linebacker and was a First Team All-Conference selection.
Williams, Martin and freshman defensive end Josh Bever, who led the league with 10.5 sacks, were also named First Team All-OAC.
Seniors David Haseleu, Anthony McFadden and Grant Nieszala, junior Chase Rose and sophomore Dom DiFalco were Second Team picks.
Junior Jarrett Sitton and sophomore Austin Eick were Honorable Mention All-Conference selections.
An impressive 16 Ohio Northern football players were named Academic All-Ohio Athletic Conference in 2019.
Seniors Ethan Hale, Anthony McFadden and Brenden Medina, juniors Collin Arnold, Jack Lehr, Danny Patrick, Zak Smith, Eli Ulsh and Kyle Yoho and sophomores Jordan Brown, Ethan Burd, Collin Coburn, Brock Martin, Brendon Wampler and Tyler West all earned the honor.
Ohio Northern got off to a 3-2 start, defeating Muskingum 39-10, Otterbein 45-35 and Marietta 31-23 and fell at Denison 42-13 and at Wilmington 42-38 in the first five weeks of the season.
A 44-10 loss at No. 13-ranked John Carroll evened the record at 3-3, but ONU rebounded with a 49-0 victory over Capital the following week to get to 4-3 overall.
A 63-24 loss at No. 2-ranked Mount Union again evened the record at 4-4, setting up the final two games at home against Baldwin Wallace and Heidelberg, two teams that were receiving votes in the national polls.
The Polar Bears were outstanding in those two games, winning 35-28 over Baldwin Wallace and 34-28 over Heidelberg to send the seniors out on a high note and give the program a great deal of momentum heading into the offseason.
"As the season progressed, we closed the gap and got better each week," Paul said. "We were playing at the national level by the end of the season. We feel very good about our talent level returning and hopefully we will continue to improve as we enter 2020."