NEXT GAME
Wittenberg at Ohio Wesleyan, 1 p.m. Saturday, 1340, 89.1
Eight years have passed since Ye Olde Skull trophy, which ESPN once ranked as the most bizarre rivalry trophy in college football, switched hands.
The skull was old when Wittenberg last lost to Ohio Wesleyan in 2006 — the teams have been playing since 1894 and legend has it the skull was discovered in 1929 during the construction of Selby Stadium — and it’s older now. Of course, it hasn’t been a real skull since 1989 when officials from both schools buried the original skull out of concerns about political correctness.
As trophies go, Ye Olde Skull is as original as they come. That’s not why Wittenberg wants to keep it in Springfield. The Tigers want to keep the trophy because if they win Saturday in Delaware, they’ll remain in first place or tied for first in the North Coast Athletic Conference, depending on what Wabash does Saturday, with two games to go.
The 14th-ranked Tigers (6-1, 6-0 NCAC) have won six straight against the Batting Bishops, but Wittenberg coach Joe Fincham will always remember the 2004 and 2006 losses in Delaware. Those are two reasons to be wary today. Another is that the Tigers have shown plenty of faults during their six-game winning streak.
Asked what his team needs to improve after a 49-7 victory over Kenyon, Wittenberg coach Joe Fincham said, “It would be easier for me to list the things we’re good at, which isn’t much. We may be the worst one-loss team in the country. Gosh, you just look at us at times and scratch your heads. We’re booting the ball around on the first couple series of the game (against Kenyon). Once we settled down, we started playing, but man, we can make the game of football look pretty hard at times.”
Two years ago, Ohio Wesleyan and Wittenberg tied for the NCAC title at 6-1. They didn’t play that season. Ohio Wesleyan finished 9-1 and seemed to be a program on the rise.
Then Ohio Wesleyan finished 5-5 overall and 4-5 in the NCAC last season. It’s 4-3 this season with a 3-3 mark in the NCAC. It lost 35-28 to another improving NCAC program, Hiram, at home last week and got thumped 45-13 by Wabash at home Oct. 11.
“They are playing with a lot of the kids they recruited off that 9-1 season,” Fincham said. “They’re littered with sophomores and juniors. I think they have as few seniors as we have. They’re a team that’s coming along. I continually tell our team to be careful comparing scores.”
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