The Championship Rivalry That Helped Shape 21st Century College Football

Four teams remain in the FCS Playoffs with the semifinals this weekend, and for the first time in more than a decade, not one is North Dakota State.

The Bison’s run of dominance is arguably the most impressive in modern sports history. It’s also perhaps an indicator that, as bored as most of might be with Alabama and Clemson routinely in the College Football Playoff championship, expanding the tournament isn’t necessarily the magic bullet to give the FBS fresh matchups.

2021 marks the 30th anniversary of another, similar run’s beginning that reinforces the same point — yet, at the same time, demonstrates what can happen in a win-or-go home format.

The influence of the 1991 Div. I-AA Playoffs goes well beyond that, however. The title-game matchup at the culmination of the ‘91 postseason profoundly shaped the landscape of college football for the 21st century/

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Youngstown State and Marshall played for three consecutive NCAA championships from 1991 through 1993, and at least one of the two programs appeared in every Div. I-AA title game through 1997.

When that seven-year run kicked off, Youngstown State wasn’t supposed to be there.

The Penguins traveled across the continent to Reno for a quarterfinals matchup with undefeated and No. 1 ranked Nevada (then Nevada-Reno).

On opposite sidelines were two coaches who became wildly influential in the 21st century. Overseeing Nevada was Chris Ault, innovator of the Pistol formation. Coaching Youngstown State: Jim Tressel.

A little more than a decade before leading a heavy underdog Ohio State team past the Miami Hurricanes juggernaut in the Fiesta Bowl, Tressel touched on the same themes with the ‘91 Penguins while in Reno.

Below is from the Reno Gazette Journal the day after Youngstown State’s 30-28 win.

Emphasis on a physical brand of football, complemented with methodical offense and a dedication to simple out-tough an opponent was Tressel’s hallmark at Ohio State, and shows here in Youngstown State’s Cinderella run.

The next week’s semifinal vs. Samford is the peak of what came to be known as Tressel Ball: The Penguins squeezed Samford (coached by Terry Bowden) in a 10-0 rock fight with the lone touchdown coming on Chris Vecchione’s scoop-and-score in the first quarter.

Youngstown State held opponents to a combined 51 points over four playoff games, including the 17 the Penguins allowed in the championship game. In Statesboro, Georgia — home to the first Div. I-AA/FCS dynasty, Georgia Southern — the hard-nosed style of Tressel Ball peaked against Marshall.

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In 1991, Marshall was just 21 years removed from the tragic crash of Southern Airways Flight 932. The university’s football program very nearly folded after 1970, but persevered.

Now, the Thundering Herd endured some understandably lean years after the restart, winning no more than five games in any one season for the next 13 seasons.

But after two winning seasons under Stan Parrish, George Chaump led Marshall to the Div. I-AA Playoffs and split a Southern Conference championship with Erk Russell’s mighty Georgia Southern dynasty.

With each regime change, Marshall was in better standing. Former Barry Switzer assistant Jim Donnan elevated the Thundering Herd further upon replacing Chaump in 1990.

Donnan coached Marshall to four National Championship Games in five years, beginning with the ‘91 team.

The Herd advanced to face Tressel’s Youngstown State Penguins with a 14-7 defeat of Eastern Kentucky, won when College Football Hall of Fame quarterback Michael Payton found Hall of Fame wide receiver Troy Brown for a 36-yard touchdown — all with Hall of Fame coach Donnan on the sideline.

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While neither was necessarily expected to be in Statesboro, Marshall and Youngstown delivered a game befitting title contenders. Marshall scored 17 points in the third quarter to take a lead into the fourth, but the Penguins responded with a 19-point, fourth-quarter rally that befit their underdog story.

Marshall going for more than 400 yards and losing could not have sat well with the Herd, though — and, a year later, they exacted revenge in a championship rematch.

The programs completed a trilogy in 1993 with Youngstown State winning the rubber match. A fascinating tidbit from the ‘93 game is the rumor Tressel would take the Cincinnati job.

Before that matchup aired on CBS, the local affiliate aired a sit-down interview with the coach.

Tressel remained at Youngstown State for another seven years, only leaving after Ohio State came open before the 2001 season.

His tenure at Ohio State was central in molding the national FBS landscape during the 2000s, with the Buckeyes winning the 2002 BCS championship; appearing in the 2006 and 2007 season’s BCS title games; and producing the 2006 Heisman Trophy winner, Troy Smith.

Smith was both the first Heisman winner from Ohio State since Eddie George in 1995, and the Buckeyes’ first finalist in that time. Coincidentally, Marshall produced a Heisman finalist in that same 11-year window — and, realistically, it could have been two.

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As mentioned above, Marshall continuously ascended with each regime change from the 1980s into Donnan’s run. After leading the Herd to the 1992 NCAA championship, and appearing in two more title games in ‘93 and ‘95, Donnan left Huntington for Athens, Georgia.

Donnan’s tenure at Georgia was fine, but fell short of the lofty expectations before him. Sharing a division with two programs that won national championships with Phil Fulmer and Tennessee and Steve Spurrier at Florida probably complicated the process.

But while Florida was a constant thorn in Georgia’s side, one of the Bulldogs’ most memorable wins of the last 25 years came against the Gators under Donnan in 1997.

Georgia’s upset win ostensibly kept the reigning national champion Gators out of the SEC Championship Game.

That same season capped with a Heisman Trophy presentation that featured the first (and still only) defensive player ever to win the award, Michigan’s Charles Woodson; Tennessee’s Peyton Manning; and a wide receiver from Marshall, Randy Moss.

Upon leaving Marshall, in a coincidental (if not ironic) twist, Donnan was replaced by a Steve Spurrier assistant, Bob Pruett.

In his first season — which was also Marshall’s last at Div. I-AA — Pruett led the Herd to an undefeated national championship.

The program’s ascent from the Donnan era included an invitation for Marshall to become a Div. I-A program. A number of programs have made the same jump in the 30 years since that first Youngstown State-Marshall championship tilt, with varying degrees of success.

Outside of Boise State, it’s fair to say none have been as influential as Marshall. And, in fact, one could argue that without the Thundering Herd, Boise State may not have been able to reach the heights it did.

The Bowl Championship Series launched in 1998, born of the Bowl Coalition and Bowl Alliance — two different attempts by college football’s power brokers to consolidate power and lock out smaller programs.

While the BCS paid lip service in order to avoid antitrust claims from those programs outside of the power conference, it became evident immediately upon its launch that it was the same concept with a new facade.

While a 1998 Tulane team went undefeated without sniffing a BCS invitation, the program that truly began the push to open the BCS was Marshall in 1999.

The attention Marshall commanded at the turn of the millennium paved the way for the BCS-busting Broncos of 2006. What’s more, the Herd played with a style in that era that helped usher in the age of high-scoring, uptempo football still prevalent today.

Some of my all-time favorite games from this period feature the Herd, including the 2001 and 2002 Mid-American Conference Championship Games, the latter of which solidified Byron Leftwich as an all-time, personal favorite quarterback.

Poetically, that game’s from the same season that ended with Jim Tressel winning his final national championship.