Something that many of us didn't even know was possible will happen on Sunday. The NCAA will release its Division III bracket, and Mount Union's name almost certainly won't be on it.
If and when that comes to pass, this will be the first time Mount misses the playoffs since 1989, back when D3 staged a 16-team tournament. The bracket has grown to 40 since then, but 29 spots are reserved for conference champions. Baldwin Wallace's 27-21 win in Alliance, Ohio, last weekend snapped that program's 30-game losing streak to Mount and handed them their first Ohio Athletic Conference title since 1995.
If the OAC lands an at-large team, it's likely to be Heidelberg, who scored a 37-34 upset of Mount, again in Alliance, back in September. The Purple Raiders also lost their opener, 24-23 to No. 1 Wheaton, which puts them at 6-3 heading into the regular season finale Saturday at Otterbein.
Mount Union didn't receive a vote in the most recent D3Football.com Top 25 and ranked 37th in the D3Huddle's Top 40. A lengthy Selection Sunday preview on D3Football didn't even mention the Purple Raiders.
The club's two OAC losses match the number of setbacks the Purple Raiders suffered -- total -- from 1995 to 2015.
While there is undoubtedly countless wailing and gnashing of teeth within Alliance and in alumni group chats across the nation, the program's one down season since the invention of the Internet was as inevitable as gravity.
A brief list of the program's accomplishments since Vince Kerhes got things up and running in the late 1980s and early 90s.
-- 20 consecutive undefeated regular seasons
-- 13 national championships
-- 24 consecutive OAC championships
-- 11 consecutive Stagg Bowl appearances
-- 24 consecutive Division III semifinal trips
It's a standard of excellence unmatched not only in Division III, not only in college football, not only in the sport of football, but in all of high-level athletics across the human race.
All that being said, Mount Union hasn't won a Division III title since 2017, which predates head coach Geoff Dartt's promotion. A former Purple Raider offensive lineman, position coach and coordinator, Dartt took over his alma mater in 2020. He hadn't lost a regular season game until this season. Now he's lost three.
We won't pretend to parachute in and be an expert on the dynamics around Mount. While there is certainly pressure for the program to do something following an unprecedented downturn, it would seem on the surface like a mistake to move on from a coach that had the Purple Raiders in the national title game in 2022 and '24 with the understanding that 2026 should and will be nothing more than a historical anomaly.