81st Meeting

Williams College Ephs (2-1)

vs.

Middlebury College Panthers (2-1)

1:30 pm

Saturday, October 11th

Weston Field

Williamstown, MA

SERIES: Williams leads the series 62-17-1.  The Ephs have won the last 7 meetings. Last year at Youngman Field at Middlebury the Ephs won 30-22. The game marked Middlebury's only loss of the season, as the Panthers (7-1) went on to win the 2007 NESCAC crown. The last time the Ephs and Panthers played at Weston Field was in 2006 and the Ephs won 40-9.

Middlebury's last win over the Ephs came in 2000 when they shut out the Ephs 7-0 at Weston Field.  

COACHES: The Ephs' Mike Whalen (28-7) is in his fifth year as the Williams head coach, during which time his teams have never finished worse than 6-2. Whalen was previously the Ephs' head wrestling coach from 1996 to 2003, and the offensive line coach for the same span, including the last three years as offensive coordinator.

In 2007 Whalen guided the Ephs to a 6-2 record after the Ephs dropped two heartbreakers to open the season.  He also led the 2006 Ephs to the sixth perfect season in Williams history, extending the Eph win streak at the time to 14 and earning NESCAC Coach of the Year honors. He was also the only New England coach to finish in the top 25 in Liberty Mutual's Coach of the Year program among coaches in all divisions of college football.

Whalen, a 1983 graduate of Wesleyan University, captained both the football and wrestling teams while earning All-New England and All-American honors three times. Whalen's football coaching resume also includes stops at Springfield, Penn, Lafayette, and Colgate. Whalen is 4-0 against the Panthers.

Middlebury's Bob Ritter is in his eighth year as head coach of the Panthers and has compiled a record of 32-24. Following the Panthers '07 NESCAC Championship season, Ritter was named both the NESCAC Coach of the Year, as well as the Region I AFCA Coach of the Year. He is a 1982 graduate of Middlebury and previously served the Panthers as an assistant football and lacrosse coach, before assuming the head lacrosse and assistant football positions at Tufts from the fall of 1988 through the spring of 1996. Ritter returned to Middlebury in the fall of 1996 as an assistant football and lacrosse coach. Ritter is 0-7 vs. the Ephs.

RADIO - INTERNET:  The Williams College student station, WCFM (91.9 FM) will air each game live. To hear the game on the Internet on WCFM go to Shoutcast.com  and type in WCFM. Choose one of the streams based on the quality you want (56kbps for a dial up modem, 128kbps recommended overall for stability/fidelity), which will be opened in a music player like Winamp (recommended) or iTunes.
 
TEAMLINE:  TEAMLINE is a pay-to-listen service. You can listen over your telephone or over the Internet to the game by contacting TEAMLINE.
 
Internet: go to the Eph football page on TEAMLINE.
 
The Eph access code is: 0126.
 
Telephone: dial 1-800-846-4700 and follow the prompts. The Eph access code is 0126.

LIVE STATS: You can view Live Stats of this game on Saturday by clicking here.

STREAKS: Williams currently has a 6-game win streak over Middlebury.

The Panthers beat Amherst last week to improve to 2-1; it was the third straight time Middlebury had beaten the Jeffs.

SPECIAL PRESENTATION AT HALFTIME: The Ephs will receive the NCAA Division III Directors' Cup at the half from represtatives of NACDA, USA Today, and the U.S. Sports Academy. The Directors' Cup is presented to the school whose teams score the most pointsbased on the performance of their teams in NCAA postseason team competitions.

Williams has won 12 of the 13 Directors' Cups awarded in Division III, including the last 10 in a row.

CLIMBING THE CHARTS:

Brian Morrissey is now 5th all-time in scoring for the Ephs since 1973 with 142 points. Brendan Fulmer '07 is 4th with 153 points.

Morrissey is 90 yards short of 2,000 in his career.  If he gets there he will be the 5th Eph back since 1973.

He needs 735 yards to become the all-time leading rusher, which works out to 147 yards a game.  Morrissey is currently averaging 100.7 yards per game, good for second in the NESCAC.

The all-time Eph leading rushers since 1973 are as follows:

Fred Storz '01 -- 1st -- 2,644
Tim Crawley '05 -- 2nd -- 2,391
Mike Hackett '04 -- 3rd -- 2,371
Jamall Pollock '96 -- 4th -- 2,181

BY THE NUMBERS ...

24.0/30.7-- Points per game for Williams and Middlebury (tops in NESCAC)

11.3/22.0-- Points allowed per game for Williams (tops in NESCAC) and Middlebury

247.3/302-- Passing yards per game Williams (2^nd in NESCAC) and Middlebury (tops in NESCAC)

133/201.3-- Passing yards allowed per game Williams (tops in NESCAC) and Middlebury

130.3/95-- Rushing yards per game Williams and Middlebury

108.7/134.7-- Rushing yards allowed per game Williams and Middlebury

+5/-3 - Turnover margin for Williams and Middlebury

17/5.67-- Catches/catches per game for Ephs' Nick Caro

21/7-- Catches/catches per game for Middlebury's Andrew Matson (tops in NESCAC)

137/27/3 - Yards, carries, and TDs for Ephs' Brian Morrissey last year against the Panthers

3 -- Sacks by Ephs Charlie Birns (tops in NESCAC)

5 - Number of interceptions by the Ephs against then first-year Panther QB Donald McKillop in last year's game

7 - Number of interceptions by Eph defense this year (tied for tops in NESCAC with Hamilton)

Starting Lineups