Last post of the year

Brianne Craig and Kolby Koberstein

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Brianne Craig and Kolby Koberstein

SOU football – Dylan Young and Austin Dodge lift the NAIA Championship trophy while Heston Altenbach looks on
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P.S. Matt Sayre isn’t fat. Here is a non-distorted version…
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… this happened.

Ben Bachman will be a sophomore, Jeremy Scottow will be a senior, and Sean McShane will be a senior in 2015.

Aldrick Rosas, whose string or 116 consecutive PATs was broken this year but he has started another string of 15 to be continued next year, will be a junior in 2015.
I’m still getting lots of requests for prints of these photos of the football team in the NAIA Championship game. Instructions are in this earlier post.
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Aldrick Rosas had eight kickoffs that went for touchbacks in addition to being a perfect 7-7 in PATS and 2-2 in field goals including a 48 yarder

Austin Dodge celebrates his final collegiate game
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With the graduation of the 2014 NAIA Player of the Year, Austin Dodge, the biggest question with regard to the future of the Raider football team is “Who will be the quarterback in 2015 (and beyond)?”
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The SOU football team will be losing many of their seniors from the championship team for next season.
However, the national championship should help with recruiting top student athletes in future years.

Austin Dodge will of course be gone, but Melvin Mason (over 1,000 yards and 17 TDs in 2014) will be a junior in 2015.
In addition, all three of the running backs have at least two years remaining.

Julius Rucker will be a junior in 2015.

#92 David Weider will be a senior, #26 Daniel Abernethy will be a sophomore, and #42 Isaiah Carter will also be a sophomore in 2015.
#10 Tevin Lake on Marian rushed for over 5,400 yards in his career, but the Raiders allowed only 68 of those yards on 18 carries.

Jaylenn Hart had 57 tackles this year and 3 interceptions against Marian. He will be a senior in 2015.
The future looks bright. More photos of next year’s returning players coming…

Coach Craig Howard on phone with Stan Smith “Mr. Raider” just prior to taking the field in Daytona
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Coach Howard had a quick conversation with Stan Smith a few minutes before the game began in which the Raiders won the NAIA National Championship. I’m not sure if Stan answered Coach Howard’s question and gave him his ring size then, but he better tell him now.
P.S. I still have many more photos from the game that I will be posting here. They are now spilling over onto additional pages. To see all of the photos I have posted so far click here, here, and here. For photos from Florida not necessarily directly tied to the game (but sometimes containing SOU football players) click here and here.
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I had never been in the SOU locker room prior to or during a game before. I don’t want to disturb anything, anybody, or be any sort of obstacle to the players or coaches. I was told I could go in for photos of the pre-game speech during this epic, championship game though. To see what it would be like, where I should stand, and to get my camera settings correct for the speech, I went in while everyone was on the field a half hour or so before game time. The above photo is the result.
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After the bus ride back to the hotel, the post-game recap took place in the Hilton rather than the normal location of on the field.
Before the game, Coach Howard came out to the tailgate to give the fans a speech. ESPNU later aired his words in the first half of the game. Part of what he said included, “Let’s all jump in that ocean together after this game.” He kept his promise.

Coach Howard shakes hands with Athletic Director Matt Sayre as President Roy Saigo looks on with friends, fans, and family – Sloppy Joe’s Daytona Beach
125+ more photos from the 2014 NAIA Championship can be found here.