North Central College Set To Return To Division III National Championship Game In Hopes Of Back-To-Back Titles
NAPERVILLE, Ill. (CBS) -- North Central College takes on the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in the Division III National Championship Friday night in Canton, Ohio.
As CBS 2's Jackie Kostek reported Tuesday night, the North Central Cardinals are trying to go back-to-back.
"You've got to understand that every day when you come out to practice, we're preparing for this," said Head Coach Jeff Thorne.
In all of college football, you would be hard-pressed to find a team with more dominant, stylish wins than North Central College – and yet the Cardinals are anything but complacent.
"All year, we know we haven't played our best game," said Sharmore Clarke, a fifth-year senior from Oak Park.
The Cards now have the chance not only to play their best game of an undefeated season, but win their second straight national championship.
"We're not defending anything," said Storm Simmons, a fifth-year linebacker. "You know, we're going out and pursuing another national championship."
Close to half the team playing for the national championship are seniors – many of them in their fifth year. And when you talk about dominance, this team has not lost a game since October 2019.
They have the current longest win streak in college football at 24 games.
"We had a good group of juniors that were going to be seniors that could've moved on into the real world, but we all kind of banded together and wanted to win another championship, and we all had to come back in order to do that," said cornerback Jake Beesley.
So what would that win look like?
"It's going to be a movie – that's all I can say," said Clarke, adding that the ending of the movie would be "Cards on top."