North Central College looks to win back-to-back college football national championships
NAPERVILLE, Ill. (CBS) – It's playoff time in Division-III college football and that means like clockwork, North Central College has a chance to win it all again.
CBS 2's Jori Parys visited a Cardinals team that's set to play in a fourth-straight national championship game on Friday in Salem, Virginia.
Junior quarterback Luke Lehnen has only known how to end a football season in one way: playing for a national championship, now with a chance to make it back-to-back.
"I think it's very valuable, especially being on both sides of it, freshman year losing the championship and then last year winning it," Lehnen said. "The experience is definitely important coming into it for the third year in a row and I definitely think it makes us a stronger team."
Head coach Brad Spencer added, "Once you get there once, you become addicted to it, and it gets harder every single time. I was told that after the first one from someone who had been there many, many times, and he was right. It is harder to keep going back."
The Cardinals dominated their way back to a championship game but did feel battle-tested after trailing for the first time all season in the semifinals. Lehnen led the offense on a game-winning touchdown drive. The defense then sealed the win with a fourth down stop.
"I think after that drive, first play, [we] came out with a 50-or-so yard pass," he said. "It really showed us, OK, yeah, we're still the North Central Cardinals that we normally are. We just have to believe it."
Spencer, a second-year coach, has the Cardinals on the longest winning streak in college football with a 29-0 record.
A 30th-straight win against Cortland on Friday night would mean the most.
