Undefeated since 1967. For decades it was a joke at Wright State about how our non-existent football team had never lost a game. Well, in 2009 that non-existent football team became real.
The opening year of the WSU club football team was something few people thought they would ever see. Even fewer expected the team to run the table and finish 7-0 to become the top-ranked club football team in the country.
The first game in WSU football history was a road test against the Wilmington Quakers, an NCAA Division III program. The Raiders shocked the Quakers by winning the game on a last second field goal.
“There was an incredible sense of pride in winning our first game ever,” quarterback Jimmy Ross said. “The fact that it was a varsity program was icing on the cake. This game gave us a sort of identity for the rest of the season.”
The team not only had the pressure of trying to win games against other programs, but they also knew that support from within the team could dwindle if they didn’t win immediately.
“If we went in and got embarrassed, players would drop off and we would continue to lose,” Korey Crouse said. “If that happened there was no guarantee WSU would have a team come next year. We were carrying that on our backs. After our 1st game against Wilmington, people didn’t just think we can win some games. We knew we would win every game and we played that way.”
That victory gave the Raiders a spark that continued for the next six games as the team stormed through opponents like Miami, Southern Illinois and Ohio State.
“We saw every game as a blessing that we could play and never looked ahead,” Ross said. “The byproduct of all these ingredients was a perfect season.”
Despite the immediate success, some players on the team still thought other programs were taking them lightly just because they had the name “Wright State” on their jersey.
“Without a doubt teams took us lightly,” Crouse said. “It happened in the first game against Wilmington. We felt that disrespect, we heard that disrespect and we had too much pride in ourselves to let them
get away with that. We went in with the weight of our program on our shoulders and we played like it could have been our last game. For all we knew it could have been.”
But what the players value most is the bonds the team had and the memories they share.
“I remember the friends we gained, bonds we created and history we made,” Ross said. “That season has added something to my character. I will never forget my high school football seasons, or memories with friends, but this experience was perhaps legendary. The most memorable thing about the season is the priceless kinship that 30 young men will have for the rest of their lives.”
“I’ll never forget the brotherhood that was made from everything we went through that year,” Crouse said. “I’ll never forget our secondary ‘No Fly Zone’ with me, Nick Jones, KP and Cameron, where footballs came to die. I’ll never forget our first coach quitting on us and our team banding together and making it happen so we could have a season, and I’ll never forget the first time I put on the WSU jersey and getting that first victory.”
