Although the 2015 Pioneer football season ended Nov. 14 with the team failing to reach the playoffs, the program’s national reputation improved and the consistency of a winning tradition was consolidated.

The No. 16 ranked Pioneers concluded their season with a 52-7 victory over the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Eagles, which placed them seventh in the West Region. However, following the NCAA selection committee’s calculated adjudication, the Pioneers did not qualify for the 32-team 2015 Division III Football Championship Official Bracket.

The Pioneers concluded their 2015 season with an 8-2 overall record and a Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference record of 5-2, averaging 38.1 points per game, while allowing 21.7 points per game.

Defensive backs coach, assistant head coach and special teams coordinator Ulrich Daeuber has been part of the coaching staff for 17 years and said that the whole team anticipated different news on Sunday when the at-large selections were made and the bracket was filled.

“We have a shot, we have a legitimate shot,” Daeuber said. “In the back of our minds we should have beaten Whitewater, but we were [thinking] we have a shot to get at them again.”

The Pioneers’ two losses came against UW-Oshkosh on Oct. 24, 63-28, and against UW-Whitewater on Oct. 3, 17-7, both teams of which finished in the top eight of the American Football Coaches Association’s latest poll.

Over the past five years, the Pioneers have accumulated an overall record of 40-12 and made the playoffs once in 2013, under head coach Mike Emendorfer’s lead. Five years prior, Emendorfer’s teams finished 18-31.

Daeuber said the recent success of the program shows the conference and the nation that the Pioneers have consistency. He also said that recruits would now recognize the program as having a winning tradition and that they would expect more from current players.

“For our players they know that we have this winning tradition, now our guys go into games expecting to win,” Daeuber said. “We didn’t have that when we first came here.”

According to the UW-Platteville athletics website, the team will lose 17 seniors, five from offense and 12 from defense. Five of those 12 will be Daeuber’s defensive backs.

Junior defensive back Patrick Swanson said that it is going to be weird not seeing all of the seniors around and that the thought of them not being around is hard to settle in his mind. Swanson said that he understands his future role in the program, moving forward without the players they are used to.

“I am one of a few upperclassmen defensive backs returning and it’s going to put a lot of leadership on my shoulders to take the younger guys and get them to where we need to be,” Swanson said.

Of the 11 starting defensive positions, six were seniors in the season’s final game against the Eagles. Of those six, four have been named to a previous all-conference team and one named all-American. Over 50 percent of the team’s 692 recorded tackles came from the seniors this season.

“We’re definitely going to lose some leadership there that we’ve had,” Daeuber said. “That’s going to be the biggest thing for those young guys coming in and filling those shoes, making sure we have consistency.”

With UW-Oshkosh winning the WIAC and UW-Whitewater earning an at-large bid, it would have been the first time in history that the WIAC sent three teams to the NCAA National Playoffs, were the Pioneers to qualify.

“Just by winning the conference you have played two of the best teams in the country,” Swanson said. “With the momentum of winning conference and taking that into the playoffs you’re automatically looked at as a real contender for the national championship.”

Dauber said this season solidified the top tier national consistency for the Pioneer program, especially following the upset over then No. 13 North Central College in week three, which he said was the highlight of the season.

“We are a top-15 team right now; the next step is to be a top-five team in the nation,” Daeuber said.

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