ALLIANCE, Ohio - The playoff road is filled with roadblocks and chuck holes and fraught with detours and opponents that are unintimidated and can be drastically more talented than any ranking or rating may judge.

It's one of the beauties of college football.

The fifth-ranked University of Mount Union football team anticipated all that and acted accordingly on Saturday when it played host to 13^th-ranked Carnegie Mellon in a third-round game of the Division III playoffs.

As the proverb goes, to be forewarned is to be forearmed and the Raiders – favored to win by the media stalwarts -- were forearmed enough to hold off the determined Tartans and continue on the playoff road with a hard-earned 24-19 victory in front of 2,486 chilled fans in Kehres Stadium.

Mount Union (12-0) will travel to Maryland next Saturday for a quarterfinal game against eighth-ranked and undefeated Salisbury, which defeated unranked Randolph Macon, 35-14, in another third-round game.

The Raiders and Salisbury were two of the more fortunate teams residing in the Top 25 of the latest D3Football poll. Half of the eight third-round games ended in what could be determined as "upsets" and the favorites had their seasons come to an unexpected early end. To wit: Cortland, the second-ranked team, was defeated by 23d-ranked Springfield, 40
28, St. John's, ranked third, was beaten by sixth-ranked Susquehanna, also by the ignominious score of 40-28., DePauw, ranked ninth, was beaten by 19^th-ranked Johns Hopkins, 14-9., Wartburg, ranked 11^th, was beaten by 21^st-ranked Bethel, 24-14.

UMU and CMU were even across the stat sheet except in one area. Both ran 67 plays and scored three touchdowns. Each team ran the ball 36 times. Mount rushed for 143 yards; Carnegie Mellon 132.

Each attempted 31 passes. The Raiders threw for 218 yards; the Tartans 193.

Mount had a 26-21 edge in first downs. Neither team lost a fumble.

"Carnegie Mellon is a great team," said Mount Union coach Geoff Dartt, now 54-3 since taking over in 2020. "They are very well coached. We'd like to have some plays back but what a great football game. We're happy to come out on top."

The one area where the Raiders had a distinct edge was in the unofficial category of Making Big Plays When Big Plays Are Required.

That went to All-American linebacker (or bandit in Mount jargon) Rossy Moore (Lima/Central Catholic) and his fellow defender, end Kaleb Brown (LaPLata, Md./LaPlata). They combined for the biggest play of the game when it counted most.

Two earlier sequences turned the game in the Raiders' favor. The first came in the second quarter when they scored 10 points in about a four-minute span while holding the Tartans scoreless. That put Mount in front, 24-13 heading into the final 15 minutes.

The second sequence came in the fourth quarter after CM had cut Mount's lead to the final five-point margin on the second play of the quarter. Mills and Reece Kolke capped a 16-play, 75-yard drive with a 9-yard scoring play. A 2-point try failed by UM was just five points back.

The Raiders answered the gut-check by putting together drives of nine plays for 46 plays and 11 plays for another 46. While neither resulted in points it took 10:31 off the clock.

The first possession fizzled at the CM 30 but the Mount defense forced a three-and-out. The second possession stalled at the CM 40 and a Mike Franklin punt pinned CM on its 14-yard line with 2:44 left.

CM was able to move to the Raiders' 46-yard line but three incomplete passes set up Brown and Moore to make the defensive play of the game.

With Mills operating out of the shotgun, Brown swept in from the left side and flushed him out of the pocket, where he was met by the All-American Moore, who made the sack with 1:20 to play.

"Our mindset for sure was to close out the game," said Moore, who finished with six tackles. "There was talk about switching the formation or something but they decided to let me and Kaleb rush off the edge and make a play and take us home. We put a lot of time and effort and work super hard on our pass rush so when the moment comes we're ready."

Dartt, the 2024 Ohio Athletic Conference Coach of the Year, had faith in his defense on CM's final drive.

"We were confident that we could get a stop on defense and they did that and it ended the game," he said.

Moore and Brown weren't the only big-time playmakers.

All-American running back Tyler Echeverry (Naples, Fla./Barron Collier) rushed for 112 yards and two touchdowns on 27 carries and turned four receptions into 36 yards, getting 35 of those after initial contact.

"I'll say it every time and it'll sound like a cliché, but some of the seams our offensive line can create against some pretty good defensive lines and linebackers are just insane. I work with them every so it's kind of second nature when you see that just to hit it hard."

Senior wide receiver Tyrell Sanders (Indianapolis/Pike) led the team with eight receptions for 85 yards, including gains of 16, 11 and 15 that prolonged Mount's final two drives.
"My approach is just to make a play every time it comes my way," he said. "They were playing very soft coverage so we dialed some stuff up to take advantage of that. They were playing off so we were getting quick gains and some deep stuff. Our job is to take advantage of every opportunity."

Quarterback TJ Deshields (Beloit/West Branch) continued to play strongly in place of the injured Noah Beaudrie. Deshields completed 23 of 30 passes for 218 yards and completed 9 of 11 throws for 67 yards on the final two possessions.

In eight games the graduate student has completed 72 of 108 throws for 831 yards and five touchdowns against three interceptions.

"He's calm," Dartt said of Deshields. "He's cool, calm, collected. We've heard that before. I thought the offensive line for the most part did a pretty good job of protecting him."
  
Defensively, freshman cornerback Zack Liebler (Massillon/Washington) led Mount with nine tackles and linebacker Marcus Jackson (Dallas/Richardson) was next with seven.

On to the quarterfinals.
 
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