The following is part of a 10-week series on the history of UW-Stout football. The series, which has run every Wednesday in The Dunn County News, is a collaboration with the The News, the Dunn County Historical Society and UW-Stout Athletics. The Stout football program will mark the centennial with a reunion celebration on Homecoming, Saturday, Oct. 1. For more information about the reunion, call the UW-Stout athletic office at 715-232-2224.
By Layne Pitt
UW-Stout Sports Information Director
Prospects for UW-Stout's 2000 football season did not look good.
The Blue Devils were coming off a 2-8 overall season and a last place 1-6 finish in the 1999 Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) standings. In a conference preseason poll, Stout was picked to repeat as cellar dwellers.
In addition, the Blue Devils' offensive backfield was in disarray. Projected starting tailback Aaron Johnson was in serious condition in a St. Paul, Minn., hospital after being struck by a car one day before the start of training camp. Only days before the first game of the season against Lakeland, coach Ed Meierkort had not decided on the starting quarterback and the Blue Devils would go through the season alternating quarterbacks.
But, looking back, the Blue Devils showed signs of pushing off their previous season slumber. Linebackers Jamie Spielman and Eric Lund, along with punter Kevin McCulley, earned preseason honorable mention All-America honors. And in what very well could be one of the major factors, the team rallied around a recovering Johnson, who would go on to attend Stout's homecoming win over UW-La Crosse, and other late season games.
Several players - Abraham Cruz, Steve Miller, Eric Baker, Brian Johnson, Tony Beckham, and Jeff Hutter, among many others - would step up throughout the season and a couple of new players would write their names into Stout football history - freshman running back Luke Bundgaard and defensive line transfer Jeff Hazuga.
UW-Stout 34, Lakeland College 6
The Blue Devil defense allowed a school record minus-37 yards rushing on their way to throttling the Muskies in Sheboygan.
UW-Stout 47, Franklin College 3
Bundgaard rushed for his first of 18 career 100-yard games, tallying 155 yards on 22 carries and utility back Mark Bergman rushed for two scores. In a shift in offensive philosophy from the previous years, the Blue Devils converted from a passing offense to a rushing offense, running the ball 50 times against Lakeland, 60 against Franklin.
UW-Stout 16, UW-Stevens Point 8
The Blue Devils had soared to 13th in the AFCA poll and Stout acted like a top-25 team, holding the Pointers to minus 10 yards rushing a 110 yards total. Bundgaard rushed for his second consecutive 100-yard game.
UW-Stout 34, UW-River Falls 13
Lund returned two fumbles for touchdowns and Stout overcame a first half deficit to control the second half for their first win at River Falls since 1981.
UW-Stout 17, UW-Eau Claire 14
McCulley kicked a 41-yard field goal with less than five minutes remaining to give Stout the three-point edge. Lund scored his first offensive touchdown of his collegiate career, lining up as tailback to bull to the end zone in the first quarter. Eau Claire answered back, then took the lead before Bundgaard rambled 30 yards to tie the score just before the half.
UW-Stout 27, UW-La Crosse 23
The undefeated Blue Devils certainly knew about tradition-laden LaCrosse, who was led by first year coach Larry Terry. Blue Devil coach Ed Meierkort, before the game said about La Crosse, "They have more conference championships than we have tackling dummies."
Trailing, 23-20 with 1:35 at Nelson Field, quarterback Justin Fjeldstad led a 76-yard drive, capped off by an 11-yard TD pass to Abraham Cruz to move into sole possession of first place.
UW-Stout 43, UW-Platteville 35
In the highest scoring game of the season, Stout's top ranked passing defense did not shut down the league's top ranked passing offense, but had enough to move to 7-0, Stout's best start in school history.
The Blue Devils trailed 35-24 heading into the fourth quarter, but scored 19 unanswered points for the win. McCulley booted a 31-yard field goal, Stout recorded a safety, tight end Brian Johnson hauled in a 15-yard pass from QB Matt Bichanich and Bundgaard rolled off a 71-yard run with less than two minutes to play, for his fourth TD of the day and a school-record 335 yards rushing.
UW-Stout 37, UW-Oshkosh 21
The Blue Devils botched a punt snap and the Titans capitalized to pull to with 24-14, but Beckham returned the ensuing kickoff 85 yards for the score as Stout clinched at least a share of the conference title. Bundgaard tallied 151 yards to go over 1,000 yards, the first time a Stout back had topped 1,000 yards since 1991. Stout rolled up 455 total yards.
UW-Stout 14, UW-Whitewater 13
Stout took its first conference crown since 1965 by making a two-point conversion and seeing a UW-Whitewater two-point conversion late in the game come up short. McCulley booted two field goals to give Stout a 6-0 lead, but the Warhawks took the 7-6 lead on a four yard run by quarterback Randy Borgardt in the third quarter in Whitewater. Bundgaard capped off a 48-yard drive with a three-yard score. Tight end Johnson snagged the conversion pass from Fjeldstad to give Stout a 14-7 lead. The Warhawks would score with 1:27 left when Chad Wurth scored from 27 yards out. But Wurth, the place kicker, was injured on the play and Borgardt was knocked out earlier in the game. The two-point conversion pass fell short.
UW-Stout 17, UM-Duluth 15
McCulley kicked a 35-yard field goal in the Metrodome with 13 seconds left to give Stout its first-ever undefeated, untied regular season record.
St. John's University 26, UW-Stout 19
The Blue Devils met their match in their first-ever NCAA playoff appearance by hosting perennial football power St. John's at freezing Nelson Field on Nov. 18 as the majority of the scoring was done in the first quarter. The Johnnies took an early 12-2 lead (Stout's Cruz returned a PAT for two points) five minutes into the game, but the Blue Devils came back on a Bundgaard score to pull to within 12-9 at the 4:07 mark. Despite being harassed all afternoon by Jeff Hazuga (who had six tackles for loss and was in on three sacks), SJU quarterback Tom Linnemann completed 18 passes, seven to Blake Elliott, who scored with about a minute left in the first quarter and a 19-9 St. John's lead.
A McCulley field goal midway through the second quarter made the score 19-12. St. John's scored again in the fourth and Stout added a five-yard reception by Cruz late in the game for the final score.
Overview
The Blue Devils snagged their first conference championship since 1965 and their fifth overall. Stout finished at 10-1, their most wins in a single season, and engineered the biggest turnaround in NCAA Division III history.
Hazuga, after recording 14 sacks on the season, was the WIAC player of the year and an AFCA All-America pick and went on to sign with the NFL's Minnesota Vikings. McCulley and offensive lineman Jeff Hutter earned first team All-America awards. Several players earned varying levels of All-America awards. Thirteen players were named all-conference and Ed Meierkort was named the WIAC and region coach of the year.
Tony Beckham would go on to earn first team All-America awards the next year and have a five-year career in the NFL. Bundgaard set Stout's single season rushing record, which he surpassed in 2003, and would become the WIAC's all-time leading rusher (since surpassed) and holds the all-time rushing mark for Stout.
The team's most valuable player for the season as selected by the players? Aaron Johnson.
The 1990s
The 2000 championship season capped off a decade that had its share of excitement.
Rich Vargas established himself as a two-sport athlete, winning the 1994 indoor 55-meter dash title, and was one of Stout's most electric runners of all-time. Vargas was a first team All-WSUC selection n 1991 when he rushed for 1,042 yards and scored 13 touchdowns, all on the ground. Against UW-Eau Claire that season, Vargas scored four touchdowns.
During the 1992 season, Vargas set a couple of single game records, breaking off a 98-yard touchdown run against UW-Oshkosh. Also in that Oshkosh game, Vargas carried the ball 37 times, a mark that was tied two years later and a mark that Bundgaard surpassed five times.
Following a few sub-.500 seasons through the early part of the 1990s, excitement returned to Nelson Field in the form of quarterback Matt Bunyan from 1995-98.
After riding the bench as a freshman, the 6-foot-6 Bunyan began to unleash his strong arm during the 1996 season, tossing the ball for more than 200 yards in five games. During the 1997 season, Bunyan led the country in total offense, throwing for 3,221 yards - still a single season school record - and 33 touchdowns.
Bunyan, who entered the Stout Hall of Fame in 2010, topped the touchdown number the following season, throwing for 3,220 yards and 38 touchdowns to bring his career touchdown totals to 85. Over his three years, Bunyan was able to throw to receivers Scott Wojcik, Jesse Diaz, Jimmy Pillars, and speedster and track All-American Jesse Witcraft, who will enter the Hall of Fame this year.
The Janesville, native five times in his career threw for more than 400 yards in a game and 12 times for 300-plus yards. In 1998, he threw for six TDs against Minnesota-Morris and three times that season he combined for a five-touchdown, 400-yard game.
Bunyan had the fortune, or misfortune, to play at the same time as some of the best quarterbacks to ever play in the WSUC. Bunyan was never a first team all-WSUC selection, even though during his senior year he was a finalist for the Gagliardi Award, NCAA DIII's equivalent to the Heisman Award.
The 1990s also produced two of the best kickers in Stout history - punter Andy Caflisch and punter/kicker McCulley.
Caflisch earned all-conference honors four times from 1990-93 and the All-American was in five different NFL camps over several years after graduation.
McCulley may best be remembered as Stout's barefooted kicker, even during the winter-like weather of November. After a couple of inconsistent first seasons, McCulley proved very valuable to the Blue Devils. In 2000, McCulley set the school record for longest punt, 82 yards against River Falls. A two-time first team all-conference pick, McCulley was named to four different All-America teams in 2000 and is currently fifth on the all-time Stout scoring list with 163 points.
McCulley and Caflisch share the single season punting average record with an even 41 yards per punt, and McCulley surpassed Caflisch for career punting average with a 39.4 yard average.
