Box Score POSTGAME INTERVIEWS: Victor Santa Cruz | Terrell Watson
GLENDORA, Calif. -- Those who continue to doubt Azusa Pacific's worthiness of a playoff appearance do so at their own risk. The No. 22-ranked Cougars shook off the latest drop in the regional rankings, emphatically answering any remaining questions about its playoff legitimacy by closing out the regular season with a 54-0 victory over Menlo College Saturday night.
Leading the way, per usual, was the Cougars' Harlon Hill trophy nominee Terrell Watson, who added his first NCAA record to the 24 GNAC and 20 school records he brought into his final home game. In the process of shattering his own school single-game rushing record while establishing a new conference record with 338 rushing yards, Watson barreled for 259 yards in the second half to break the Division II record for rushing yards in a half (previously 229).
His efforts pushed him to the top of college football's national rushing list with 2,153 yards on the season, catapulting him all the way to 13th on the Division II single-season rushing yardage list. Watson spearheaded a bruising rushing attack that also broke Azusa Pacific's school single-game rushing record with 482 yards to break the previous mark of 453, set some 41 years earlier.
The Cougar defense had its share of doubters after surrendering 30 points in late October to the GNAC's most productive offense (South Dakota Mines). Azusa Pacific's response defensively has been to yield just 8.0 points per game in three November games heading into the playoff selection weekend. If the Cougar offense was clicking on all cylinders, so too was a defense that held Menlo to just 144 yards of total offense on 69 offensive plays.
The only other question mark on Azusa Pacific's postseason resume is its schedule, deemed to some outsiders as not strong enough to warrant inclusion in the top six of Super Region Three, which features nine teams ranked in the top 22 of this week's national coaches poll. However, the Cougars seemingly addressed that by starting the year with a national-TV matchup with Grand Valley State, a 2013 national semifinalist and Division II's all-time winningest program. In fact, despite a slow start, Grand Valley State finished the year at 6-5, one of four wins Azusa Pacific has under its belt over teams with winning records.
With Saturday's win, Azusa Pacific has won 24 of 27 games dating back to the middle of the 2012 season, and the Cougars have won 19 of their past 20 conference games while claiming back-to-back GNAC titles.
In fact, Azusa Pacific is one of just nine Division II programs to post consecutive 10-win seasons (2013-14); of that group, the Cougars are the only ones who ranked outside the top-five of their respective super regional rankings last week, competing in a super region which contains four of the other eight Division II programs with back-to-back 10-win campaigns.
Watson was joined by another 100-yard rusher in redshirt freshman QB Chad Jeffries, who carried 12 times for 144 yards and another score while winning his ninth straight start to improve to 9-1 as a collegiate starter.
Defensively, the Cougars entered the game ranked third nationally in sacks and 22nd in Division II in turnover margin, and they solidified their standing by creating six turnovers and five sacks to go with six QB hurries and nine total tackles for loss. Leading the way was senior free safety Tyler Thornton, last year's GNAC Defensive Player of the Year and a Sporting News preseason All-American who registered six tackles and picked off two passes. Greg Ehrhart, Ronald Douglas, and Steven Fanua each added interceptions, and Andre Myles recovered a fumble for the Cougars' sixth takeaway of the game, all at the hands of Azusa Pacific seniors.
With the regular season complete, Azusa Pacific now turns its attention to Sunday's NCAA Division II Playoffs Selection Show, which will be broadcast live on NCAA.com at 2 p.m. Pacific time.
