The University of Richmond football team has set a number of program records this season, but on Friday it could win something no team in school history has — a national championship.

“We weren’t very successful when I got here and to have this happening,” senior defensive end Lawrence Sidbury Jr. said, “I couldn’t ask for anything else.”

Richmond has improved its record to 12-3 by beating three conference champions during the playoffs: Eastern Kentucky University, second-seeded Appalachian State University and the third-seeded University of Northern Iowa.

Richmond will play the University of Montana, the No. 4 seed with a 14-1 record, at 8 p.m. on Friday at Finley Stadium in Chattanooga, Tenn. Montana beat James Madison University, the No. 1 seed, last Friday during the first semifinal game.

“They don’t make a whole lot of mistakes,” coach Mike London said. “They’re in the right place at the right time and in good position, and that’s a mark of a well-coached team.”

The teams have only met once before, a 2000 quarterfinal game at Montana, which the Grizzlies won 34-20. Montana advanced to the national championship and lost to Georgia Southern University, but the Grizzlies have won two national titles, against Marshall University in 1995 and Furman University in 2001.

“I have a tremendous amount of respect for Montana,” London said. “They look like the Green Bay Packers. They’re in the championship game and they’ve been there before so to be the champion you’ve got to beat the champ.”

Montana also played in the 2004 championship, when it lost to James Madison University. Montana’s 19-overall and 16-straight playoff berths are FCS records, and the Grizzlies are 27-15 in their playoff games.

“We’re a program trying to be in the final games like they’ve been in the past,” London said. “You won’t hear any trash-talking from us. All you have to do is watch the tape and watch their body of work this season and 14-1 speaks for itself.”

Richmond now has seven overall and two-straight playoff appearances, with an 8-6 record in its playoff games. The Spiders had never played in a semifinal game until last year’s loss to Appalachian State. The 2007 season was also its first with 11 wins, and the 2008 team’s semifinal win against Northern Iowa set the program record with 12 wins.

Sidbury said the team was well-coached and had had success this season, but was never arrogant about its accomplishments.

“We have a quiet confidence about ourselves,” Sidbury said. “We don’t give people bulletin-board material. We don’t boast about what we can do. We just come out and prepare and play the game to the best of our abilities.”

Richmond has now won eight-straight games, and has not won nine-straight since 1998. The team’s last loss was to James Madison on Oct. 11, when the Dukes scored 15 points during the last minute to top the Spiders 38-31.

“That was a tough loss, but it taught us more than anything else that you’ve got to play the whole game,” London said. “You’ve got to give maximum effort.

“That game was kind of a wake-up call to the fact that if any of the players are going to realize any goals or dreams that they may have set forth for the season then from that point on we’re going to have to get it done.”

Sidbury said the team tried to be as perfect as possible. At this point in the playoffs, there are no bad teams, and he said all the games would be close.

“A football game’s up and down and everything’s not going to go perfect for you in a football game,” Sidbury said. “You have to have the same desire to play every play 100 percent. You should play your plays in the fourth quarter as if it’s the first quarter.”

Richmond learned from its mistakes against James Madison during last week’s game when it overcame a 13-point fourth-quarter deficit to beat Northern Iowa 21-20.

“We never stopped competing throughout the game, which made it more special,” Sidbury said. “I’m happy to have an opportunity to continue playing, especially in a national championship.”

Now the Spiders will face Montana, which relies more on passing (averaging 214.9 yards per game) than rushing (averaging 184.2 yards per game). Richmond tends to alternate between the two, averaging 185.6 rushing and 183.9 passing yards per game.

Richmond had to rely on some new receivers last week because sophomore wide receiver Kevin Grayson, a first-team All-Conference selection, was injured at the end of the first half of the Northern Iowa game. London said Grayson would make the trip to Chattanooga with the team on Tuesday night.

“At this point everybody’s nicked and bruised but this is it,” London said. “This is the game. He probably could have maybe went back in again and played but just decided at the point that we didn’t need to put him in there.”

Even if Grayson isn’t fully healed for Friday’s game, London said redshirt freshman wide receiver Donte Boston had done a great job in his place. London said he gave players such as Boston and senior fullback Shawn White chances last Saturday because it was going to take everybody to win that game.

“The guys that are backups, they want to play,” London said. “Their parents want them to play. They know that you’re just a play away so they prepare like they’re going to have to play in a game.”

One offensive backup has a particular reason to look forward to Saturday’s game. Senior quarterback and co-captain Will Healy is from Chattanooga, which means he will end his college career in his hometown.

“I understand his dad’s running for mayor so we might be wearing bumper stickers or stickers or something like that promoting that,” London said. “Will’s kind of the mayor around here, too, in Richmond. … We’ll see when we get up there. He says he knows all the good places to go.”

Defensively, London said Richmond had already benefited from its backups when sophomore linebacker Tyler Sullivan was injured. Sophomore linebackers Patrick Weldon and Jordan Shoop took his place, and they have become a critical part of a defense that limits its opponents to 266.3 yards of total offense per game. Montana allows its opponents 331.1 yards of total offense per game.

The Richmond defense has set a single-season record for interceptions with 28. The Spiders forced 41 turnovers this season, which have led to 156 points, while giving up only 19 turnovers themselves.

“We thrive on defensively trying to play aggressive and trying to create turnovers,” London said. “I think anyone would agree that defense wins championships.”

Montana, which has forced 36 turnovers and lost 18, ranks eighth in the FCS turnover margin at 1.20. Richmond, which has a 1.47 turnover margin, ranks third.

“Coach London won’t allow us to go through a whole practice without us going 100 percent,” Sidbury said. “Coming into the game we know that we’ve done what’s necessary to win a football game. Not saying that we’re going to win … we know that we’re prepared.”

Contact staff writer Barrett Neale at barrett.neale@richmond.edu

Richmond tight end Joe Stewart grabs a touchdown pass in the end zone, in front of UNI safety Darrell Lloyd, with 14 seconds remaining in the game, tying the score at 20. (Harry Baumert/The Des Moines Register. Used with permission.)

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa — When junior quarterback Eric Ward was practicing passing plays this week, senior tight end Joe Stewart was usually his third option.

Stewart said he had told Ward: “Don’t forget about me over there. Give me a chance.”

On Saturday, Stewart got his chance. His 71 receiving yards and five catches were career highs, and his touchdown with 14 seconds left in the game led the Spiders to a 21-20 win during the Football Championship Subdivision semifinals against the University of Northern Iowa.

“We’ve probably run that play 20 times this week,” Ward said. “That’s the first time I looked at him.”

The usual receivers were redshirt freshman wide receiver Tre Gray, who had six receptions for 68 yards, and Kevin Grayson, whose 40-yard touchdown gave the Spiders a 7-3 halftime lead. Grayson left the game at the end of the first half with an injury, and Ward had only four passing attempts during the third quarter.

“Eric is a young man who’s very poised,” coach Mike London said. “You can yell at Eric, and he doesn’t get disheveled. You can praise him, and he won’t get too high.”

Richmond started the fourth quarter down 20-7. Ward, who had a career-high 280 passing yards, pulled the Spiders within six on a 1-yard rushing touchdown with 11:16 left to play.

“We stayed confident that we could do this,” Ward said. “You just kind of stay level-headed and take what they give you.”

The Spiders got the ball back with less than eight minutes to go, but senior running back Josh Vaughan’s failed fourth-down conversion gave UNI possession with 2:13 left to play. The Richmond offense was back on the field just 29 seconds later because the team used all three of its timeouts to stop the clock during the Panthers’ drive and keep them from getting a first down.

“They had a lot of momentum going into the second half,” said junior defensive back Michael Ireland, who tied for the team lead with 11 tackles. “We had to keep our composure. We knew that we could play with them.”

The team practices a two-minute drill every Tuesday, Ward said, but it needed only 1:30 to put together its nine-play, 62-yard, game-winning drive. That possession culminated in the 13-yard touchdown pass to Stewart, who also had a 42-yard catch — the longest of his career — during the game.

“We were just hitting some little plays down the field,” Stewart said. “It was great and he finished it with a perfect ball to me.”

Northern Iowa coach Mark Farley said he would have changed some aspects of his defensive plan at the end of the game, but that the team’s two missed field goals were part of some offensive mistakes the team made as well.

“When you play in the final four going down the stretch … there’s little room for error,” Farley said.

Richmond’s passing success was important because it usually relies more on its running game, averaging 189.3 rushing yards a game to its 177 passing yards a game. The team had 134 rushing yards against a tough Northern Iowa defense.

“They’re physical up front,” said Vaughan, who had 86 rushing yards. “They’re physical all around. They start to shut down the run and it starts to open up the passing game.”

Defensively, junior defensive back Derek Hatcher had a career-high 11 tackles, and the Spiders limited the Panthers to six successful third-down conversions out of 13 attempts. But the Spiders allowed 146 rushing and 224 passing yards, compared with their season average of 94.2 rushing and 164.7 passing yards allowed per game.

The Spiders defense failed to force any turnovers for just the second time all season — the last was being the team’s loss to James Madison University on Oct. 11. Instead, Richmond turned the ball over when Gray fumbled during the third quarter, allowing the Panthers to extend their lead to 17-7 less than two minutes after they’d scored their first touchdown of the game.

The Spiders also had some trouble with false-start penalties throughout the game. London had tried to prepare the team for the noise in the UNI-Dome during the past week, but said the crowd of 12,062 was one of the loudest environments he had ever been in.

“They settled in and looked at the center,” London said about the team’s response to the false start calls.

“When he snapped it, we went. They were focusing in on what they had to get done to win this game.”

Back at home, the Robins Center — sparsely filled with Richmond fans watching a live ESPN telecast on big-screen projectors — echoed with cheers and screams from fans watching the winning touchdown. Elsewhere, other students watched the game in apartments and dorm rooms, and there were reports of yelling, cheering and honking horns throughout campus after the victory.

Athletics Director Jim Miller, speaking to a reporter at the women’s basketball game in Richmond, said the win firmly established Richmond as a national contender in college football.

“Last week was this biggest win ever for our program,” he said. “Now this is the biggest win ever.”

For the senior student-athletes, getting to a national championship is an accomplishment they deserve, Miller said.

“When we turned the ball over on fourth down at the end of the game, I was a believer … but I wasn’t sure,” he said laughing, referring to the drive that led to the Spiders’ winning touchdown.

This was Richmond’s second trip to the semifinals. Last year, the team lost to Appalachian State University, the second seed this year that Richmond beat during the quarterfinals. Now, Richmond is headed to Chattanooga, Tenn., to play in the first national championship game in program history.

“We wanted to take a step forward” from what the team did last year, London said. “We took that step today.”

To reach the championship game, the Spiders had to beat three conference champions — Eastern Kentucky University from the Ohio Valley Conference, Appalachian State from the Southern Conference and Northern Iowa from the Missouri Valley Conference. Northern Iowa ended its season with a 12-3 record.

“There’s no question it’s hard and so disappointing because you feel so bad for these guys who are sitting here,” Farley said. “Having it taken away in the last second, that’s what’s hard. This one hurts because we had it.”

The team was minutes away from accomplishing what it set out to do for the season, but Farley said he didn’t want the players to think that they could or should have played better against the Spiders.

“What they’ve done this season is much more important than what they did today,” Farley said.

Richmond will travel to Chattanooga on Wednesday to prepare for the championship game against the University of Montana, which beat first-seeded James Madison University in the other semifinal game on Friday. The game is at 8 p.m. on Friday and will be televised on ESPN2.

“There’s something truly unique about these guys and about this season,” London said. “We have one more game to live this dream.”

Contact staff writer Barrett Neale at barrett.neale@richmond.edu

Collegian staff writer Barrett Neale reported from Cedar Falls, Iowa. Staff writer Dan Petty contributed reporting from Richmond, Va.