Nov. 18, 2002

BALTIMORE, Md. -- The Johns Hopkins University football team, which captured a share of its first-ever Centennial Conference Championship with a 27-7 win over 15th-ranked McDaniel last Saturday, will play at Frostburg State on Saturday, November 23 in the ECAC Southwest Championship Game. The game, which will be the first playoff game in Johns Hopkins football history, is scheduled for a noon kickoff at Frostburg's Bobcat Stadium.

Under the guidance of 13th-year coach Jim Margraff, Johns Hopkins won its first five games of the season and was ranked as high as number 26 in the nation at one point. The Blue Jays' 5-0 start was the school's best since 1931. Hopkins dropped back-to-back games to Muhlenberg and Randolph-Macon before rebounding to win games against Dickinson and Franklin & Marshall.

That set the stage for the showdown with McDaniel. A win would give the Blue Jays a share of their first conference title of any kind since 1969, while a loss would give McDaniel the outright championship. After falling behind 7-0, Hopkins scored 27 straight points and forced seven McDaniel turnovers en route to claiming a share of the title with a school-record eighth win on the year.

The climb to the top of the Centennial Conference has been a steady one for Hopkins under Margraff, who ranks as the program's all-time winningest coach with a 74-52-3 (.585) record. A 1982 Johns Hopkins graduate, Margraff inherited a team that had won just two games in the previous two years combined. He quickly made his mark, however as Hopkins posted a 5-4-1 record in his first two seasons and a 6-4 mark in his third. After back-to-back 4-6 seasons in 1993 and 1994, the Blue Jays embarked on the winningest four-year period in school history.

From 1995-98 the Blue Jays posted a 27-12-1 (.688) record, including a 19-8-1 (.696) mark in the Centennial. Included were three straight 7-3 seasons (1996-98) and back-to-back years (1997-98) where Hopkins played for a share of the conference title in the last game of the season. Still, the title eluded the Blue Jays. The 1999 and 2000 seasons saw the Blue Jays struggle to a 9-11 combined record, but one season, 2001, and one game, against Western Maryland in the 2001 season-finale, set the stage for this season.

Playing the ninth-ranked Green Terror on the road, Hopkins pulled off what many considered at that point the biggest win in program history as the Blue Jays shocked Western Maryland, 21-14. Despite heavy losses on both sides of the ball, the win over Western Maryland propelled the Blue Jays to the quick start this season, which has Hopkins playing into the post-season for the first time ever.

Johns Hopkins posted an 8-2 record during the regular season, including a 5-1 mark in the Centennial Conference. The Blue Jays shared the Centennial Conference title with Muhlenberg and McDaniel as all three teams posted a 5-1 record in the league. Muhlenberg earned the Centennial's automatic bid the NCAA Playoffs based on a strength of schedule formula, while Johns Hopkins and McDaniel will both play in an ECAC South Championship Game.

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