Wartburg Earns No. 4 Ranking In Final Football Poll; Three Players Named All-American

Wartburg matched its highest finish in school history in the final d3football.com rankings of the season and three players were named All-Americans by the organization on Sunday (December 21, 2014).

The Knights received the No. 4 spot in the final edition of d3football.com's Top-25 poll. The end-of-the-season ranking is the best for Wartburg since 2003, when the Knights also finished the year at No. 4.

Three Wartburg players were named d3football.com All-Americans. Senior offensive lineman Chris Brinkmeyer (Orangeville, Ill.) was a first-team selection, senior cornerback Spencer Capitani (Northwood, Iowa) was a second-team honoree, and junior quarterback Logan Schrader (Killdeer, Ill.) was picked for the third-team. Schrader is the first quarterback from Wartburg to be named an All-American.

The trio becomes the 38th, 39th and 40th All-Americans in program history.

Wartburg won its second-straight Iowa Conference championship to earn the league's automatic berth to the NCAA playoffs. The Knights won a school-record 12 games and set four new team records while advancing to the tournament's Elite Eight, where they suffered their only setback of the season – a heart-breaking 37-33 quarterfinal loss at Wisconsin-Whitewater on December 6th. Wartburg had a 33-16 lead entering the fourth quarter.

Whitewater won its second-straight Division-III National Championship Friday night, beating Mount Union 43-34 in the 27th Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl (title game) at Salem, Virginia. It's the sixth national title for the Warhawks in the past eight seasons.