For a fourth consecutive season, Aurora University’s football team is will play the NCAA Division III football championship playoffs.
The Spartans (10-0 overall, 8-0 in the NAAC, Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference) will be host to Coe College (9-1, 7-1 ARC, American Rivers Conference) at Spartan Athletic Park in Montgomery at noon Saturday, Nov. 18.
The 2023 NCAA Division III playoff will be historic for the Spartan football program because AU will be host to a game for the first time.
The Spartans received a Pool A berth Sunday, Nov. 12 after finishing the regular season with another program record 10-0 overall and 8-0 record in the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference Championship.
This year is Aurora’s eighth playoff appearance in program history and fourth consecutive season.
The upcoming meeting is the fifth all-time between the two football programs with Coe holding a 4-0 record. The last meeting came in the 2007 season with Coe defeating AU, 37-7, on the former Vago Field on the Aurora University campus.
Aurora University football is under the direction of head coach Don Beebe, in his fifth season at the Spartan helm.
AU is led by an offense that ranks second in scoring at 58.4 points per game and sixth in total offense (520.9 yards per game). Defensively the Spartans rank 20th in total defense (250.5 yards per game) and eighth in scoring defense in allowing 10.4 points per game.
—Aurora University