Senior Collin Hoyhtya (#4) celebrates a play with a teammate in a match-up against Illinois Wesleyan last season. (Noah Orloff | Student Life)

Washington University football has five graduate students on its roster. Five players who have decided to use their extra year of NCAA eligibility after COVID-19 canceled the 2020 season. Five students who have delayed their post-graduate life for one more year on the sizzling turf of Francis Field. 

How big of a difference can five players make? A lot.

Two-year starting quarterback Matt Rush will return for a fifth year after spending the spring season at the University of Oregon. Rush was listed on the Oregon roster as a walk-on senior transfer, but the graduate student returned to the Bears for his final year. The consensus from his teammates and coaches is that his reinstatement is huge for the team.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt [that] that’s a really positive thing for us as a football team. I think his teammates view it that way, [and] certainly, coaches do,” head coach Aaron Keen said.

“To get him back, with all the knowledge that he has, it’s going to really propel us forward to try to beat those top two teams like North Central that we lost to last year,” sophomore Fred Ware said. “It’s huge, having our quarterback come back for one final year, and also helps the younger guys learn from him once more.”

During his time in St. Louis, Rush has only gotten more accurate. Last season, he had a pass completion rate of 70.4%. He’s worked with the team’s offensive powerhouses for the past two years building chemistry, a group that includes junior Collin Goldberg, senior Collin Hoyhtya, and junior Kenneth Hamilton.  

Rush isn’t the only key fifth-year from last year’s team to return. Matt Schmal and Bradley Hamilton played major minutes last year, as did returning kicker Chris Vartanian, who hit 59 of 62 extra-point attempts in 2022.

“It was really big to hear this summer — having both of the Matts back,” senior nose-tackle Johnathan Smith said. “It brings back a dynamic to our team of having those guys who have been in the system for a long time, and they are really, really, really good players.” 

New class

The freshman class is a hefty 41 players, but the coaching staff is particularly excited about the 10 new offensive linemen that they’ve brought in.

 “We needed more depth there to be able to compete, whether we want to compete at the top of the conference, getting in the playoffs, or compete for a National title,” Keen said. “We’re excited to see what they can bring to the program and [are] watching their development, but, you know, we’re gonna need some of those guys to step in early.”  

Returning offensive squad 

Keen has slowly been cultivating his offensive line’s talent since his first year. Now, he has a running-back core that Smith described as “an embarrassment of riches, with so many guys that can just ball out on every level.” Kenneth Hamilton rushed 848 yards last season for 16 touchdowns. Kenvorris Campbell was dominant at the team’s scrimmage against Illinois College. Combined with the lethal group of receivers, including Goldberg and Hoyhtya, this team’s offense is proven to be competitive against the top teams in the country.

“Those guys are gonna be nasty because everyone brings something different,” Smith said. “The point is, you’ve got dudes across the board where you’re like, ‘Oh, that dude’s a baller. He’s gonna play some good football.’ So there are questions about who’s gonna play what spot, and who’s going to be the number-one guy. But the fact that we can have that debate is a good problem to have.”

Conference breakdown

For the past two years, the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) standings have looked the same. 

 At the top is North Central College, which hasn’t lost a conference game since 2019 and was crowned the 2022 National Champion. Consistently finishing second in the conference, Wheaton College (IL) has reliably infiltrated the playoff schedules into the second and third rounds. In 2019 and 2021, it didn’t lose a single game until its last playoff round. 

Consistently in third place in the conference, the Bears have trailed for the last two years. They finished the 2022 season with a 7-3 record; North Central held them scoreless at 31-0, while they duked it out against Wheaton for a seven-point loss.  

There are two conference playoff spots up for grabs, meaning that the Bears have a clear path to the postseason: beat either North Central or Wheaton, while fending off the tough competitors of the other seven teams in the conference who are all hungry for the top of the leaderboard.

“Our goal always is to make that playoff spot,” Smith said. “At a certain point, you can’t go around anybody. We’re all WashU kids — we can all try to calculate our way around it, but there’s no way around. You gotta go through the best competition. And we intend to do that.”

Last year, the team’s theme was “Close the gap.” This year, it’s “A standard.”

 “We want to work at a standard that allows us to compete for championships,” Keen said. “We know what that standard is. And we’ll break that down to what we need to get accomplished in an individual drill or individual rep, and that’s the emphasis for us as coaches — [to] try to mold that with our team.”

 “We’re super, super juiced,” Ware said. “We’re excited to get the season rolling. We’re working our tails off so that we can finally get to the playoffs again — get back to what WashU football is all about.” 

The team will spend the first two weeks on the road before their home opener against Carthage College on Saturday, September 23.