SPOKANE, Wash. \u2014 The Whitworth Pirates football team has been on a recent stretch of dominance, compiling a 28-6 record and making three straight NCAA Division III playoff appearances, something that had never been accomplished in program history.<\/p>\n
But this season, the Pirates want more.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a big goal, it\u2019s to make it past the second round of the playoffs,\u201d Pirates senior quarterback Logan Lacio said. \u201cThat\u2019s always been a big goal. That\u2019s never been done in program history.\u201d<\/p>\n
Entering 2026, Whitworth returns a veteran core that\u2019s hungry for more history, including 12th-year head coach Rod Sandberg.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething that\u2019s never happened here in my time is we\u2019ve never won back-to-back conference championships,\u201d Sandberg said. \u201cGood teams are a little up and down. Great teams are consistently up there. Can we be a consistently great team? I think these guys have kind of taken that on their shoulders.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whitworth advanced to the second round of the playoffs in 2023 and 2024 and was three points shy of advancing out of the first round last year. While it may only be spring practice, the Pirates have a vision of playing in late November, but they also know they\u2019ll have to earn it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always talk about getting to the third round, but we can\u2019t get to the third round if we don\u2019t get to the first round,\u201d senior cornerback Omari Williams said. \u201cRight now, it\u2019s just one game at a time, win each week. That\u2019s one of the big things I\u2019m trying to preach to these guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
For now, the Pirates are enjoying being back on the field during spring camp and seeing their winter work pay off.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the hard work and blood and tears we put in, got through, it just makes things so much simpler now,\u201d Williams said. \u201cWe put the work in. Now it\u2019s just fly around and play the sport we love.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to be where my feet are,\u201d Lacio added. \u201cObviously, I know it\u2019s my last spring ball with the boys. I\u2019m just truly grateful for that, being thankful for every moment I have with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
After all, playing Division III football isn\u2019t for the weak. Players don\u2019t get paid, don\u2019t receive athletic scholarships and aren\u2019t focused on the NFL. They do it for the love of the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI say it all the time, these guys would go play on a parking lot, concrete, nobody watching, just because they love football,\u201d Sandberg said. \u201cIt\u2019s fun to be around those kinds of people. It makes it more pure. I don\u2019t have to deal with some issues that people at other levels have to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still five months away from Week 1, the Whitworth Pirates are hoping the work they put in this spring will pay off in the fall and help them go further than any team in program history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOKANE, Wash. \u2014 The Whitworth Pirates football team has been on a recent stretch of dominance, compiling a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[7,3141,5230,5227,5229,9,5228,5231],"class_list":{"0":"post-868684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-local-sports","10":"tag-local-sports-news","11":"tag-spokane","12":"tag-spokane-sports","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-sports-spokane","15":"tag-wasington"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116422241431397679","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}