Western Colorado University Athletics

Quite possibly the most accomplished Western football team, the 1964 team came up just one play short of winning the de facto small college national championship.
 
After winning the RMAC title a year before, expectations were high for the 1964 football team. Guided by MSHOF inductee O. Kay Dalton, the 1964 team would create a legacy that still reverberates in Mountaineer Bowl today.
 
After winning their first seven games of the season, scouts from the Mineral Water Bowl, known as the small college national championship, came to Gunnison to watch the Mountaineers face Fort Lewis College.
 
Western impressed everyone in attendance, crushing Fort Lewis 77-13. The Mountaineers would close the regular season with a perfect 9-0 record after defeating Southern Utah 7-3 in the regular season finale.
 
The Mountaineers were then invited to play North Dakota State University in Excelsior Springs, Missouri for the small college national championship at the Mineral Water Bowl.
 
Western battled the top-ranked NSDU team and were within one point, 14-13, late in the fourth quarter. With the game on the line, Western could tie the game at 14 with an extra point, or go for the win with a two-point conversion. The Mountaineers were unable to convert the two-point try and lost by one point.
 
"In my mind, the 1964 team was the greatest football team in Western history," MSHOF Coach Duane Vandenbusche said in his nomination letter. "Western outplayed North Dakota State in the game and had two touchdowns called back because of penalties."
 
Despite not getting the win in Mineral Water Bowl, the 1964 team put Western football on the national map and set the standard for all other Mountaineer football teams to follow.