By MONTE DUTTON

Criticize it if you will. Bemoan the absence of scholarships.

The Pioneer Football League is a tough slog for every school in it.

Presbyterian College is 0-2 after competitive losses to two PFL powers, Davidson and San Diego.

Overall, only Butler (5-0) is undefeated. Only Marist (0-5) is winless.

Five members – Davidson (2-0), Drake (2-0), Butler (1-0), Davidson (1-0) and Saint Thomas (1-0) — are undefeated in league play.

Two — San Diego, which the Blue Hose just played, and Morehead (Ky.) State, where they visit next – are 1-1. Four – Stetson (0-1), PC (0-2), Valparaiso (0-2) and Marist (0-2) – are winless.

It’s not even close to over or decided. The winner is unlikely to lose more tha one PFL game, but it could happen. Presbyterian (2-4) could run the rest of the table, but it’s not the way to bet. Stranger things could happen. Stranger things may happen this weekend.

Davidson (2-0 PFL) visits Dayton (1-0). Butler (2-0) visits Drake (1-0). At least two unbeatens are going to be no more.

The difference between the Wildcats and Blue Hose was 48-37. The difference in PC and San Diego was 27-21 in overtime. In the flash of a single play, the Blue Hose went from the precipice of victory – the USD three-yard line – to sudden death.

“There’s no better feeling than a walk-off win, and there’s not a worse feeling than a walk-off loss,” said Presbyterian head coach Steve Englehart on Monday morning. “So devastating, players devastated, but you’ve got to move on and nobody’s going to feel sorry for us.

“We’ve got to get back on the horse, get back to it and I think our guys will be ready to go. We kind of dominated most of the game and had multiple opportunities to put it away. Everybody’s going to look at the last play. That’s the way football is.”

San Diego scored 13 points off turnovers, and PC was 1/4 inside the Toreros’ 20-yard line.

Is PC inept or unlucky? If it’s the latter, it will even out.

“Every unit had a chance to win that game (in San Diego) had a chance to end the game and win the game, and we just didn’t quite get there,” Englehart said. “I really felt like we grew up quite a bit.

“The Davidson game was a tough loss, but it was a different feeling after that game. There were things that we 100 percent needed to fix within our culture, how we handled things and how we did things. Those things were addressed, and our players really bought into that.”

San Diego was Presbyterian’s best game to date, but when the Blue Hose boarded a plane for an overnight flight, it was still a loss.

Morehead State (3-3, 1-1) where Presbyterian plays on Saturday at 2 p.m., opened its PFL schedule by defeating Marist, 17-5, and fell hard to Butler, 40-6.

The Blue Hose defeated the Eagles, 31-27, in last season’s final game. Any chance of Presbyterian staying in the race requires beating them again.

“The worst thing you can do is win and play bad or win with a bad culture because those things don’t get addressed,” Englehart said. “I believe this loss will be a defining moment in the rest of our season.”

What remains to be seen is whether a traumatic setback on the West Coast makes the Hose … or breaks them.

Englehart almost called timeout before the disastrous fumble that cost Presbyterian the game.

The rural cliché is “woulda, coulda, shoulda.”

Wellpilgrim.com is back in my dingy living room, where there is both electricity and wi-fi again. For now, I have closed my offices at Zaxby’s and Bojangles’, and I wish to acknowledge restaurants and, for one day, the public library, for keeping me minimally in business.

I hate to ask for help because there are so many more needy than I, but …

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