Eyes on the prize

Quarterback Reilly takes Central Washington into playoffs

From one accolade to the next, Kalispell's Mike Reilly was named a candidate for the national player of the year and, oh, his team has been awarded a home playoff game.

Reilly, a 2003 Flathead High School graduate, is a junior quarterback for NCAA Division II Central Washington University. This is just the second time the program has made the NCAA playoffs.

The 6-foot-4, 212 pounder has thrown for 2,669 yards and 24 touchdowns with three four-touchdown games and three 300-yard games this year.

More importantly, Reilly led the Wildcats (8-2) on a seven-game win streak and they topped out at No. 17 in the D-II national poll. Now, even though they ended their regular season with a 59-21 loss to Northwest Region's No. 1 Nebraska-Omaha last Saturday, they're talking playoffs in Ellensburg, Wash.

"There's been a lot more articles in the paper and people are talking about it around town," Reilly said. "It's not really a football town. It will be interesting to see how Ellensburg will handle a playoff. I'm curious about how big of a crowd we'll get. I heard that against UC-Davis (in the 2002 playoffs), there was double the normal crowd - around 8,500 or 9,000."

The fourth-seeded Wildcats will host fifth-seed Ashland University (Ohio) Saturday at 1 p.m.

"Defense is definitely not their strength," Reilly said. "They run a base 3-4 with a soft cover-2. The safeties are 15-20 yards off the line of scrimmage. So the underneath routes should be open all day."

A victory would plant the Wildcats in a rematch with Nebraska-Omaha, which earned a first-round bye with a 10-0 record, in the second round.

"I want another crack at them," Reilly said. "You can't say this about a lot of games, but we were literally three or four plays away in that game. And they were goofy plays."

With the team's success has come individual recognition.

Last Friday, Reilly was named a candidate for the 2007 Harlon Hill Trophy, which is the D-II national player of the year award.

"I didn't hear about it until later in the day when a couple of my buddies sent me text messages," Reilly said. "I'm honored, but I'm up against some pretty stiff competition."

He is one of 24 candidates nationwide. Seven are from the Northwest Region. Players are nominated and voted on by 150 D-II sports information directors. On Nov. 16, those SIDs will vote for the top two candidates from each of the four regions. From there, another vote will take place and the award will be announced on Dec. 14 in Florence, Ala. - the night before the national championship game.

Chadron State's Danny Woodhead, who broke the all-division rushing record earlier this year, won the award last year and is the heavy favorite to do so again.

But Reilly has his picks for the Northwest Region.

"One of the guys that I'd vote for isn't even on the list," Reilly said of South Dakota running back Amos Allen. "The top of their list has got to be Omaha's running back Brian McNeill. He's a beast. He ran all over us. The other guy would have to be Grand Valley State quarterback Brad Iciek."

But Reilly has other things on his mind. And that's running an offensive scheme that's made its way to the NFL.

The Wildcats run a spread offense similar to what Washington State uses. They mostly line up with four wide receivers, either in double slots or trips, running mirrored routes. But they try to keep a variety going with five wide receivers, or two tights or two running backs.

"We haven't taken too many deep shots," Reilly said. "The defenses have been dropping safeties. We had a burner at receiver a couple of years ago who ran a 4.4 (40-yard dash) and I was able to hit him a lot. I think teams remember that and have given us some respect."

In the spread, the receivers run timing routes and Reilly mostly takes three-step drops. The receivers get a lot of yards after the catch.

Head coach Beau Baldwin calls the shots in the offense. He learned it from current St. Louis Rams Offensive Coordinator Greg Olson, who was the OC at CWU from 1990-93 when Baldwin played. Current Detroit Lions quarterback John Kitna played for CWU from 1992-95 and led the school to the national co-championship.

Within the attack this year, Reilly has completed 62 percent of 338 passes while scrambling for 387 yards and two touchdowns.

"None of my runs are designed," he said. "If the defensive backs are back and the middle is open or if the defense is blitzing from the outside, I can usually see it before the snap and it comes off looking like a quarterback draw. Otherwise, I'm scrambling."

Reilly finished his prep career in 2002 with the second-best passing season in Flathead High School history. He was the quarterback for the Braves during the days of Lex Hilliard, the current University of Montana running back who is looking to become the school's all-time rushing king. Hilliard is already UM's touchdown king.

In his senior year at FHS, Reilly completed 140 of 253 passes (55.3 percent) for 2,280 yards and 22 touchdowns with just five interceptions. He was bumped to No. 3 in FHS history a year later when Clay Lindsay became the Braves' all-time leader with 3,043 yards. Brock Osweiler then surpassed Reilly's total twice, with 2,454 yards in 2006 and 2,938 yards this past season.

Reilly first red-shirted for Washington State before transferring to CWU.

In three years at CWU, he has completed 665 of 1,042 passes (63.8 percent) for 8,025 yards and 75 touchdowns.

He has thrown for more than 200 yards in 25 of 30 games since becoming the Wildcats' starting quarterback.

The mechanical engineering major with a 3.49 GPA was the only quarterback on the preseason All-American first team.

NOTES: Twenty-four teams - six from each of four regions - qualify for the NCAA Division II championship field. First round games, involving seeds Nos. 3-6 from the Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, and Southwest regions, will be played Saturday. The other first round game in the Northwest Region involves sixth-seed Winona State (10-1) and third-seed North Dakota (9-1).

Central Washington has an all-time postseason record of 10-9-1, including the 1995 NAIA Division II National co-Championship. This trip to the postseason is the first for Central Washington since 2002, when the Wildcats were the top seed in the West Region.