Matt Wenger ’10 came to North Central College seeking to make an impact on the football program and left behind a legacy, achieving new individual milestones while helping lift the Cardinals to new heights competitively.
A winner of five NCAA Division III All-America awards in his final two years of play, Wenger became the first Cardinal to win multiple College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) Defensive Player of the Year accolades and helped lead the team to the national quarterfinals for the first time.
Initially, however, Wenger’s goal was simply to get on the field, figuring astutely that his best chance to do so would be on special teams. He entered the starting lineup for the first time later in his freshman season in what would be a 22-18 victory over Millikin University.
“Coming in, I knew I would be competing against guys who were older than me,” he said, “but I wanted to contribute right away, so I figured that would mean playing a lot of special teams. That’s what I did for the first few games, and then I had a chance to go in because of an injury and was able to start after that.”
After finishing fourth on the team in tackles as a freshman, Wenger earned First Team All-CCIW honors as a sophomore before being voted the conference’s top defensive player as a junior, posting the third-highest single-season tackle total (137) in the program’s history and tying the school record for interceptions (8).
“The speed of the game in general was a big adjustment,” Wenger said. “By the time I was a junior, everything started to slow down for me and I started being able to anticipate things better. When the game slows down mentally and you’re able to do what you need to do physically, that makes it really fun.”
Wenger began the 2009 season with high hopes, but an injury in the season opener cut his season short. He resolved soon thereafter to come back a year later and write a positive end to his playing career.
“It was pretty devastating because we had high expectations as a team and I had high expectations of myself that year,” he said. “I decided pretty much right away that I wanted to come back.”
Wenger returned to the lineup in 2010 and led the Cardinals to their second undefeated regular season in three years and their first berth in the Division III national quarterfinals. He won his second CCIW Defensive Player of the Year Award and was named the D3football.com National Defensive Player of the Year. He closed his career ranked second in the team’s history in tackles (422) and tackles for loss (47) and fourth in interceptions (10).
“The guys I first came in with, we’re still friends to this day. Football was what initially brought us together, but now we have great friendships that go way beyond that.”
