Box Score SAGINAW – Sophomore linebacker David Talley and sophomore running back Terrell Dorsey are Grand Valley State Lakers, roommates and they call themselves the "Flipside Crew."

"You know, one of us plays offense, one plays defense," Talley explained in the wake of Grand Valley's season-closing 21-3 win over rival Saginaw Valley Saturday.

The Flipside Crew certainly helped flip the game in the favor of the Lakers, who finished a flipside season of sorts with a 6-5 record after starting 0-3.

"I was trying to make all the plays for the seniors," said Talley, who had six tackles and two pass breakups and appeared to be part of every gang tackle.
"We wanted to send them out winners."

The losing season was avoided, a rival vanquished, the 17 seniors sent out with a victory and yet things felt bittersweet, head coach Matt Mitchell admitted.

"The disappointing thing is we don't get to continue playing with this group," he said. "With the expectations we had at the start of the season and the kind of team we thought we would be, to go 0-3 out of the gate was tough. But this team never divided. There were never issues internally. The team stayed together, kept playing hard. Three games into it, we had a horrible feeling, and we had some downs after that, but we kept fighting back and this is a good finish."

Meanwhile, or on the flipside, Talley emerged as a probable star of the future, and Dorsey came from way deep on the depth chart at running back because of injuries. It showed at minimum there are young guys who can play, provide depth and a nucleus for the future.

Grand Valley football is fine. It's back to work recruiting, doing off-season conditioning and the senior guys teaching the younger guys how they play the Laker way.

"That's how it works here," Talley said. "I worked all summer with the older guys, guys like Deonte' Hurst and Isiah Dunning, and just seeing how they do things pushed me to get stronger, to get better."

At the start of the season the Lakers had senior Michael Ratay, senior Chris Robinson and junior Kirk Spencer as basically a trio of rotating starters at tailback, with senior Hersey Jackson next to go if his back problems were not an issue. But six games into the season only Robinson remained healthy, and Dorsey was called on to play.

"I learned from Michael Ratay, Chris, Hersey all of them and they are the reason I had a good game today," Dorsey said after gaining 86 yards on 17 rambling north-and-south runs on which he refuses to be knocked to the ground.

"I was waiting to play, and I knew I had to go through the process and learn the game. I do feel like I took advantage of my chance, but I was ready because those guys taught me what to do."

Winning seasons and programs are built in layers. Mitchell said at one point in the game Saturday the Lakers lined up to kickoff and one of the assistant coaches noted that kickoff specialist Marco Iaderosa was the only senior on the field.

"We have some young guys out there playing, and part of it is because seniors got hurt so we were forced to play more underclassmen," Mitchell said. "It's not what we wanted, like the season, but it probably helps us going forward."

Indeed, there's always a flipside and on this day in the last game for 17 seniors, it ended on a positive note with a little help from the players they have mentored.

"They led us and we feed off them," Dorsey said. "We have a future ahead of us. We just have to work hard in the off-season like they did, do the things they taught us."

Talley said it wouldn't have been right to send the seniors out with a loss. He knows the body of work shows five winning seasons, three GLIAC titles and a run to the national semifinals a year ago.

"This is a great group of seniors, and the mindset here is get the redshirt freshman ready to go, help mold them into the people and players they are going to be," he said. "The next senior class will do the same thing."

And on the flipside, the Flipside Crew looked like standouts in the win and two juniors (Brandon Revenberg, Jim Walsh), two sophomores (Robert Ault, Aaron Cox) and a redshirt freshman (Dan DeLuca) played on the offensive line that helped grind out the win on the ground.

"We'll keep working," Talley said.