The smallest Division III school to field a football team is ending on a sad note.
Less than a decade after announcing the initial launch of their football program, a Michigan college has announced that they're shutting their doors, leaving a lot of teams scrambling to find a replacement game this fall.
Back in 2014, Finlandia announced plans to expand their athletics programs over a seven-year period, starting with a search for the leader of its football program that would kick off in 2015.
Late last week, the school located in Michigan's upper peninsula announced that the school was ceasing operations and will not enroll students in the 2023-24 academic year.
That has sent a number of programs looking to fill an open date just a few months away, which is certainly less-than-ideal.
Finlandia football, who hasn't won a game since October 14, 2017, had a short, and rather interesting journey.
They initially joined the D-III ranks as an independent, and went 3-7 in their first season, followed by 1-7 and 1-3 seasons the next two seasons without a league, but had trouble retaining student-athletes as they had just five juniors and four sophomores on the team after their third season.
In 2018, Finlandia made the jump to the MIAA, where their closest conference opponent was over 8 hours away, and had a few trips that were close to 9 hours on the road.
After two straight 0-10 seasons, followed by the 2020 COVID year where the MIAA didn't play, Finlandia made the jump to the UMAC, where they went 0-9 the past two seasons.
The upstart program had been a revolving door of coaches that have included Tim Driscoll, Robert Boss, and Travis Wiltzius before the program added Mike DuFrane prior to the 2021 season.
DuFrane recently left to become the defensive coordinator at Northern Michigan (D-II - MI).
The rest of the staff, many of whom will be looking for new coaching positions, this past season consisted of:
As for what will happen with their currently enrolled 430 students the school has finalized teach-out agreements with Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan, Bay College, Adrian College, and Wartburg College.
Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.