The Slippery Rock University football team has a home playoff game Saturday afternoon at Mihalik-Thompson Stadium.

No big deal, right?

In fact, if SRU loses that game to East Stroudsburg, the season will be considered a failure in the eyes of many people, coaches, players and fans alike.

That seems ridiculous — and it is — but it’s also the truth.

That’s the level SRU football is at right now, and has been at for a number of years.

SRU is in the Division II national playoffs for the fifth straight year. Only two other football programs in the country , Colorado School of Mines (5) and Ferris State (9) — can match or surpass such a streak.

Before taking a 31-7 loss at Kutztown last week in the PSAC Championship Game, The Rock was averaging 46 points per game and had defeated each of its previous nine opponents by at least 21 points.

The team was ranked as high as No. 4 in the country only a week ago. The loss at Kutztown dropped that ranking to No. 15.

Shawn Lutz was PSAC West Coach of the Year this season. Quarterback Brayden Long was named Offensive Athlete of the Year. The Rock had 13 players make all-conference.

All of that ... yet a loss on Saturday turns it all into failure. So many people would take that stance.

I’m not among them.

This program has won 13 PSAC West titles since1997. It’s been to the Division II playoffs 11 times during that stretch. It’s reached the national semifinals in 1998 and 2019, bowing to Carson Newman in Tennessee and Minnesota State, respectively.

It’s won seven of nine playoff games at home.

Only 28 Division II football teams nationally qualify for postseason play. If you win six games in Division 1, you go to a bowl game. Often times, if you win nine games in Division II, your season is over.

Lutz is 68-18 as SRU’s head coach. Those 68 wins are the most any PSAC coach has accumulated since the beginning of the 2016 season. George Mihalik won 197 games in a lengthy head coaching career at The Rock before Lutz — who served as his defensive coordinator for a long time — took over.

With steady success comes high expectations.

The highest expectations come from The Rock coaching staff itself. Every year, those guys set the national championship as a goal. A lot of coaching staffs say this as lip service, as the obvious goal.

This staff really means it.

That doesn’t mean everybody who attends Saturday’s playoff game — win or lose — shouldn’t appreciate the moment. We should all understand what it takes to get there. A playoff game is the reward for a great season.

SRU football has had plenty of those.

We should enjoy this run of success while it’s here — because you never know when it’s going away.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle