Photos by Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

Photos by Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

Bo Morris gets a face full of steam while doling out a low country boil before the Stagg Bowl on Saturday in Salem. Morris is part of a group of fans from Bridgewater College, a school that did not play in the bowl but still sends its tailgate party to the game.

Photos by Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

Mount Union fans (from left), Doug Terry, Matt Smith, Cryan Burtscher, Cory Muller, Evan Mace, Brian Williams, Cody Craker and Ellen Campbell pose for pictures before the Stagg Bowl, the NCAA Division III Championship game held at Salem Stadium on Saturday. Mount Union defeated Wisconsin-Whitewater 31-26.

Seven shirtless college students, drinking their breakfast from plastic cups, huddled in the chilly parking lot of Salem Stadium on Saturday morning. The letters R-A-I-D-E-R-S had been painted in black across the belly of each man.

"I wanted to get an A or an I, so I was in the middle," said Doug Terry, a senior at Mount Union College in Ohio, who also happens to be from Australia. This was a matter of conserving body heat. "But I got bloody R."

The pre-game rituals had begun at Stagg Bowl XXXVI the championship contest in college football's Division III. The talent inside the stadium might not compare to the titans of Division I. But the tailgating that goes on outside the stadium matches up -- in enthusiasm, if not attendance -- against the best.

Meat was grilled and music blared, beers were drained and beanbags tossed. More than 2,000 fans filled the parking lot Saturday morning, Salem Civic Center officials estimated. Earlier this year, Sports Illustrated magazine named the Stagg Bowl the runner-up as the best tailgate event, behind Nebraska games, but ahead of an annual Texas-Oklahoma matchup.

"These guys get it," said Mike Dangerfield, a fan of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, as a band nearby wailed Bob Seger's "Night Moves."

Dangerfield went to three Virginia Tech games this year, and the Stagg scene seemed the same, he said, just smaller. Just as Division I schools can give athletic scholarships to land big-name players, they also land big tailgating crowds.

Indeed, around the parking lot it was hard to find many Whitewater fans, who were handily outnumbered by their Mount Union rivals. Mount Union went on to win, 31-26.

But the teams shared the same colors, making it difficult to identify fans' allegiances until you were close enough to read the print on their sweatshirts. The wall of purple seemed to represent a casual camaraderie between the two sides.

"These [Division I] guys want to kill each other in the parking lot," said Bo Morris, as he presided over a pot of potatoes, corn and sausage called a low-country boil. "D-3 is a family."

Which makes Morris something of a father at the tailgate. He leads a regular tailgate contingent, called Stone Station, to the Stagg from Bridgewater College. As a matter of hospitality, they feed all fans, knowing the out-of-staters cannot always bring their own grills or smokers.

Bridgewater, which is outside Harrisonburg, has sent a contingent to the bowl game since 2001, when the school made its lone appearance at the Stagg. (Though the group declined to come in 2003, the year Mount Union eliminated Bridgewater from the playoffs by a score of 66-0 on their way to the Stagg.)

On Saturday, the Stone Station arrived about 20 strong, bringing a menu that included meatballs, fried turkey, crab stew and a full dessert table. One Bridgewater booster, Barbara Black, has even started baking brownies for both teams that make the game.

Why so much support from a school that's not in the game? For the true Division III football fan, it is the integrity of men who play a game that offers them almost no future.

"It's just football," said John Coleman, a former Bridgewater football player known as Skoaltrain. "They're playing because they want to play."