Flashback time for Whipple

You bet he has UMass flashbacks.

"A couple of times this year, we walked into a hotel and it immediately reminded me of the hotel in Chattanooga," says Mark Whipple, the quarterbacks coach of the defending Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers. "And it all came back."

Yes, whatever else happens to Mark Whipple -- the leading candidate to be the next football coach at Boston College -- he will always have Chattanooga. He will always be the coach of the 1998 University of Massachusetts Minutemen, who entered the Division 1-AA playoffs on a downer, then dispatched four conference champions in succession to bring home the prize, capping their mercurial, one-month run with a scintillating 55-43 victory over 1-AA behemoth Georgia Southern, a contest so wild and wooly (Whipple went to a five-receiver set called "Chattanooga" on the game's first play) that Globe columnist Michael Holley would gush, "I cannot believe I was paid to watch this wonderful game."

What with all the controversy surrounding how we arrived at the upcoming Bowl Championship Series pairing of Ohio State and Florida, it is good to be reminded about the true joys of a legitimate playoff. If the college presidents want to hear from someone who knows whereof he speaks, they should listen to a man who has been there.

"To me, that's what football is all about," Whipple says. "When I was at Brown, I was very upset the Ivies wouldn't allow the league champion to go to the playoffs. That's one reason I went to UMass. In the NFL, we wouldn't have been the champions without the playoffs. I love the playoffs. It's not a seven-game series. It's gathering momentum, week to week, and it's one game, do or die. You lay it on the line. If you go out and play well, you win."

Mark Whipple is paying attention to what's going on in Amherst. "Donnie's got 'em playing great, on both sides of the ball," he says. "I've been able to see some of the last two games around our Saturday meetings."

He does, after all, have a strong emotional stake in the Minutemen. Yes, he coached them for six years. Yes, he coached 'em up right into a national championship a year after taking over a 2-9 team. But it's even deeper than that.

UMass mainstays such as Steve Baylark, Liam Coen, Alex Miller, and David Thompson? He recruited them, sat right there in the living rooms. "You're selling them a dream," Whipple explains. So, yes, he will be watching tonight when coach Don Brown's gang takes on Appalachian State in Chattanooga's Finley Stadium, the same place his '98 squad taught Georgia Southern a thing or two about offense eight years ago.

And about "Donnie." He knows Don Brown. He has hired Don Brown. As I said, his interest in things Minutemen runs deep.

Mark Whipple completely understands the emotions running through the UMass team and coaching staff. A championship is a championship, at any level. When you're going after one, that is your entire world. You are striving for a certain indescribable feeling. It really doesn't matter whether you're going for the local Pop Warner championship or the Super Bowl. It's all the same.

"I've been really fortunate," he says. "I've won a high school state championship in Arizona. I've won an Ivy League championship at Brown [where the season ends with the last league game, period]. I've won the 1-AA championship at UMass. And last year we won the Super Bowl. People ask, 'What's the best of them all?' I always say that it's like having a child. You don't think you could love anything more than the first one, and then along comes a second one. In the end, they're all equally beautiful."

But you've got to think there is a special little niche in his heart for those '98 Minutemen. They made him look pretty good after he inherited that 2-9 team from Mike Hodges and got everyone's attention by proclaiming they would win the national championship, and not some vague and distant day in the future, but immediately.

There was a tough opening day loss to Delaware, when "a great tight end [Kerry Taylor], dropped a touchdown pass." There was an OT loss to UConn. And there was a second loss to UConn, this one by 1 point. "I remember how dejected they all were after that game," Whipple recalls. "Marcel Shipp was really down, and I said to him, 'Hey, we're getting to play next week.' "

Thank God for the playoffs.

Now that would be the same Marcel Shipp who has made a home with the Arizona Cardinals lo these many years. And that would be the same Marcel Shipp, who, after missing the opening playoff game against McNeese State, would run for an average of 197.6 yards in his next three contests, finishing his playoff run with 244 yards and three touchdowns against Georgia Southern.

It was an exhilarating run. UMass started the playoffs by defeating McNeese State down in Lake Charles, La., 21-19, as Kevin Quinlan filled in for Shipp by picking up 147 yards in 28 carries. Lehigh was the next to fall, as UMass overcame a 14-13 halftime deficit to win, 27-21.

Returning to Louisiana, the Minutemen stopped Northwestern State on their home field in Natchitoches. The Minutemen entered the fourth quarter trailing, 24-21, but they rang up a 20-7 fourth-quarter advantage as Shipp blasted his way to 190 yards on 38 carries.

The finals were against legendary Georgia Southern, then coached by current Navy mentor Paul Johnson. UMass simply laid it on them, leading by a 52-33 score with 11:41 remaining. Wrote the Globe's Joe Burris, "The Minutemen etched themselves in college football history by capping one of the most unlikely runs for the Division 1-AA national championship with one of the most amazing performances in a final."

At one point, Shipp and Georgia Southern's Greg Hill (228 yards) were actually swapping the championship game's rushing record on alternate possessions. On the defensive side, UMass featured marauding linebackers Koye Ayi (16 tackles; 3 fumble recoveries, 1 for a touchdown; and 2 forced fumbles) and Khari Samuel (15 tackles, 2 forced fumbles). It was, quite simply, the greatest day in UMass football history.

Mark Whipple loves playoffs. You can understand why.

Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is ryan@globe.com.