Carnegie Mellon coach Rich Lackner and his Tartans have been waiting 16 years to get back into the NCAA Division III playoffs.

The drought will end today when the Tartans, 10-0 and ranked No. 22 in the American Football Coaches Association poll, will play host to Millsaps (Miss.) at noon in a first-round game at Gesling Stadium.

"It's been a while," Lackner said of the Tartans, whose most recent appearance in the playoffs was a 17-7 defeat against Lycoming in 1990. They haven't had a playoff game at home since 1983, a 16-14 loss to Salisbury State at their old field. Gesling Stadium opened in 1990.

"Playing at home means something," Lackner said. "It's a just reward for our players."

CMU, which won its first University Athletic Association championship since 1997, received an at-large bid to the playoffs. The league doesn't have the number of teams required to earn an automatic bid for its champion.

"We pretty much knew we would have to go undefeated to get a bid," Lackner said. "That's why we've treated all our games like a playoff game.

"Based on the statistics, you could say [Millsaps does] a nice job passing the football and we do a nice job running the football."

CMU junior fullback Travis Sivek, the school's all-time rusher, has run for 1,172 yards and 12 touchdowns this season, and Robert Gimson has 862 yards and 10 touchdowns. The Tartans average 272.2 yards per game on the ground.

Millsaps (7-3), winner of seven in a row and in the playoffs for the first time in 31 years, relies on a passing game led by Juan Joseph (2,265 yards, 21 touchdowns) and Chris Jackson (59 catches, 661 yards, 9 touchdowns). The Majors are coached by Mike DuBose, who was the head coach at the University of Alabama in the late 1990s.

NCAA Division III playoffs

W&J (9-1) at Christopher Newport (Va.) (8-2), noon -- Washington & Jefferson, which clinched its 19th Presidents' Athletic Conference championship in the past 23 years with a 54-0 victory against Bethany last week, has won nine in a row to climb to No. 21 in the AFCA poll. The Presidents opened the season with a 32-14 loss to Salisbury.

W&J and Christopher Newport have met twice, both times in the playoffs, with the Presidents winning, 24-10, in the first round in 2002 and 24-14 in the second round in 2004.

W&J sophomore quarterback Bobby Swallow, who leads Division III in passing efficiency with a 185.7 rating and is second in all NCAA divisions behind Hawaii's Colt Brennan at 189.0, has passed for 1,722 yards and 18 touchdowns. He has been intercepted just four times.

Swallow is at his best in the first quarter of games, completing 27 of 54 passes for 777 yards and eight touchdowns. His favorite receivers are Tom McAfferty (31 catches, 434 yards, 7 touchdowns) and David Ravida (31 catches, 405 yards, 4 touchdowns).

Senior running back Ryan Mendel has run for 100 or more yards in each of the past seven games and has 1,269 yards (5.0 per carry average) and 17 touchdowns for the season. He is the school's fifth all-time rusher with 3,093 yards and is sixth with 35 touchdowns.

Senior placekicker Kyle Sidebotham holds school career records with 29 field goals and 276 kicking points.

The headliner on a defense that allows 11.8 points per game is senior free safety Nick Cherish, whose two interceptions against Bethany gave him 14 for his career. He is fourth on the school's all-time list.

If comparative scores can be used as a measuring stick, the Christopher Newport Captains defeated Salisbury in overtime, 23-17. W&J beat Salisbury on Sept. 2 in its season opener, 32-14.

The Captains rely on Rolan Hilliard (1,040 yards rushing, 14 touchdowns) and Todd Faison (1,451 yards passing, 7 touchdowns) to generate their offense.

NCAA Division I-AA playoffs

Youngstown State (9-2), which earned an automatic bid to the playoffs as champion of the Gateway Football Conference, is idle this week and will find out its first-round opponent when pairings are announced tomorrow.

The fifth-ranked Penguins will be making their first playoff appearance since 2000 and the first under Jon Heacock, who became head coach in 2001.

The Penguins feature Marcus Mason, who has rushed for 1,496 yards (6.0 per carry average) and 19 touchdowns even though he played just nine games because of a nagging ankle injury.

Senior tailback Monquantae Gibson, who had rushed for 285 yards on 43 attempts all season, replaced Mason last week and ran for 236 yards and two touchdowns on 43 carries in a 19-3 victory against Western Kentucky.