Saturday’s win over Sewanee rubber-stamped the Millsaps football team’s first season in over a decade with more wins than losses, making for a familiar feeling for second-year head coach Brandon Lechtenberg.
Lechtenberg, who was announced as the Millsaps head coach in January 2024, was the program’s defensive coordinator from 2011-16 and was integral to conference championships in 2012 and 2013 – the latter including a 9-1 mark and being the last time Millsaps had a winning season. Since being hired back on but as head coach, his teams have compiled a 5-5 record in 2024 and then a 6-4 record in 2025.
“We’re definitely trending in the direction we want to go and pushing in the direction we want to go,” Lechtenberg said on Tuesday. “This year’s team stepped up. It was a collective.”
Lechtenberg has engineered one of the more noteworthy turnarounds in all of Division III after inheriting a team that went 1-9 in 2023. Seeing a +4 win gain in year one and then notching one more onto the win column in year two has made for a lot of “firsts,” he said.
Two of those firsts came on Oct. 18 when Millsaps upset Maryville – a DIII playoff team from a year ago – for its first-ever win over a top 10 opponent and first win over a ranked opponent since 2009. While Maryville had All-Region Bryson Rollins behind center, the Majors forced him to throw a season-high three interceptions. Add in a nearly 400-yard performance by Millsaps freshman quarterback Grant Bizjack, and the team delivered a corner-turning, 31-21 win in front of a homecoming crowd.
“Man, that was an awesome feeling for the team [and] for the program,” Lechtenberg recalled. “The amount of alumni who were here for that homecoming game had a lot of excitement around it. That was a huge win for our program.”
While Millsaps’ 6-4 mark in 2025 is a sizable improvement from the recent past, there are a couple of games Lechtenberg said he would want back.
“Looking back, we had a couple of missed opportunities where we feel like maybe we could have won more than six games,” he said. “But we also had a team meeting last night and kind of looked at the growth in the program.”
That growth includes more than the record shows. Millsaps may have finished fourth in the Southern Athletic Association for the second season in a row, but it statistically closed the gap between them and the top of what’s analytically the second-toughest conference in America.
The teams at the top of the conference are Berry and Trinity, both set to appear in the DIII playoffs later this month, and Maryville, which Millsaps beat and helped knock out of the playoff conversation. The Majors also created a larger combined winning margin against teams that finished below them in the 2025 SAA standings: Centre, Southwestern, Sewanee, and Rhodes.
“When you dig into it, a year ago, we were 0-3 against the top three teams. This year, we were 1-2,” Lechtenberg explained. “And our margin of victory against the bottom three was seven points a year ago. We went 3-1 against the bottom of the conference and won those by a total of seven points (in 2024). This year, it was over 40 points. So, we’re hopefully creating a little bit of separation between us and the bottom of the league but also catching the top of the league.”
All in all, Lechtenberg is pleased with the season and with the work his seniors put in over their two years with him. But like all winners, he can’t wait to win more. According to him, achieving more wins and returning to compete for championships will be a group effort involving players, coaches, administrators, and alumni.
“We feel like we have a very good springboard for the future, and I’m very grateful for the seniors who have built so much of this foundation,” he said. “I think we have a great core of players coming back that we can keep building on. Obviously, we’ve got to go recruit and keep adding to the talent base. I’m excited about the alumni who have done a ton to help this program out over the last two years since I’ve been back. I am incredibly excited to continue to be a part of the Millsaps football family and see if we can keep moving it forward another step next year.”