Greensburg Central Catholic's Dlugos brothers on opposite sides of historic Williams-Amherst football rivalry

Zach and Nate Dlugos are taking sibling rivalry to another level.

On Saturday, the Greensburg Central Catholic grads will be on opposite sides of “The Biggest Little Game in America” when the football teams from Amherst and Williams clash. It is the fourth-most played matchup in all of the NCAA — Saturday’s will be the 138th meeting, dating to 1884 — and most played in Division III.

How storied is the rivalry? In 2007, at Williams, it was the first Division III game to host ESPN’s “College Gameday.”

Before delving into the Dlugos’ brothers’ role in Saturday’s game, a little background on how these Massachusetts schools separated by 60 miles became such fierce rivals:

Williams was founded in 1793 thanks to the bequest of soldier and landowner Ephraim Williams, who died in the French and Indian War in 1755. In 1821, school president Zephaniah Swift Moore, along with a handful of faculty and students, decided to break away from Williams and form their own school. They set up in the central Massachusetts town of Amherst, a far better location for an institution of higher learning, Moore reasoned, than the hinterlands of extreme northwest Massachusetts.

To this day, people associated with Amherst are known in Williams circles as “The Defectors.”

The schools still share some similarities. Both are known for their rigorous academic programs. Both use purple as the primary color for their sports teams. And both have animal mascots: Williams a cow — its nickname is the Ephs (pronounced “eefs”) after Ephraim Williams — and Amherst a mammoth.

And each is prone to make the other the target of high jinks. Dick Quinn, who has worked in sports information at Williams for 35 years, illustrated:

In the days when Williams still had a grass football field, some students from Amherst hopped the fence and emblazoned a large “A” on the turf. Quinn suspects bleach might have been the substance used to create the “A.” Later that winter, in retaliation, some Williams students invaded the Amherst football field after a snowfall and did some lettering of their own. They made a giant “B+” in the snow.

Let that sink in for a minute.

“I would definitely say it’s more of like a friendly rivalry,” Zach said. “It’s so hilarious because a lot of people who came to Amherst — at least in my experience — were also considering Williams, so there’s just a constant comparison that goes on between them. Not only with sports but, whose campus is better, who has the better academics, who has more people that are famous.”

As for the Dlugos boys, their position on opposite sidelines actually had nothing to do with sibling rivalry or spite. Zach, a junior linebacker at Amherst, didn’t get any overtures from Williams. Nate, a freshman defensive back at Williams, didn’t get a look from Amherst.

Siblings being on opposing teams for this game is, at minimum, rare. At most, it’s unprecedented. Quinn said he can’t recall it happening during his tenure, at least.

“Trust me. This was not on purpose,” Zach said. “I got recruited by Amherst, and it’s a great school. And I was like, you know what, that’s a school I could never get into without football. I’d be an idiot not to take that opportunity. And Williams is the exact same way.

“Of course, we probably would have gone to the same school if we had the opportunity, but we just happened to end up at these two schools that are big-time rivals.”

Zach (5-foot-10, 205 pounds) has played sparingly in his time at Amherst, appearing in four games and making three total tackles on special teams in his two-plus seasons. But he understands that football is merely a means to an end. That, he said, is the way football always has been in his family: a vehicle for getting the best education possible.

His father, Rob, parlayed his football skills into a degree from Harvard. An uncle played football at Bucknell. Another uncle played at Princeton.

The way Zach sees it, any playing time he gets is secondary to the degree in economics he will earn.

“It definitely hasn’t been everything I wanted it to be,” he said about his football experience. “Right now, I’m just a special teams guy. I love the sport, I’m hanging in there and working as hard as I can. We’ll see what happens.

“I’ll talk to my dad about that, and he says, ‘Listen. There’s a reason you’re there. Football is just a bonus. It’s just the icing on the cake. You’re not going to the NFL. You’ve got a couple of years left to play the sport you love. You make the most out of it, and that’s that.’ ”

Nate (6-1, 185), meanwhile, has appeared in five games, playing on the kickoff coverage team but also seeing time in the secondary. He has seven total tackles.

This will be his first taste of the Amherst-Williams game, though he did see it as a spectator during a recruiting visit. But it won’t be the first time he experiences the barbs from the other side. After Nate committed to Williams, Zach wasted no time in letting him know which team was going to win this year’s “Biggest Little Game.”

“Zach, he works hard and takes pride in the Amherst football program,” Nate said. “It was always funny. It was always just brothers going back and forth like with anything. It adds a little fire to the game.”

The buzz around each campus amps up during Amherst-Williams week. And while other football games at both schools draw so-so crowds, Williams-Amherst always stuffs the stadium.

“The environment is awesome,” Nate said. “For two small schools, there’s 8,000 or 10,000 people at the game. It’s packed. It’s really something special, and having my own brother on the other side just adds to that.”

Next season, the balance of Dlugos power will be tipped toward Williams. Youngest brother Nick will be joining the Ephs.

“I’m super excited about that,” Nate said. “It sounded like Amherst and Williams both kind of recruited my younger brother. Zach and I, we wanted to give Nicky his space and wanted him to make his own decision, and we support him no matter what.

“Never the less, I am super, super excited that he’s coming up here with me. I can’t wait until next year.”

In the meantime, this year will have plenty of excitement for the Dlugos family. The brothers anticipate several relatives attending the game, which, this season, is at Amherst.

Zach is hoping his team can snap Williams’ three-game winning streak in the series, which the Ephs lead 75-57-5.

There will be plenty of good- natured trash talk between the two sides. Maybe even a few pranks. It’s all part of one of the most distinctive rivalries at any level of college football, and the Dlugos brothers have a front-row seat.

“The culture is just so neat because they’re both such elite schools,” Zach said. “It’s so exciting. (My) past two years, Williams has won, so it’s getting to the point where like, our guys get mad about this a couple weeks in advance, and we’re ready to go.”

Added Nate: “Nothing really matters about how many games you have won up until then. When you play each other, you could win every single game in the season, but if you lose (this game), it’s almost like that season doesn’t count. This game means everything.”