The University of Saint Francis' football team started this season with three goals, the same three goals it has every year - go undefeated, win the conference and contend for a national title. For the first time in, well, a long time, the Cougars failed to meet any of the three.

The University of Saint Francis (7-3) ended the season losing three of its last four games and failed to qualify for the National Association on Intercollegiate Athletics' Football Championship Series for the first time since 1999.

Missouri University of Science and Technology's Miners, a NCAA Division II team, snapped the Cougars' undefeated season with a two-point, last-second win on Oct. 24. Two weeks later USF fell to conference rival and sixth-ranked St. Xavier, and it came up short in the season finale on Nov. 14, losing to a much-improved No. 19 Taylor University (7-3) squad.

By most standards a 7-3 season is not bad, but for a team that's 94-6 in the regular season since 1999, when USF went 8-3 and made the playoffs, one could ask what went wrong this year for coach Kevin Donley and his squad this year. One answer could be the Cougars' depth. Injuries played a big role in the outcome of this season, and the Cougars lost 13 players, many of them key starters, to season-ending injuries. Six more players, including go-to running back Daniel Carter, were also hampered by injuries that cost significant game time.

But Donley won't settle for using the number of injuries as an excuse.

“We didn't reach our goals, and ultimately that's my responsibility,” he says. “I don't have an excuse. Injuries are part of it, and we didn't have enough depth to overcome injuries. We didn't get it done.”

Another answer to the question could be that the teams USF faced are just better than they have been. Missouri S&T came into the game against the Cougars with a 1-6 record but finished 4-1 in its last five games. St. Xavier picked up speedy players in the offseason, and Taylor finished with its first winning season since 1999, turning around a 2-8 season in 2008.

The Cougars' recruiting efforts likely took a hit this year because of the entrance of programs such as Marian University in Indianapolis, which has a been a hotbed of talent for Donley. Now, players that want to stay closer to home in Indianapolis have a program within arm's reach, and Marian has made great strides in its three-year existence.

But unlike years past when the Cougars played deep into December, Donley and his staff will have extra time to get out on the recruiting trail. In fact, they haven't missed a beat. Donley started his recruiting efforts just three days after the end of the Cougars season.

“There are a lot of factors that go into this,” Donley says. “It's just not me coaching and our coaching staff recruiting. Do we need to recruit better, recruit more effectively? Yeah, we do. We're going to try to do the best we can with what we have, and that's all you can do.”

Whether factors could be controlled or not, Donley understands that he has raised USF's bar so high in previous years that it is difficult to keep reaching it. But rest assured he's not necessarily pleased with the way the season turned out. He's a competitor, and he's going to analyze and re-analyze every possible detail from this season, including his own performance, to get ready for next year.

“You know, I think we've taken a lot of success for granted,” Donley says. “Every time you line up on Saturday, somebody's going to win and somebody's not. Over a 10-year period, 94 percent of the time we came out OK… I'll take another 10 years of 94-6.”