Ram Stadium was considerably upgraded during Coach Monte Cater’s successful tenure. Courtesy photo

SHEPHERDSTOWN — Once Coach Monte Cater found the formula to go undefeated, he almost patented it.

Cater brought Shepherd (college and university) to the forefront of collegiate football, especially in the latter years of his 31-year coaching career with the Rams.

When the Shepherd icon did retire after the 2017 season, he had presided over three consecutive unbeaten regular season teams and six undefeated Rams’ teams in all.

In 2015, the Rams won everything in sight until losing in the national championship game in mid-December to Northwest Missouri State.

In both 2016 and 2017, Shepherd plowed under the regular season competition again in reaching the national semifinals at home against North Alabama and also winning another Mountain East Conference championship.

Cater

Cater’s first unbeaten teams came in 2005 and 2006.

His first season at Shepherd came in 1987 after coming from Lakeland. He was the Shepherd athletic director from 1993 through 2004.

While in the Mountain East Conference, Shepherd had a combined record of 47-6 (not all those were league or regular season games).

At the time of his retirement, Cater was leading the nation in career wins for an active coach.

For his stellar record, he has been recently nominated for induction into the College Football Hall of Fame. This year’s list of coaching nominees has 33 candidates.

Cater had, long ago, been selected for inclusion in the Shepherd Athletic Hall of Fame.

Compiling an overall 245-93-1 record at Shepherd, Cater became the winningest coach in both the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WVIAC) and the Mountain East Conference (MEC) — the two conferences Shepherd was in before joining the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC).

In addition to his “patented” six unbeaten regular season records, Cater had five seasons where one of his teams lost only one game before entering the postseason playoffs.

Shepherd’s home field — Ram Stadium — was considerably upgraded during Cater’s successful tenure. Bleachers on the stadium’s west side were added during his coaching years as well as an enclosed press box and artificial turf playing field. The Boone Field House at one end of the stadium became a reality, while Cater was Shepherd’s coach.

The results of the over 12,000 ballots to be cast in the College Football Hall of Fame voting will not be revealed any time soon, and those being enshrined in the next Fame class will not be announced until the beginning of 2023. Ballots are cast for coaches in all divisions of the sprawling NCAA.