The Associated Press

ALLIANCE, Ohio - Mount Union is a win from breaking its own NCAA record for consecutive victories.

The Purple Raiders will go for their 55 straight victory today against Bridgewater (Va.) College in the NCAA Division III semifinals.

Mount Union tied its previous record, set from 1996-99, last Saturday with a 56-10 victory over previously unbeaten Wheaton (Ill.) College.

Mount Union is seeking its fourth straight national championship and eighth in 11 years. The Purple Raiders have won 108 of their last 109 games with two 54-game win streaks separated by one loss - to Rowan in the 1999 semifinals.

The seniors on this year's Mount Union team haven't lost a game in their college careers and seem unable to accept anything short of winning.

KNIGHT COMMISSION: Colleges should graduate at least 50 percent of their football players as a prerequisite for bowl eligibility, a commission has recommended.

The Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics is calling for bowl eligibility reforms, saying more than half of this year's 56 bowl-bound teams fail to meet their proposed graduation standard.

"It is a reasonable - indeed, minimum - standard for demonstrating that academics are valued in big-time college football," said William C. Friday, the commission's chairman.

The commission said only two of this year's bowl games - the Houston Bowl between Navy and Texas Tech, and the Capital One Bowl between Purdue and Georgia - match schools with 50 percent graduation rates or better.

Oklahoma and LSU, which will meet in the Sugar Bowl to decide the BCS national champion, have graduation rates for football players of 33 and 40 percent, respectively, the commission said.

SYRACUSE: Football coach Paul Pasqualoni will keep his job despite a 6-6 season in which the Orangemen failed to make a bowl for the third time in four years.

"Change is necessary, yes, but not wholesale change - more along the lines of adjustments to the way we do things," athletic director Jake Crouthamel said Friday. "We don't need to lay a new foundation."