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Excuse my dumbness if this has already been posted.
*Down South: Scheduling Out Your Southland Slate *
Jason Plotkin, College Sporting News Columnist
May 17, 2007
An addition of a new conference foe, the University of Central Arkansas,
means that schedules are changing in the Southland Conference. This is
nothing new as the conference has seen a few shifts of the schedule in
recent years whether it was the addition and later departure of Troy
State and Jacksonville State or the recent addition of Southeastern
Louisiana.
This year, each team in the Southland Conference will play seven games,
playing each conference foe once, rotating years in which they play four
home games and four away.
More importantly to the national observers who are combing over
potential preseason polls and possible playoff picks, an additional
conference foe means one less out of conference game for Southland teams
to display where they stand in comparison to those other Football
Championship Subdivision (FCS) conferences.
Last year, the Southland Conference did not fare well when it stepped
out of conference, including a 6-3 record against sub-Div I competition,
two of those losses coming to a transitional UCA squad that defeated
non-SLC teams Georgia Southern and Missouri State last year. As a whole,
the conference went 11-24 out of conference, with 15 of those losses
coming when the SLC teams played Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS)
opposition.
Unlike other conferences, the Southland Conference teams played FBS
competition like none else. Two teams, Northwestern State and
Southeastern Louisiana played three games against this competition.
Playing as many FBS games and sub-Division I games as the conference
did, practically eliminated most of the SLC teams from having a shot at
post-season play without winning the conference's auto-bid. Will this
year be any different?
Only three SLC schools will play multiple games against FBS foes this
year. Southeastern Louisiana, will once more tackle three FBS foes as
they will face old coach Hal Mumme at New Mexico State, in addition to
games against Kansas and Tulane. Northwestern State and Nicholls State
will each see two FBS foes with the Demons battling Texas Tech and Ole
Miss while the Colonels tussle with Rice and Nevada.
The Louisiana schools are in a rough position, especially in a
post-Katrina/Rita state of mind where the athletic departments are being
relied upon heavily to bring in money to make up for shortfalls due to
several factors including, games cancelled due to tropical weather over
the years, lack of scholarship money due to smaller enrollment at
schools in some cases and how the state funds it's universities. Looking
at Southland budgets, the Texas schools that do not have football are at
practically the same level, if not higher than their Louisiana
counterparts that do have the gridiron sport.
While fans understand the importance of these games to the bottom line
and would prefer more games against fellow FCS foes in an effort to
increase the playoff probability of their football team in search of the
seven Division I wins, there is at least one FBS game against a
Southland foe that is catching the eyes of many in the region. McNeese
State will renew their rivalry against former rival Louisiana-Lafayette
(formerly Southwestern Louisiana) in Lafayette on September 15th for the
first time since 1986.
These two schools are not far apart from each other along Interstate 10
through the southern part of Louisiana and there is no love lost in this
bitter rivalry which many Cowboy fans have been waiting to see return.
.
With one more additional school in the conference creating one less out
of conference game, the amount of games against FBS foes is down from 15
to 12 for 2007. The Southland slate however does not lack quality FCS
inter-sectional games.
While Nicholls State and Southeastern Louisiana's schedules do not
feature these FCS games, practically each team in the conference has at
least one that attracts the FCS crazy fan, some of which may contend for
FCS Game of the Week honors.
The highest profile start to the season in the Southland comes when
McNeese State hosts Portland State in Lake Charles on September 1st.
This game will be the first game featuring former NFL head coach Jerry
Glanville as he brings a talented Vikings squad to town. McNeese, which
will have Matt Viator at the helm, shedding the interim tag after
replacing Tommy Tate last season, should have a pretty large crowd as
the Pokes play under the lights, which makes for a very festive
environment.
From the looks of the spring game in Portland, where three times as
many fans showed up this year prior to previous years, the Vikings may
have an explosive offense. They have two signal callers fighting out for
time at the top of the depth chart and both put on an air show,
combining for over 450 yards. It will be tough to duplicate that in Lake
Charles, but I don't doubt that Jerry Glanville will have his squad
ready. Nothing like a tough test for the Pokes, who will see their share
of signal callers including the arm of Bradley George of Texas State, a
team that has given McNeese their fair share of troubles in recent years.
The following two weeks feature two Texas teams from the SLC making the
trek to Fargo, North Dakota to battle the Bison of North Dakota State.
The Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks go to the FargoDome first with a
September 8th matchup while the Bearkats of Sam Houston State follow on
September 15th.
Both the Lumberjacks and Kats have quarterbacks who are not strangers to
putting on an offensive display. The Lumberjacks feature senior Danny
Southall, fresh off an appearance on the All-SLC first-team as a junior,
kicking off what should be two weeks of fireworks from the state of
Texas along with primary weapons RB Louie Runnels and WR Dominique
Edison. New head coach J.C. Harper will have his hands full as there'll
be at least 16,000 raucous fans under the Dome in his first test against
a Division I squad in his home for the previous two years as an assistant.
Rhett Bomar, the high-profile transfer from Oklahoma will bring the Todd
Whitten-coached Bearkats to town a week later, most likely coming to
town with a 2-0 record, after playing two sub-Div I foes to open the
season. While Bomar had success wearing crimson and white in Norman as a
freshman QB for the Oklahoma Sooners in the Big XII, Bomar will have a
relatively unproven group of receivers who will look to cash-in six
points against a tough Bison defense that while losing SS Craig Dahl to
graduation, does return a hard-hitting LB, Joe Mays.
A continuation of a budding rivalry continues the following week, on
September 22nd as Central Arkansas makes the trip to Springfield,
Missouri to take on Missouri State. UCA defeated Missouri State in
Conway last year, 16-14, for their first win against a Division I foe.
UCA held Missouri State to 96 yards of total offense as UCA's Jacob Ford
tackled Bears players in the backfield on five different occasions. The
Bears of the Missouri variety, who now enter the second season of Terry
Allen's tenure at the helm of the program, will no doubt remember last
year and will not be able to overlook the Bears from Arkansas. UCA does
suffer a big matriculation hit from a team that successfully navigated
the rough seas of Division I play last year.
Outside of these four games that I have already circled on my calendar,
other attractive FCS match-ups feature a rematch from the 2005 Division
I playoffs as Cal Poly returns to Texas State for a season-opening clash
at Bobcat Stadium on September 1st. Also, Northwestern State plays
Northeastern on September 15th to complete a home-and-home affair which
started in 2005 with a 14-12 win by the Southland squad in Natchitoches
over the Huskies from the Atlantic-10 in a rare game between teams from
these two FCS conferences.
Surfing the Southland Boards
With spring football over, the talk on the Southland's fan forums now
turns to prognostication. This is nothing new by any means. Fans are
always predicting everything prior to the season from team leaders in
respective statistical categories to the team that will be standing at
the finish line with the conference championship.
A quick glance around the conference boards show that many schools have
fan bases that believe they can compete and win the conference title.
There's no reason to think otherwise based on previous years. If a fan
went by the preseason polls as the basis of their picks, they would not
have fared well when the final standings were determined following the
last down.
In 2006, the bottom two teams in both the coaches and Sports Information
Directors poll, Sam Houston State and Stephen F Austin, finished in a
tie for second behind McNeese State, the predicted victor, who was the
sole Southland entrant in the 2006 Division I playoffs. However, the two
previous years ended up having a team picked near or at the bottom of
the conference, finding their ways to the highest rung on the ladder at
the time it mattered most.
Nicholls State was picked sixth (out of seven teams) in each 2005
preseason poll, yet emerged in possession of the conference auto-bid to
the Division I playoffs, where they fell 14-12 on the road to Furman in
the first round in a game in which they had several chances to win. That
doesn't really sound like a sixth place team, does it?
Sam Houston State was not favored in the preseason polls, being picked
4th by the coaches and 5th by the SIDS in 2004. That Bearkat squad was
one game away from playing for the Division I title as they ended up in
the Division I semifinals, falling to Montana at Washington-Grizzly
Stadium. Had the Kats not faltered against co-conference champion
Northwestern State during the regular season, they would have most
likely ended up hosting Montana, a team they had defeated earlier that
season when the Grizzlies came into Huntsville as the #1 team in the land.
My favorite post on any of the conference message boards related to
Southland prognosictations was provided by Zem, a very respected poster
on the McNeese Geaux Cowboys board, who used to have a popular column on
the Geaux Cowboys website featuring news and notes from the Southland
Conference.
Zem stated at the bottom of his post, prognosticating the season for the
Pokes, "One thing is for certain. The Texas State people see 9-2 or 8-3,
Sam is thinking 8-3 with their schedule, Demons are thinking 7-4 or 8-3
with that schedule, SLU and Nicholls are seeing 7-4 or 8-3, and SFA sees
anywhere from 9-2 to 7-4. I don't know about UCA, but we can assume they
are thinking at least 7-4 or 8-3 with the success they had in the SLC
last year. We all know this is theoretically impossible."
While that is theoretically and probably mathematically (my mom will
tell you that since a young age, that I've never been a mathematical
scholar, so don't quote me) impossible, not much else isn't impossible
in the Southland as we've seen in recent years. Who will emerge in the
Southland? Your guess may be as good as mine. One thing is certain - the
SLC will have an automatic bid into the Division I playoffs.
Southland Stars
The Southland Conference had two players selected in the recent NFL
draft from member institutions. LT Jacob Bender and DE Jacob Ford from
Nicholls State and Central Arkansas, respectively, found their name on
the draft board during the annual proceedings.
Bender, a sixth round pick by the New York Jets, played a pivotal role
in the Colonels first-ever Southland championship in 2005. Playing on a
team where running the ball and controlling the clock is a critical part
of the offense, Bender anchored the offensive line for quarterback Yale
Vannoy, who was named 2005 SLC Offensive Player of the Year, for the
second-ranked rushing attack in the nation.
Individual honors were also obtained as Bender was named to the All-SLC
first team on two occasions. Nationally, Bender was no stranger as he
was selected to the College Sporting News Fabulous 50 FCS All-Star team
and a member of the Sports Network FCS All-America Third Team.
The defensive end from UCA, Ford, was picked by the Tennessee Titans in
the sixth round, becoming the highest player selected in the NFL draft
out of Conway. Starting his college career at Memphis, where he was
named to the Conference USA All-Freshman squad, he ultimately
transferred to UCA, then a member of the Division II Gulf South Conference.
Ford would star at the Division II level before capping his career being
named a first-team All-American at the FCS level by College Sports
Report. Ford, who anchored the defensive line in UCA's successful first
campaign at the Division I level, posted 48 tackles, eight sacks, 15.5
tackles for loss and three forced fumbles.
Lagniappe - A Bit Extra To Write Home About
* A great showing of support by the McNeese State Cowboy Club, who
presented a $12,500 donation to the family of P.J Brown, a former
Cowboys wide receiver. P.J has been in a coma ever since being injured
in a 2005 automobile accident. The presentation took place at St. Amant
High School in Louisiana, where Brown was twice named to the All-State
team, playing both running back and wide receiver.
* Texas State University President Denise Trauth has added a feasibility
study of moving to the Football Bowl Subdivision to the President Task
Force on Athletics' agenda. The Task Force was formed in February 2007.
There is currently a strong movement on campus and in the Bobcat
community for President Trauth and Athletic Director Larry Teis to fill
out the paperwork to apply for a move to FBS by June 1st, the NCAA
deadline for filing such paperwork.
* Sam Houston State kickers had a tough time last year finding the space
between the uprights. Three kickers combined to go four of 11 on field
goal attempts, missing from as close as 23 yards. Point after attempts
were not any better as the Kats saw their kickers make only 25 of their
32 PATs. Bearkat fans breathed a sigh of relief during the Kats Orange
and White Spring game as sophomore kicker Taylor Wilkins made all seven
PATs in addition to making a 21 yard field goal attempt.
* Looking around at upgrades throughout the conference, Sam Houston
State has begun the process of changing their turf. Add Northwestern
State to the list of those SLC schools getting new scoreboards as it was
recently announced that Turpin Stadium will see a $2M video board erected.
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