John Luckhardt is tired of answering the question. The last three seasons, Luckhardt's California Vulcans have stood on the doorstep of the NCAA Division II championship game, only to be left out in the cold. So when you ask him if he's itching to get over the hump and past the national semifinals, Luckhardt clasps his hands and twists the gold PSAC championship ring on his left hand. "On paper," he said with a sly smile, "this is our most talented team."
But this isn't Luckhardt's first rodeo, and he knows how quickly it all can unravel. And in NCAA Division II college football, it can happen faster than a blink of the eye. "We'll need to get off to a strong start," Luckhardt said, noting the Vulcans have four games to open the season against Saginaw Valley State (8-2 in 2009), C.W. Post (6-5), East Stroudsburg (8-4) and Clarion (8-3). "We'll either be very happy when October gets here, or I'm gonna be looking for a fishing pole."
For as much as Luckhardt and the Vulcans have accomplished lately -three consecutive region and PSAC west championships - what keeps Luckhardt up at night is what his program has not done. "The criticism of our whole region," Luckhardt said, "is that we're not good enough to play with the rest of the country."
Luckhardt won't get an argument here. Since the first NCAA Division II national championship was awarded in 1973, no team from the current Super Region One has won it. In fact, only four teams have played for the championship, and they've lost each game by an average of 32 points. "The whole challenge in the Northeast Region is to get respect," said Mercyhurst coach Marty Schaetzle, whose team used to play in what's now Super Region Three when it was a member of the GLIAC. "We used to be in the Northwest Region, and football is approached a lot differently out there. Now I think Cal is closing that gap, but it isn't going to happen overnight. It's going to take a while."
The challenge for the PSAC is to make the conference as a whole as strong as possible, rather than just have one or two teams capable of making a run to Florence. But until the rest of the universities follow the lead of Luckhardt and the Vulcans, the PSAC will struggle to gain national respect. That means coaches across the PSAC are begging university presidents to help raise money for scholarships. In Pennsylvania, unlike many other states, government funding cannot be used for athletic scholarships, so teams have to raise funds on their own to attract the best players.
The NCAA allows a maximum of 36 scholarship equivalencies per Division II team, and in 2010, only California, Gannon, Mercyhurst and C.W. Post, the latter three of which are private schools, will sniff that number. The rest range from the mid 20s (IUP) to as few as five or six (Cheyney). "The only hope we have is if our administration and our alums see what California is doing and try to duplicate the finances of that program," said IUP head coach Lou Tepper, whose program is coming off its first losing season since 1982. What Tepper is hinting at is this: The PSAC will be a major player on the national scene when it decides to be. Success at the Division II level is based mostly on funding, a fact many PSAC presidents do not understand, or simply don't care to acknowledge.
Nonetheless, the 2010 season is shaping up as another competitive one in the PSAC. In the annual preseason coaches' poll, California was picked as the favorite to win the West Division for the fifth straight year while West Chester was picked in the East. Last year, Shippensburg won the East and beat California in the State Game, and both earned playoff berths, along with East Stroudsburg and Edinboro.
It's hard to gauge how good most of the teams in the PSAC will be beyond California. The Vulcans will be good, no question, but who will their challenges come from in the division? Edinboro, IUP, Slippery Rock and Clarion have holes at key positions, mostly at quarterback, and Mercyhurst, Gannon and Lock Haven are not expected to have enough fire power to be in the mix. IUP's Tepper said he isn't sure his team, which was picked No. 2, is any more likely to be in the hunt than anyone else. "After Cal," he said, "I'm sure everyone is just throwing names up in the air."
On the East side, West Chester's selection as the preseason favorite is hardly a lock. In fact, the Rams, who qualified for the playoffs five straight seasons from 2004 to 2008, did not receive a single first-place vote in the poll, yet somehow wound up on top. "I've been telling everybody it's the backhanded compliment," West Chester coach Bill Zwaan told The Pocono Record. "It's one of those, well, we like you, but we don't like you that much. It's funny because we're picked to be first, but nobody likes you to be first. It's because of how close everybody is. It could swing any way."
Bloomsburg is the second pick, with one first-place vote. Then it gets crazy. C.W. Post and Shippensburg are Nos. 3 and 4, respectively, and each were picked first by three of the eight East Division coaches. East Stroudsburg, which received the same number of first-place votes as West Chester, checks in at No. 5. Kutztown, Millersville and Cheyney round out the rest of the division. "This is really no different than any other year," East Stroudsburg coach Denny Douds told the Easton Express-Times. "The East has always been competitive, and every week you have to be ready to do battle."
The honest truth, though, is that it doesn't really matter who wins the two divisions and who claims the state game. It also doesn?t matter how many teams earn playoff berths or how high of a national ranking a PSAC team gets. What does matter is what a PSAC team can do when it gets to the ultimate "Go Big or Go Home" game. Luckhardt and the Vulcans have made it to the semifinals the last three seasons and lost each time, to Valdosta State (2007), Minnesota-Duluth (2008) and Northwest Missouri State (2009).
Maybe it won't be this year that the Vulcans - or any PSAC team for that matter - get over the hump and play for the championship. But for the 16-team PSAC, there's no better time than 2010 for it to happen.
And if it does, Mercyhurst's Schaetzle hopes the rest of the PSAC follows suit. "(California's) talent will stay strong, and they'll make a run at it," he said. "The trick then is to get the rest of the schools up there."
Matt Burglund covers IUP football and the PSAC for The Indiana Gazette. Send e-mail to matt.burglund@d2football.com
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