South Atlantic Conference

Is the Mossy Creek mystique gone? Carson-Newman was undefeated in home season openers up until the last two and had only lost six season openers in Ken Sparks' 30 years at the helm. Give the Warriors of Winona State credit: they found a way to limit the ground game in both meetings (aside from the long Doug Belk touchdown run) and forced Carson-Newman to make plays through the air. Those were few, particularly when it mattered at the end. The Eagles gave away three possessions within scoring range - or WSU took them away - and without those turnovers it is fairly certain that the home team could have scraped together enough points for the win. But good teams don't make those mistakes; Winona State didn't have a single turnover and played solidly throughout.

The Eagles have to find a way to rebound quickly to prepare for Bentley, a team that has been able to devote the whole preseason to stopping the Eagle attack. I'll give the edge to the team that has played a game already in most cases, but there are a few things you should know about Bentley.

Go beyond the 2008 game box score: True, C-N throttled the Falcons 59-18 on their field. Bentley has a winning program over the last decade, and its only losing season from 2001 until the present was 2008, one of the strongest recently for Carson-Newman football. I would not read much into a score played between two schools that has almost entirely new teams (the only Carson-Newman starter in both contests is defensive back Mario Russell).

Last season Bentley's only two losses came to the Northeast 10's other two 6-2 finishers, and the season ending loss dropped them on the outer edge of the playoff formula while Fayetteville State used earned access to get in. (No one at Carson-Newman knows anything about that, noooo.) So Carson-Newman goes from playing what was predicted to be a middle of the pack Northern Sun team (which will prove to be off-base by the end of the year) to a conference tri-champion that missed the playoffs by three points last season and was only six points from an undefeated regular season. It doesn't sound like the road is getting any easier.

The second thing I've learned about SAC football is that you can't count Tusculum out after one down year. The Pioneers are usually good for six to seven wins per year. Apparently the 2008 team decided to borrow against the average from the 2009 season; that's the only way I can explain it. The boys from Greene County just matured a little faster than I'd expected and they could be on pace again for seven wins.

Here we have another game where the SAC team has a game under its belt already while the opponent has only practiced. Findlay comes from the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, Where Champions Compete And Chum Coexists. Where Grand Valley State is coronated (and lives up to the billing) and bottom feeders go winless. Did you see that the GLIAC added two more easy wins to the conference schedule this year? The two new teams are picked to finish below the two teams that went 0-10 last year in league play.

Note that Findlay belongs to neither the champions group nor the chum group. The Oilers are picked to finish fifth after a sixth-place finish last year. Findlay has four games against the teams with no conference wins in 2009 in which it will be favored, two games against top tier opponents (GVSU and Hillsdale, both playoff participants last year) in which it will not, and the other five are toss-ups including this game.

Findlay will bring something that Charleston did not: a rushing game. Monterae Williams was last year's GLIAC Offensive Freshman of the Year, tallying nearly a thousand yards for the Oilers. Charleston's ground attack, outside of one 55-yard dash, was nonexistent. That kind of back is nice for getting a lead and letting him grind out the win.

On the other hand, Tusculum's offense is the type made for catching up. Sophomore quarterback Bo Cordell had the kind of opening day that you hope your fantasy quarterback produces in a couple of weeks: 31-of-43 for 318 and three touchdowns. Last season, Findlay ranked in the top five in its conference in scoring defense, total defense, and passing defense, permitting opponents only 167 yards per game through the air. TC led the SAC in passing yards last season and will not be a surprise if it does again this year. How well Tusculum can manage Williams on defense and maintain its own air supremacy will determine its success.

Prediction: I should have picked Tusculum at home. TC on the road is a taller order. Nevertheless I'm going to give them the slightest of edges and call it a three-point win. 24-21 Pioneers.

The Lions survived against a surprising North Greenville squad. Willy Korn was really a non-factor as the second-half option attack of the Crusaders led by Regginald Lewis really moved the ball and put 21 points on the board. Mars Hill quarterback Jon Richt managed the offense reasonably well, throwing for two touchdowns and 184 yards but with less than a 50% completion percentage. Workhorse Jonas Randolph sat out the first quarter due to team discipline and managed only 60 yards on 20 attempts for the day. The saving graces for Mars Hill were the Joshua Young kickoff return for a touchdown and the defensive touchdown on Michael Robinson's fumble recovery and rumble, both in the first quarter.

(As an aside, I really like what I see out of North Greenville so far. Aside from the FCS teams on its schedule and UNC Pembroke, I believe NGU will be clear favorites and should go on to do very well when playing for the NCCAA title. A good season this year will bode well for them preparing to play a conference schedule next year.)

Charleston did not provide the competition most expected in its game with Tusculum last week. One of the few similarities it will have with North Greenville is a quarterback with designated rushing plays. It is difficult to gauge how good the Golden Eagles are against the run, simply because Tusculum passed almost twice as much as it rushed. I don't believe Richt is at Cordell's level, but he can likely manage enough yards and scores - particularly with Randolph providing some balance - to march to the win.

Prediction: This really says as much about my prediction of the Tusculum-Mars Hill game as it does about this one. It stands to reason that, with Charleston receiving votes in the top 25 poll and North Greenville not coming close to that, Charleston is a better football team than NGU. That myth may have been debunked last week, though. I think Mars Hill will clean up its act enough to come out with a 20-14 victory.

Do you know what that means for this week? That's right, not a thing. No doubt Paul Hamilton is telling his troops that same thing this week, telling them to let all the visions of grandeur go because now it's time to get to work. There is a real football team waiting for them in Boiling Springs.

Remember how I said, when discussing the Brevard game last week, that there was not a single shred of doubt as to the outcome of the game? The same is true this week, but unfortunately the pendulum swings the other way. The odds of a Division II defeating a Division I FCS member of a respectable conference are quite low; the only victory of this nature that comes to mind recently is Carson-Newman over Chattanooga in 2007. Now for the last six years of meetings with FCS/I-AA schools from the South Atlantic Conference website, where non-scholarship teams such as Davidson and Morehead State are excluded since they don't participate in the FCS playoffs:

Now Gardner-Webb is no Appalachian State or Georgia Southern of yesteryear, but it proved that it can still lay the wood to the average Division II squad; see last season. The rule is that good to average FCS teams beat average to poor D2 teams. Let's call Gardner-Webb average and Brevard average (even though neither have any real milestones to go by this season yet). I think we'll see a couple of BC scores, but a lot of Runnin' Bulldogs.

I don't know if there is a precedent for killing two birds with one stone this way, but let's set one. Catawba has all the tools from its passing game (minus the Cam Sexton experiment) but will need to replace nearly the whole offensive line. That might not be a bad thing considering that Catawba gave up more sacks than anyone in the conference except Tusculum last year. Brandon Sutton will wreak havoc on the defensive line.

Newberry will be staunch defensively and may shut out the Blue Bears. Ron Parker is heralded as the best defensive back in some time for the Wolves. The offense looks to be fairly intact with some battling for quarterback duties (although Ehrlich is the favorite now) and starting running back.

Newberry and Catawba have no week one results to analyze so we can only speculate as to how they'll perform based on previous seasons (pretty much my week one column). Livingstone and St. Augustine?s are perennially in the bottom half of the CIAA. The only teams that have my respect from that league are Fayetteville State, Shaw, Bowie State, Elizabeth City State, and Winston-Salem State. Half the time some of those teams bomb out too.

Now I do remember St. Aug's pulling upsets against Mars Hill and Catawba over the years, so a Falcon victory would not seem nearly as upsetting as a Livingstone one. But both SAC schools at home are too hard to resist. The only question is how much has Catawba righted the ship? Are they back to championship form, or just out of the cellar? Newberry is a safe bet and I feel about 75% sure on Catawba.

Even though Edward Waters and Chowan looked equally dreadful, I must give a little more credit to the Lenoir-Rhyne staff for scheduling. You know you're getting a win when you schedule Edward Waters. I know it sounds like I'm dumping on them but I've seen them play in person. In 2009, Chowan was a team that was competitive with L-R's peers: Brevard beat both by less than six points. Based on those games, Chowan had the potential to be competitive or even win. Instead, the Bears imposed their collective will on the Hawks. 513 rushing yards and nearly seven per carry is absolutely gaudy. The only thing one could learn from the contest is that L-R is committed to the "Bear Bone"; even against a team where the coaches could try out almost anything, they attempted only eight passes compared to 74 rushes.

If a 59-10 ball game was painful to watch, at least you weren't following the Concord game. The Mountain Lions accumulated almost 800 yards of total offense and 72 points against the hapless Southern Virginia Knights from the NAIA. SVU normally picks up its wins against club teams and Division III opponents, so it makes average WVIAC teams look like world beaters. Concord used a more balanced attack than L-R, running 60% of the time while attempting 33 passes.

With these squads winning by a combined 100 points last Saturday. the best indicator of this year's outcome is the two previous meetings between the schools. Lenoir-Rhyne won 28-10 two years ago in Hickory, while Concord escaped a wild one, 52-45 in overtime on its field. Concord returns its top passer, rusher, and receiver from that shootout, while Lenoir-Rhyne has new leading men in each position.

One statistic in particular from last week stands out: Southern Virginia's offense managed only eight first downs. It received another SIX first downs from Concord penalties. All told, Concord committed 12 penalties for 117 yards, and a good number of those were of the more egregious variety: roughing the passer, facemask, and unsportsmanlike conduct. There were only a few procedural, offsides or delay penalties. L-R had its share too: nine for 55 yards, but the average shows that most were of the five-yard variety. If the Bears can capitalize on their opponent?s over aggression and lack of discipline, penalties and home field could equal the difference.

Did I have too much faith in Wingate, or too little in West Georgia? Apparently the answer is "all of the above" because aside from the Wingate passing yardage and the low UWG scoring output implication, not much else was right.

West Georgia's offense was impotent, managing only 11 first downs. Three of those came on the touchdown drive which took less than two minutes, so in 22 minutes of possession the Wolves converted eight first downs. (Perhaps that's due to stellar Bulldogs defense; we'll find out its quality this week.) Wingate recorded 25 first downs in comparison, but when you consider that the visitors had 12 possessions, that averages to two first downs per possession. Only four times did the Dogs sustain a drive with more than two first downs: two resulted in scores, one interception, one turnover on downs. Twice altogether Wingate failed to convert fourth down instead of attempting field goals, and twice more it threw an interception on West Georgia's half of the field.

If a team can't sustain drives, it must at least convert several big plays per game to set up scoring chances. In 47 rushing attempts, only three went for ten or more yards. In the 38 passes attempted, ten were not caught, 16 were caught for ten or less yards, and two were intercepted. I understand the West Coast concept of a short passing game, but throwing for anything less than the first down marker on third down just doesn't make sense.

For argument's sake, let's say that Wingate attempted and made field goals on the drives that ended on downs and the interception inside the ten. A new final score exists, 19-7 in favor of Wingate. Let's also make some more assumptions that look pretty safe based on the data: