Fort Hays State head coach Chris Brown was among the masses of former Ichabods in Topeka this weekend for homecoming.

Brown, in his first year calling the shots in Hays, didn't attend Washburn - he was a three-time All-American at Pitt State - but he did spend the last nine seasons there as defensive coordinator.

Brown remains close to Washburn coach Craig Schurig and many of the Washburn players, but he didn't exactly get the welcome he wanted.

His Tigers (3-6, 2-5) hung tough in the first half, trailing just 23-14 at intermission, but the Washburn defense, led by linebacker Jahmil Taylor - who started for two seasons under Brown - came up big early in the second half with an interception on the Tigers' first drive and a big hit on third down on their second, and Washburn (8-1, 7-1) was able to cruise to a 43-20 victory.

Facing a former team is tough. Many times, if you've moved on from an assistant to a head coach, it's from a powerful team to a squad in transition. Schurig can attest to that. In 2001, after 10 years as an assistant at Pitt State in which he saw nine playoff appearances and never saw more than three losses in a season, he took over a Washburn team that had seen just one winning season in its past 13 tries.

Schurig's 'Bods lost their first three games against Pitt State by scores of 47-14, 37-10 and 70-14. Things have gotten better for him though, as he's won four of his last six against the Gorillas and can improve that this week when he heads to Pittsburg for a pivotal clash for first place in the conference.

Schurig got the chance to beat his former mentor, Chuck Broyles. A guy who never got the shot to do that is Missouri Southern head coach Bart Tatum, who was 0-5 against Mel Tjeerdsma before his retirement after last season.

With a new coach leading the way for Northwest Missouri, things didn't pan out any differently for Tatum and company.

It was almost close, though. Even more so than for Brown in Topeka. Southern (3-5, 2-5) pulled within 24-21 with 23 seconds to play in the third quarter on a short touchdown run by Anoth Westfield. But Jordan Simmons returned the ensuing kickoff 98 yards for a touchdown and the Bearcats (8-1, 7-1) continued with their fourth-quarter domination, adding three more scores while blanking the Lions en route to a 52-21 victory.

Elsewhere in the MIAA this week, we had Missouri Western staying alive in the playoff chase with a 31-24 victory at Southwest Baptist. At the time of this posting, about 24 hours after the game ended, SBU had yet to post an official box score for the game. Live stats were unavailable throughout the game and all stats as of now are 'unofficial.' (Great Job Baptist) But for what it's worth, David Bass had four unofficial sacks and RB Michael Hill carried the ball 'about' 30 times for 'approximately' 200 yards.

Travis Partridge accounted for three more touchdowns - two in the air and one on the ground - and the Griffons (7-2, 5-2) have gotten through their easy five-game stretch without any hiccups as they can now look ahead to Saturday's matchup with Northwest Missouri (to be televised regionally on MIAA Network).

In Jefferson City, another couple of dozen (565 to be exact) showed up to watch another Lincoln (1-8, 0-8) beatdown. Central Missouri's Tommy Corwin only threw 20 passes, completing 13 of them for 191 yards, but five of them were for touchdowns. Freshman LaVance Taylor added 119 yards on 10 carries and Central (6-3, 5-3), while on life support, stayed alive in the playoff chase with a 49-6 win.

I told you this week's most interesting game might be Truman at Emporia. I wasn't completely wrong, because none of the games were really all that interesting, but Emporia had control of this game by halftime and never let Truman climb back in.

The three-headed monster that is the Emporia State (4-5, 3-5) backfield - Adrian Abner, Dasir Horton and La'Darrian Page - accounted for 260 total yards on offense and four TDs and the Emporia defense forced five turnovers as Truman (2-7, 1-7) dropped their fourth straight.

Regional Rankings

Not much will change in Super Region 4 Monday when the newest Regional Rankings come out. Pitt State had a bye and the other nine teams all won their games against teams outside the Top 10 in the region. The same can't be said for the other regions though, as five (Bloomsburg and IUP from SR1, Valdosta and Stillman from SR2, and Bemidji State from SR3) of the 30 other regionally-ranked teams dropped games to unranked (regionally) teams. Add to that several regionally-ranked head-to-heads and we'll be looking at quite a few changes in the other three regions.

SR4's big week is this week, as six of the 10 teams in the Regional Rankings face each other. #7 Missouri Western hosts #3 Northwest Missouri, #2 Pitt State hots #4 Washburn and #1 Midwestern State hosts #6 West Texas A&M.