September 5th, 2000 12:00am
For many teams, game two on the schedule is this weekend. It marks the end of what many feel is the most important week in football.
It is often said that the greatest improvements in a football team come between games one and two. Opening games often are marked with the typical errors - bad snaps, offside penalties, missed assignments, bad route running by receivers and a host of other mistakes that can be classified as first-week mistakes. This week most teams hope to correct those mistakes.
Week two also is a time when offenses begin to catch up to their defensive brethren. Timing between quarterbacks and their receivers improves and increasing numbers of offensive players get accustomed to how their playbook works in real-time situations.
Some teams may be able to correct their errors more quickly than others, however.
There was some lamenting of the fact that number-one rated Northwest Missouri State got off to a slow start against Nebraska-Omaha last week, managing only a three-pointer in the first half. The "slowness" lasted for one half only. Apparently Northwest managed to cram week two preparation into halftime of its game against Nebraska-Omaha. The Bearcats came back after halftime with a 21-10 margin to win their first game in their quest for a three-peat of the D-II national title.
Unfortunately for the opposition, Northwest's Tony Miles already was in his typically good mid-season form. Tony scored twice, once on a 65-yard punt return. Tony's ability to go the distance on punt and kickoff returns makes you wonder when teams are going to target number 10 with quintuple coverage. Better still, has anyone ever heard of kicking the ball out of bounds? You might give up some punt yardage, but it is far better to lose 20 yards in punt distance than watch Tony's big number ten on the back of his jersey as he runs passed all your coverage.
With ten weeks remaining in the 2000 season, ceding anyone a playoff spot might seem to be very premature, but one team might already have a lock on a tournament slot.
Shepherd's first defeat of Shippensburg in eleven years suggested Shepherd would be undefeated this year. It would be very tough for the Regional Committee to overlook a 10-0 team.
The only team remaining on Shepherd's schedule that appears to have a remote chance of stopping a Shepherd undefeated season is East Stroudsburg, but don't make any bets on that. In fact we view an East Stroudsburg win as highly unlikely despite the fact the game is at East Stroudsburg.
This could make the Northeast Region committee's job very interesting. If Shepherd has a lock on a spot, the Committee will have only three playoff slots remaining that will be contested by at least Slippery Rock, IUP, someone from the Great Lakes conference (probably Northwood) and possibly Millersville and New Haven. With the fact that four of these teams could chew each other up during the season, it could make playoff seedings a very hotly contested again this year.
Thinking of Slippery Rock, it seems as though the voters in the D2football.com poll and the AFCA poll were a tad unkind to the Rock.
Both polls pushed the Rock down four slots. It is number 12 in the coaches' poll and number nine this week in our poll. Falling four slots seems to be unjustifiable punishment for losing to I-AA powerhouse Youngstown State. Did anyone notices that the Rock played YSU substantially better than even in the second half of this game?
Early season poll position shifts are dramatic, which is why the Division II regional committees correctly chose to wait until the end of third week of play before doing their first regional rankings.
For example, did Angelo State deserve to jump from not rated at all in the D2football.com poll to number 15 and from 18 to 8 in the AFCA poll? Sure it beat Northern Colorado at home (UNC's first loss ever in September at its home field), but did the coaches notice that UNC was not rated in the D2football.com preseason poll - a poll not done by voting?
I suppose the fact that the coaches had ranked UNC in their preseason poll justified upping Angelo notably, but the Angelo win over UNC does not necessarily mean Angelo State is now a force to be reckoned with in the Lone Star Conference or the West Region.
Speaking of voting and the Northeast Region Committee brings to mind the fact the Northeast Region will need a new chairman and representative to the national committee. Bryce Casto from West Virginia Tech was booted upstairs at his institution and is no longer its athletic director. A decision on his replacement is expected with the next week or two.
And then there was the Pitt State win over North Alabama.
The Gorillas of Pitt State moved up two slots in the D2football.com poll and held firm at number six in the AFCA poll. The surprise was that UNA remained unranked in both polls.
If Pitt State is good enough to be ranked 5 in our poll and six in the AFCA but had to go to overtime to beat UNA, what does this say about UNA? Apparently nothing if you believe the pollsters.
Thankfully as always the players will make the ultimate determination about where their teams belong. UNA plays Valdosta October 28. That game and the West Georgia contest a week later will determine where the Lions fit in the playoff scheme. We suspect a slot in the South Region still could go to the Lions.
UC Davis beat the daylights out of New Mexico Highlands. Its reward was to vault into the 4th slot in the D2football.com poll and hold onto its 4th spot in the AFCA poll.
An interesting test to see how accurate its 4th ranking is will come September 16 when the Aggies travel across the country to play West Chester. West Chester will not win, but how it loses will tell a lot about the Aggies. After that and ignoring its I-AA games, the only real test for the Aggies will be their season-ending meeting with Western Washington.
Week two of the D-II season best might be described with a baseball term. It's a 'tweener - between the opening of the season and the beginning of conference play. Many teams take the week off following their openers which gives them more time to correct their first-game mistakes while others, like North Dakota State, have a chance to conduct a reasonable scrimmage like the Bison will this week against Moorhead State.
Although understandably this time of the year is wrapped up in hopes and dreams about playoff possibilities and key conference rivalries, there is at least one enormous issue facing D-II nationally that is making a lot of programs think about future seasons.
For several years the NCAA has grappled with the grumblings from its top D-I schools about - what else - money. The top schools want to keep it all.
Talk surfaced a few years ago about the notion that the top 50 or so universities might either pull out of the NCAA and run their own show or they would get the NCAA to reconfigure itself legislatively to allow the top schools more autonomy - meaning they will get greater control over how they divide up the TV and miscellaneous revenue pot.
With each passing season the pressure to do something grows. Even the largest D-I programs need (want) extra revenue or want to hang onto more of what is already being generated.
Somewhere in the increasingly near-term future is a re-alignment of college football. The big issue for D-II schools is where they will fit.
Division II shares some of the bounty of the success of college football overall. D-II in fact ran a budget surplus the last two years. But if the money grab we suspect is coming takes place and the trickle down to D-II stops, what happens?
Many different proposals are floating around, but the facts of life suggests that whatever happens will be determined first and foremost by what the largest NCAA members do. I-AA, D-II and III all will be the "victims" of whatever this process produces. The reality is that this can't be good for D-II as we know it since it could stretch some budgets beyond what their already stretched out of shape condition can tolerate.
This all is not likely to happen extremely soon, but out there in the foreseeable future is a new structure for college football. Where D-II fits in that structure is being determined now - by those who probably have the least interest in D-II. To put it mildly, the outcome will be more than interesting.
And then there is the Internet and college football.
This site began due to the recognition that major media outlets would not shake their NFL and D-I fixations. D2football.com caters to the millions of folks who prefer not to bicker about $8 zillion dollar signing bonuses or the whims of an overly pampered D-I squad whose idea of roughing it is staying in a Hilton Hotel rather than a Four Seasons.
The net brings with it the ability to broadcast games throughout the nation (world) yet what is surprising is the relatively few schools that do it.
Webcasting is a win-win for nearly everyone. There are enough low-cost outlets that will handle broadcasts that costs are low enough for even the smallest school to do it.
From the schools' standpoints, webcasting brings distant alumni close to the schools. It often also brings the wallets of those alums closer to the institutions, too.
Originators of the broadcasts, usually small local radio stations, get a chance to sell their ads on at least a broader regional basis or maybe even nationally as some advertisers will ante up for the chance to get the ears of alums around the country. If nothing else this boosts the per-minute rate stations can charge and possibly increases the number of potential advertisers.
All I hear from everywhere is the need for additional cash to support programs, yet when starring at an opportunity to increase revenues all you hear are reasons why webcasting can't be done, which is a far cry from reality.
What am I missing here?
Thinking of the playoffs as we were earlier, you have to wonder what's on the minds of the folks in the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association.
For years it was obvious the conference did not care about the D-II tournament. Scheduling the Conference championship game in conflict with the D-II tournament was a good indication the league cared little about the rest of the division.
But low and behold this season the CIAA's title game is before the D-II playoffs begin. Could it be saying it really wants to get full consideration in the playoff seedings?
Another observation this season that is interesting is the contrast between some areas of the nation regarding facilities.
Pitt State has embarked upon a renovation of its storied Carnie Smith stadium. A $6.4 million pot was assembled to pay for the improvements - and boy are they improvements.
If the end result of the renovations matches the renderings we have seen, the new "pitt" as Carnie has been lovingly called, will be one of the best facilities in D-II and maybe the best.
This isn't even a matter of "build it and they will come". They already come. Pitt State attendance has always been good. But nonetheless the school felt it was necessary to upgrade the field.
What makes this interesting is that a school that probably would draw fans if it played its games in a tar pit chose to massively improve an already decent field. Yet, each fall we travel to some facilities best suited as grazing land for not very discriminating cattle when high school fields nearby are far more suitable for human athletic activities.
And so it is at Northwest Missouri and Cal-Davis, both of which are in the midst of major stadium upgrades while many of their "contemporaries" (note the quotes) continue to hold dear facilities built by the WPA.
Again, I wonder what I am missing here.