November 7th, 2000 12:00am
After nine months of waiting for the 2000 D-II season to start, it is difficult to believe it is nearly over. The only issue now is whether the remaining season consists of one game or as many as five.
Northwest Missouri will close out its regular season knowing its season still has at least two games remaining. All it needs to do now is wait for its name to be called during the playoff selection show this Sunday.
Catawba and Northwood likewise know they have at least two more games to play. In addition to the comfort of knowing they are in the D-II tournament, these three teams know where they will be playing their opening round games. They should all be at home.
There, of course, are 13 others whose seasons will last a minimum of two more games. But these 13 other teams still have at least minor jeopardy this weekend. For a few the final game of the season is a make it or break it time.
Cal-Davis surely would seem to be poised to enter the tournament, but it still faces a stiff test from Western Washington this weekend. Davis will be in the tournament. Its number one seed, however, still must be affirmed on the field this weekend.
Unless something disastrous happens, North Dakota State also can anticipate that its selection is secure. Nebraska-Omaha on the other hand has to play its way into the selection list. UNO has to go on the road to play North Dakota in a game that clearly is a fight for one of the spots in the Midwest Region playoff list.
The battle of the day, however, pits South Region third-ranked Valdosta on the road against second-ranked West Georgia. On paper this game would seem to be the ideal matchup – Valdosta’s scoring versus the Braves’ defense. The contest also has big Gulf South and South Region implications. A win for the Braves would make the first team since North Alabama in 1995 to finish the regular season undefeated and would assure them of at least home playoff game. A loss and the Braves share the Gulf South title. A Valdosta win gives it a share of the Gulf South title.
Although West Georgia’s defense will be a factor in this game, a bigger issue will be which quarterback chalks up the most yardage and points. Dusty Bonner is looking to set a national record for single-season TD passes. Of course, if he does his coach might view the effort with mixed emotions. Valdosta’s coach, Chris Hatcher, is the current holder of the record. West Georgia counters with its own strong quarterback, Jeremy Clements, who is ranked third in Gulf South career passing touchdowns (62) and
sixth in career passing yardage (6,381).
There is little doubt this game will be a wing’em and fling’em affair but someone making a huge defensive play likely will win it. When you put the ball up as much as these two quarterbacks will, something very bad will happen to one of them that could be the deciding error. Our leanings are to suggest Valdosta wins this game, but the fact that it is at West Georgia brings the game back closer to a pick’em, which is where we will leave it.
The Northeast remains a mess. Northwood will have to do something unthinkable to lose its second spot in the region, and with the right events, it could end the season at the top of the Northeast heap.
Northwood could claim the top spot if Slippery Rock loses - a possible but not probable event. The Rock hosts Bloomsburg for the best contest of the weekend in the region.
Bloom heads to the Rock with some motivation. A win puts it in the second spot in the region, which allows it to open the tournament at home. Bloom comes into the game after a surprisingly easy defeat of Kutztown. The Rock handled previously region-leading Millersville with ease.
My leanings in this game – or maybe I should say heavy slope – is toward the Rock winning. Its 22 departing seniors are not about to end their careers with a home loss right before the tournament starts. In addition, they know that it is theoretically possible that a loss could kick them out of the tournament.
Bloomsburg’s quarterback, Eric Miller, has not had a storied career, but he has performed well. Marques Glaze has put up impressive numbers running the ball. The team, as it usually is, will be well prepared by its head coach, Danny Hale. But I keep going back to those 22 Rock seniors who remember the letdown when they lost to IUP in the first of the tournament last year. They remember how they felt watching another team celebrate a win on the Rock’s home turf. This will not happen two years in a row – not this week anyway - at least that’s our view.
Bloom has an interesting situation that may not make a loss this weekend a season-ending situation. Although Bloom certainly would drop in the rankings, it could end up with what would effective be a tie with IUP. Bloom beat IUP earlier in the season, but Bloom also lost to Shippensburg while IUP beat SHIPP. How does the committee go in this situation? This could be a gut-wrenching decision. And then there is the issue of strength of schedule. IUP probably has the edge in this aspect.
Head-to-head means a lot in the playoff selection criteria, but the SHIPP game could be a big issue. Bloom lost to SHIPP by seven points. IUP beat SHIPP by 29 points. Some will argue that the IUP's win is tainted because SHIPP’s normal quarterback, Chris Gicking, was not in the game, but that does not explain away giving up 35 points to what at that point was a struggling IUP offense.
But SRU, Bloom and IUP are not the only ones in the Northeast confusion mix. Saginaw is involved, too. It must travel to Northern Michigan for a 7 PM Saturday game.
Last weekend Saginaw crawled away from its game against Michigan Tech happy to be alive. With 20 seconds on the clock and Michigan Tech on the Saginaw 12, Tech missed a chip shot fieldgoal that would have won the game. Instead Saginaw escaped as a one-point winner.
Over the years Saginaw has had a tough time with Northern Michigan, but since coach Jerry Kill arrived in 1994 Saginaw has won 2 of the six contests, a much better win-loss ratio than Saginaw has had historically against Northern. One of the wins, in 1998, was at Northern Michigan.
Saginaw’s motivation to win this game is simple – it’s win the game or get booted out of the tournament. A win also would allow Saginaw to share the GLIAC title.
Northern Michigan has no motivation other than competitive pride. It can’t do better than third in the GLIAC. Northern has no playoff hopes at this point.
D-II playoff selections will be announced at noon this Sunday. D2football.com will have the playoff seedings posted as they are announced.
There is little doubt the playoff selections again will resurrect the debate about why some teams will be left at home while others perhaps not as deserving will be in the tournament. The concept of regionality in the playoffs is at the root of this issue. The argument that some deserving teams have been excluded in favor of less worthy teams due to the regionality concept in some recent years has had credibility. It does not this year.
Regardless of the outcome and the possible rankings switches following Saturday’s games, we find no reason to give any credence to the notion that a deserving team will be omitted from the tournament.
The one game that could re-ignite this debate is the Nebraska-Omaha contest with North Dakota. UNO could get bumped out of the playoffs with a loss, which would probably start its fans on a tirade of complaints about being kept out of the tournament. The complaints will include a game-by game analysis of the season with huge emphasis on
UNO’s “quality” loss to Northwest Missouri by only seven points.
Equity in playoff selections is in the eye of the beholder. Strewn across the nation, D-II has to construct a format that attempts each year to include the 16 “best” in the nation. What is best is best determined on the field. Arguments about which conference is best are moot. Unless D-II wants to subdivide itself into several parts, there really are few alternatives to the current setup.
There has been talk of expanding the tournament by adding one more week and giving automatic invitations to conference winners. Adding another set of teams in each region certainly would enhance the chance that a possibly worthy team is not overlooked, but I am constantly reminded of the situation in the NFL where an expanded playoff format has seldom altered the end result of the playoffs. Of course in the NFL’s case, an
expanded playoff format had a lot more to do with raising revenues than it did with finding overlooked teams.
But this aside, this year’s potential mix to us looks about as good as it can be. Regardless of what happens this weekend, the “best” sixteen will be playing November 18.
At this time of the year it's interesting to look at another grouping of the best - the best individual and team performances. Granted these are only statistics, but they are interesting nonetheless.
The following are some of the best performances by category.
Total Offense - 563 Chris Reil Jr., Henderson St. vs. Arkansas Tech Oct.28
Rushing Yards - 405 Alvon Brown, Kentucky St. vs. Ky. Wesleyan Sept. 16
Passing Yards - 579 Chris Reil Jr., Henderson St. vs. Arkansas Tech Oct. 28
Pass Completions - 43 Dusty Bonner, Valdosta St. vs. Delta St. Oct. 7
Receptions 18 - Chad Luttrell, Henderson St. vs. Arkansas Tech Oct. 28
Receiving Yards - 352 Chad Luttrell, Henderson St. vs. Arkansas Tech Oct. 28
All-Purpose Yards - 332 Billy DeMalia, Assumption vs. Stonehill Oct. 14
Points - 80 Ark.-Monticello vs. Okla. Panhandle Sept. 16
Total Offense - 691 UC Davis vs. Western Ore. Oct. 7
Rushing Yards - 570 American Int’l vs. Stonehill Sept. 16
Passing Yards - 579 Henderson St. vs. Arkansas Tech Oct. 28
One last little tidbit that could ignite some heated debate is a listing of coaching records. The NCAA website has a list of the records of the top active coaches in Division II. The address is:
You might want to take a hard look through it. You might draw some interesting conclusions especially when you balance the overall records against postseason records. Rather than read our spin on what the stats show, take a look at them yourself. Those fans who insist on fighting the "whose the best conference" fight will find this list particularly intriguing.