September 5th, 2001 12:00am
An old cliché says that the biggest improvement for teams comes between their first and second games. If so, some teams certainly will welcome this week’s practice time. For some individual players another week of improvement might merely be piling on.
Take Josh Ranek, for example.
Everyone familiar with D2 football knows about Ranek’s weekly exploits. Last weekend was just another in a string of familiar Ranek right, Ranek left, Ranek up the middle. Toss in a few pass receptions and you have another week of terrific stats for one of the Division’s best players. And his efforts were needed to allow South Dakota State to beat Ferris State by ten points.
And then there was J.T. O’Sullivan.
O'Sullivan passed for 350 yards and two touchdowns in a runaway over New Mexico Highlands – a game, however, that started out with UC Davis crawling, not running. A sloppy first period shook the cobwebs out and then Davis was off to the races.
Dusty Bonner had a banner day for Valdosta by completing 22 of 33 passes for 316 yards and four touchdowns to lead Valdosta to an easy 42-6 win over Fort Valley State.
For the most part there were few surprises in the first full weekend of D2 play. But two games do fit the bill at least partially in terms of being surprises.
A lot of Eastern fans were a bit perplexed at Clarion’s loss to East Stroudsburg. They should not have been. Clarion has been expected to challenge for the PSAC’s Western Division title. East Stroudsburg was much farther down on the pecking order in the PSAC East. East Stroudsburg, however, will not be a pushover for anyone. Ask Clarion.
Clarion tied the score 27 all after struggling back from a 20-point mid-third-quarter deficit. But ESU stormed down the field going 83-yards in 7 plays for the winning score.
At first glance this game might seem like an unfortunate first-game stumble for Clarion that can be overcome. But given the fact that it now faces Youngstown State this weekend and is likely to be 0-2 when the game ends, from this perspective it appears Clarion will be faced with the need to win all its remaining games to be in the playoff loop --- a task that will be far from easy. The chances of an 8-3 team making the tournament seem slim at this point.
Slippery Rock’s 40-7 win over I-AA Florida Atlantic might also seem like a surprise. Admittedly with the money thrown into putting FAU on the football map it seemed reasonable to expect it would show better than it did in its first football game ever. But it was its first football game ever and it showed. The game hype and opening glitz was not enough to overcome the fact that you have to have the players to win. FAU appears to be a little ways off from having the necessary tools to compete in I-AA – even the relatively low-level I-AA schedule it has for this year.
Speaking of I-AA, there needs to be a point of clarification.
There are two flavors of I-AA teams; those that offer scholarships and those that do not.
Most fans know that the higher you move up the NCAA classification ladder the more scholarships that are available. At the D-IA level, for example, a football team has 85 allowable full scholarships. At the I-AA level 63 full scholarships are permitted. D2, of course, allows only 36 with some conferences imposing an even smaller limitation.
I-AA non-scholarship schools (the entire Patriot league for example) do not offer scholarships, but they can offer other forms of aid, which often are in the form of “grants-in-aid”.
The NCAA criteria for this non-athletic aid is stated as, “financial aid only to student-athletes who demonstrate financial need, except that loans, academic honor awards, non-athletics achievement awards, or on-campus employment and certain aid from outside sources may be provided without regard to financial need.”
The aid must be, “consistent with the policy established for offering financial assistance to all students. The financial aid packages for football student-athletes also shall meet the following criteria:(1) The institution shall not consider athletics ability as a criterion in the formulation of any football student-athlete’s financial aid package, and (2) The procedures used to award financial aid to football student-athletes must be the same as the existing financial aid procedures utilized for all students at the institution.”
There are some hybrids of this that combine both scholarships and grants-in-aid, but to our knowledge no one exceeds the maximum 36 “equivalencies” permitted in D2.
But once again this year many D2 teams have opted to play I-AA teams early in their schedules and some, like Truman, scheduled I-AA non-scholarship opponents.
This issue comes up in several contexts.
In most circles even even the supposedly informed sports press misses the distinction between a full scholarship-providing I-AA unit and a non-scholarship version. A year or two ago one major pre-season publication had several I-AA non-scholarship programs confused with their scholarship-offering brethren.
So how’s a less-than-well-informed fan supposed to know the difference? We suspect that for the most part they don’t – and that’s the way some people like it.
It sounds good to suggest that you are playing “up” by scheduling a I-AA team (in big print) with the non-scholarship status in tiny letters.
Truman correctly listed Drake last week’s as I-AA non-scholarship. Not many people listened beyond the I-AA designation. It sounds good to say you are playing a game against a “higher level” opponent.
But in reality is it a higher of competition? Ask most football watchers and they will quickly tell you it is not.
I-AA non-scholarship status was a way for some programs to sneak into the backdoor of basketball arenas where “real” D-I b-ball is played without having to take their much more costly football programs up to the standards of Division I. But because one of these institutions may have a competitive I-A basketball program by no means should suggest they have comparable competitiveness on the football field. In fact it’s normally exactly the reverse.
And then there are the I-AA games against real, I-AA units that offer the full scholarship allotment. The incentive for a D2 team to play one of these folks is obvious. It’s money.
Many D2 schools get a handsome addition to their purse by agreeing to be fodder for a home opener against a full-scale I-AA whose minimum 30,000-seat stadiums bring in many more dollars than a typical D2 game would generate (there are exceptions to the 30,000-seat stadium requirement related to average attendance).
But then even those games against I-AA non-scholarship opponents have a basis in dollars. Knowing that few fans recognize the nuances between the I-AA categories, the D2 schools can use the name recognition of I-AA non-scholarship programs as a draw to boost attendance.
This quiet little ruse probably is fine if it generates a little extra cash or notoriety, but it would be nice if someone would tell the “informed press” there is a real difference; one that argues that many D2 scores routinely not published have as much right to be on the screen crawls as scores from I-AA non-scholarship schools. But maybe they figure that a score from Lafayette has more cache than one from Nebraska-Omaha – maybe that’s what they figure, but from a football perspective they figure wrongly.
Week Two
With many conferences still a week off from opening their league schedules, there are a number of cross-section games slated for this week and a few other “money makers”. But there are some worthwhile D2 league contests, too.
The one that jumps off the page is Grand Valley hosting Saginaw Valley in the GLIAC. Both teams enter the game following convincing opening wins. Both have a lot at stake in their conference and the playoff structure.
Grand Valley State recorded its 200th victory all-time with its 56-0 opening-game victory over Minnesota-Crookston. The Lakers are now 200-109-3... Grand Valley State's 56 first-half points vs. Minnesota- Crookston set a school record. Grand Valley State scored TD's on eight consecutive possessions against UMC. Junior Quarterback Curt Anes tied a Grand Valley single-game record with five TD passes. Anes completed 38-of-53 passes for 554 yards. GVSU has rushed for 200 or more rushing yards in nine-of-its-last-12 games, including four straight... Grand Valley State leads the all-time series against Saginaw by an 18-8 margin.
The nature of these two teams suggest whomever is running the scoreboard better be quick with a keyboard so that he can enter the score changes as fast as these two units might create them. The winner of this game likely steps up as the logical (and maybe only challenger) to Northwood for the GLIAC title. Grand Valley moves from this critical contest to a meeting with Northwood a week later.
For those interested in seeing a full-scale practice game you could attend the Pitt State game with Bacone. After PSU’s opening 76-0 win, the biggest issue this weekend might be the disappointment the Gorillas will feel if they don’t match the opener’s point spread.
D2 gets a lot more serious the following week when most conference schedules kick in.
Oh, and by the way, speaking of teams looking to make a buck in a “mismatch” with a I-AA team, Slippery Rock probably won’t be asked back to be fodder for Florida Atlantic anytime soon. As was mentioned earlier, the Rock was the eater not the eaten in its 40-7 win over Howard Schnellenberger’s first-time unit at a school that looks and acts like it wants to move to straight D-I in time and as soon as its purse allows. FAU’s only points came when it fell in the endzone on a blocked SRU punt.
In FAU’s defense, you need to know that the NCAA and some probably botched paperwork had a hand in the thrashing that saw the Rock up 33-0 at the half.
Thirteen FAU’s players including seven starters were ruled to be ineligible due to lack of certification. The team did not know about it until 8 AM the day of the game. This game probably ended at that point with the game only being a formality. A little of the cash FAU raised to put a football team on the field obviously needs to go toward its compliance office.
Nonetheless, it was interesting to see FAU’s heavy-duty promotional effort go for naught with the Rock coming home with some extra cash, a win and a step up in the polls. You should also remember that about this game that would have changed probably even if FAU had the players it did not would have been the point spread, not the final win-loss outcome.