Around FCS: Milking A New Cash Cow

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Around FCS: Milking A New Cash Cow

Nearly every team in FCS loves the pay check that comes from playing an FBS opponent. They may not like the "L" that most often shows up in their ledger afterwards, but they like the resources that come from playing those so-called "money" games.

But what if some of the FCS schools could play high-profile games against other FCS teams and still come away with a nice payday?

In the case of Appalachian State, McNeese State and Montana, that was a large part of the thinking when the three perennial FCS powerhouses announced a series of attractive home-and-home dates last week.

ASU and Montana have become the poster children for attendance in FCS, routinely filling Kidd Brewer Stadium and Washington-Grizzly Stadium to the brim for home games.

Appalachian State had a school-record crowd of 30,931 fans for a nationally- televised Halloween game with Wofford last fall and averaged 25,161 fans for eight home games - including two in the playoffs. Montana packed an average of 23,923 fans into its house last season in nine home games to finish first in overall home attendance.

And McNeese State's Cowboy Stadium has always been one of the subdivision's top home venues, even though it is a bit smaller than either ASU or Montana's spiffy digs.

These three FCS heavyweights have scheduled six games with each other beginning in 2012. McNeese State was already slated to travel to North Carolina to rededicate ASU's renovation facilities in September, the first- ever meeting for the two teams.

As part of the deal, a home-and-home arrangement between ASU and McNeese State will be moved back one year to 2014 in Lake Charles, LA. and 2015 in Boone, N.C.

ASU will host Montana on Sept. 1, 2012 and will travel to Missoula, MT. in 2013. Montana will then head to McNeese State on Sept. 3, 2016 and will host the Cowboys on Sept. 2, 2017.

Appalachian State and Montana met just once before in a memorable 2000 playoff game. On the verge of losing, Troy Albea turned a Joe Burchette tunnel screen pass into a fourth-down miracle to set up Mark Wright's game-tying field goal at the end of regulation. But Jimmy Farris hauled in a fade route from 15 yards out in the corner of the end zone to lift the Grizzlies to a 19-16 overtime victory at home.

McNeese State bumped Montana out of the playoffs twice, with a 19-14 victory in the 1997 first round and a 24-20 win in the 2002 quarterfinals, both in Lake Charles, while Montana notched a 30-28 triumph in the 1994 quarterfinals and a 31-6 trouncing in the 2006 first round in Missoula.

Each home team will provide a $100,000 guarantee to the visitors to offset travel and the contracts contain a $250,000 buyout clause.

These games are sure to be sellouts that will generate a tremendous amount of income for the home teams and they could create the same type of buzz that last season's Appalachian State-James Madison encounter was able to build.

"This is good for Appalachian, but it's especially good for all of FCS football," ASU coach Jerry Moore said. "People look forward to games like Ohio State-Texas and Notre Dame-USC on the FBS level, so it's great to give fans of our programs and FCS in general the opportunity to have games of a similar magnitude to look forward to as well. Also, I've always been a believer that to become a good football team, you have to play good football teams and these matchups certainly fit the bill in that regard."

Fans from Montana and Appalachian State in particular had long asked their administrators to schedule a home-and-home arrangement with these two powerhouses, but the Grizzlies and Mountaineers managed to come up with something even better by working McNeese State into the package.

"This is an exciting venture for all three programs," said Montana athletic director Jim O'Day, who worked with ASU AD Charlie Cobb last year on the NCAA Division I football committee. "I know our coaches, players and Griz fans everywhere think very highly of these two football powers, and it will be great for the FCS to have six non-conference games featuring top-tier schools from different parts of the country. These game should generate a lot of national interest."

McNeese State athletic director Tommy McClelland agreed with O'Day's assessment.

"Scheduling quality non-conference opponents is critical to the mission and vision of what we're trying to do," said McClelland. "It's exciting to our fans, our community and to our institution. This is exciting for FCS football. It has national interest. Among the three of us there have been 10 national championship appearances and that speaks for itself."

Hopefully, this trend won't stop with Appalachian State, McNeese State and Montana. Why can't other premier schools like Northern Iowa, Delaware, Georgia Southern, James Madison, Southern Illinois, Massachusetts, Cal Poly and others also get into this scheduling act?

It would definitely be a good thing for building the FCS brand.

AT THE OTHER END OF THE SPECTRUM

While most FCS fans can be excited about the ASU-McNeese State-Montana axis, the same type of interest wasn't there when FCS newcomer Georgia State announced that it had signed a contract to play Alabama in its inaugural 2010 campaign.

Considering Georgia State coach Bill Curry's background at Georgia Tech, he ought to be familiar with the most lopsided college football game of all time - Georgia Tech's 222-0 win over Cumberland on Oct. 7, 1916.

Hopefully, Curry won't have to watch his former team, Alabama, beat his current one by such a margin in 2010.

Alabama is looking to rebuild its Bear Bryant-sized reputation under Nick Saban, meaning that the Crimson Tide won't be wanting to go lightly on any team, let alone the fledgling Georgia State program.

But such a game could have as big an impact on Alabama as it might on Georgia State's fragile psyche. With only two scholarship classes in place for Georgia State when the contest is played, the game will not count towards Alabama's bowl eligibility, unless NCAA rules are changed.

And such an encounter is likely to be devastating on the Crimson Tide's chances to reach a BCS bowl game, let alone that travesty the BCS calls a national championship game.

All things considered, you have to wonder what the administrations of both schools were thinking in scheduling this one.

 

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Around FCS: A shotgun wedding in the PL

Around FCS: A shotgun wedding in the PL

Around FCS: A shotgun wedding in the PL

There is no doubt that, at worst, many conference alignments in college athletics are marriages of convenience. But the post-nuptial agreement reached this week between Fordham and the Patriot League seems more like an old-fashioned shotgun wedding.

Months after Fordham coach Tom Masella let the secret out at an alumni gathering that the Rams would pursue a scholarship route in football, Fordham and the Patriot League announced on Friday that the Rams would begin offering scholarships for the 2010 season but would remain an associate member of the league.

The PL will continue to schedule a full-slate of games for Fordham through 2012, but the Rams will not be eligible for the conference championship or the league's automatic bid to the playoffs starting in 2010.

This agreement, which was voted on this week by the Patriot League football presidents, seems to buy time for all parties. It gives Fordham three years to determine the best conference solution to match its long-term plans, and it provides the notoriously slow-moving PL with a more comfortable timeframe to grapple with and discuss the issue of scholarships.

But make no mistake, this is anything but a perfect solution, and when the next three years are up, we could see Fordham move to a conference more in line with its future goals, unless the PL follows the Rams' lead.

When Fordham joined the Patriot League for football in 1989, the Rams were scratching their way back into the realm of Division I. The school, which had given the football world Vince Lombardi, Alex Wojciechowicz and the Seven Blocks of Granite and had played in the Cotton Bowl and the Sugar Bowl in the 1940s, was still rebuilding its program after the disastrous decision to drop in 1954.

The Rams were bottom-feeders in most years before Dave Clawson led them to a Patriot League title and NCAA quarterfinal appearance in 2002. After a brief downturn following Clawson's departure to Richmond, Masella has built the program back to a strong position, winning the PL crown in 2007. He should have them back in title contention again in 2009.

"This is a great day for Fordham football," Masella said. "Being able to award scholarships based on athletic ability will greatly increase the pool of student-athletes that we are able to recruit. We are pleased to be able to maintain our Patriot League schedule and at the same time, look to enhance our schedule with the addition of some FBS schools along with top FCS schools. In the end this will aid us in achieving our ultimate goal, a chance to compete for an NCAA FCS championship."

Fordham athletic director Frank McLaughlin did a concise job of boiling down the Rams' reasons for moving forward in his public remarks on Friday morning.

"I would like to publicly thank the Patriot League as this has been a long process of ongoing discussion and I appreciate everyone's understanding," said McLaughlin. "We look forward to continuing our relationship with the League's schools, along with our ongoing annual rivalry with Columbia University. We also look forward to the opportunity to compete in future games with other Ivy League schools now on the schedule such as Cornell, Penn, Yale and Harvard. Finally, the scholarships will allow us to renew rivalries with Army and Villanova and to enhance our schedule with the addition of schools such as Navy and Connecticut."

Fordham announced it will eventually fund 60 of a possible 63 scholarships, and the Rams already have games in place with UConn in 2011, Navy and Villanova in 2012 and Army in 2014 and 2015. The game with Army will be the first between the one-time New York state powerhouses since 1949.

You can also expect Fordham to eventually enhance and probably enlarge outdated, 7,000-seat Jack Coffey Field.

While Fordham was forcing the Patriot League's hand on the scholarship situation, much in the same way Holy Cross did when the Crusaders pushed the PL towards basketball scholarships in the late 1990s, the timing isn't right for the PL to follow the Rams just yet.

It wouldn't be surprising to see schools like Colgate, Lehigh and Lafayette make an argument for a move from need-based aid to a scholarship model, with Holy Cross and even Bucknell likely on the fence. But the current economic climate isn't going to let those schools take such a risky financial plunge just yet.

There are also signs that the Patriot League sees a future where the non- scholarship system might cause its teams to fall further behind the rest of FCS in terms of competitiveness.

"There is strong desire both on the part of Fordham and the Patriot League to continue our long-standing relationship," said Bucknell President Brian C. Mitchell, the chairman of the Patriot League Council of Presidents. "The interim arrangement we have agreed to will allow Fordham to begin to award scholarships in football while affording the league time to address merit aid for football and broader issues related to membership expansion. This issue comes at a very difficult financial time on all of our campuses."

Here is hoping that this shotgun wedding, while a little awkward right now, will blossom into true love...of the scholarship kind.

 

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Around FCS: What's going on at Delaware State?

Around FCS: What's going on at Delaware State?

Around FCS: What's going on at Delaware State?

Delaware may be among the smallest states in the union, but The First State has been a major player in terms of FCS offseason news.

Both Delaware and Delaware State have hired new athletic directors in recent weeks, and the two schools have also signed an agreement to play each other in the regular season for the first time on Sept. 19.

Additionally, UD and DSU have been drawn into a controversy involving the state government's approval of legalized sports gambling, one that could cost them the chance to host home playoff games.

But no story has received more attention than Delaware State's scheduling of a non-conference game with Michigan on Oct. 17. Columnists throughout the country have excoriated the Hornets for the decision to forfeit a Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference game with North Carolina A&T in order to take a $500,000 check from the Wolverines.

Sports Illustrated even labeled the story as last week's Sign of the Apocalypse.

The story surrounding the forfeit is a complicated one. The contract with Michigan was negotiated while Delaware State was interviewing for a new athletic director, and it still isn't exactly clear who in the administration approved the deal.

Derek Carter has taken the reigns as the new athletic director just in time to address all of the questions about a decision he didn't make.

But there is plenty of blame to go around outside of Dover, DE.

North Carolina A&T was willing to adjust its schedule to accommodate the Hornets, but at that point, even with MEAC commissioner Dennis Thomas involved in the negotiations, things broke down.

A&T needed to move its Sept. 12 game with Norfolk State to an Oct. 3 open date in order to allow Delaware State to play its game with the Aggies on Sept. 12, but Norfolk State balked at a deal that would have forced the Spartans to play 10 consecutive weeks.

It isn't unusual for conference members in other leagues to switch games to help fellow members play contests of this nature. But in this case, no one was willing to bail Delaware State out of its problem.

Much of the blame has to be shouldered by Thomas, who should have acted more forcefully before this embarrassing situation came to public light. Instead, Thomas now has to hope that DSU's forfeit will not have any adverse impact on the 2009 MEAC championship race.

The quality of the teams involved could eventually help the league avoid an additional P.R. hit.

Delaware State is rebuilding just two years after winning the 2007 MEAC championship and isn't likely to be a championship contender. North Carolina A&T, meanwhile, is trying to find its footing under new coach Alonzo Lee Jr. after going 3-31 in the past three seasons.

Thomas has also hinted that he will sanction Delaware State for the forfeit, though the type of penalty he might levy hasn't been revealed. Some are calling for him to make DSU ineligible for the MEAC title in 2009, something that might constitute harsh treatment for players and coaches who didn't ask for this attention.

It is more likely that the penalty will involve some sort of fine, which would hit the Hornet administration right in the place that led to the scheduling of the Michigan game in the first place - the pocketbook.

Whatever Thomas decides, this incident is a black eye on Delaware State and the MEAC - a bruise that won't heal quickly.

Some observers have speculated that this incident could leave cracks in the MEAC foundation that could lead Delaware State to find another conference affiliation, perhaps with the Big South.

Only time will tell how ugly this situation will get.


GAMBLING ON BETTING

Delaware Gov. Jack Markell is gambling that a sports lottery will help his fiscally-challenged state pull itself out of the economic doldrums and the Delaware Supreme Court ruled this week, as expected, that the state constitution allows for sports betting.

But as mentioned, that decision could cost Delaware and Delaware State the chance to host playoff games in the future.

The NCAA warned Delaware officials that it would prohibit those schools from hosting playoff games if state officials passed gambling legislation. The NFL is also expected to continue its legal fight against a state lottery.

Delaware State, which plays in 7,000-seat Alumni Stadium, has never hosted a playoff game, but Delaware has been a frequent postseason host with its 20,000-seat facility.

The Blue Hens have hosted 15 playoff games since making their first FCS postseason appearance in 1981.

One unexpected development is that another major playoff participant, Montana, could also be affected by this ban. The state of Montana also runs a sports lottery, and if the NCAA follows through on a betting ban for Delaware, it might have to investigate the possibility of prohibiting Montana and Montana State from hosting playoff games as well.

Montana has qualified for 16 consecutive playoff berths and its ability to draw crowds of more than 20,000 fans has led to 31 home playoff games over the years. The Grizzlies have also won a pair of NCAA championships, and have reached the title game six times.

 

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Edwards heads up Payton Award watch list

Edwards heads up Payton Award watch list

Edwards heads up Payton Award watch list

Philadelphia, PA - Armanti Edwards, the Appalachian State quarterback who won the 2008 Walter Payton Award, heads up the first four names released for the 2009 Payton watch list.

Also named to the watch list on Tuesday were Samford running back Chris Evans, South Carolina State running back William Ford and Northern Iowa quarterback Pat Grace.

A total of 20 candidates will be announced in alphabetical order prior to the start of the season, with four candidates being released each week. The watch list will be revised in October and again in November before the final ballot is announced.

Voting from a panel of FCS sports information directors, writers, broadcasters and other football experts will be conducted after the regular season ends. Three finalists will be announced on Nov. 30 and will be invited to the 23rd annual Sports Network Awards banquet on Dec. 17 in Chattanooga, TN., the night before the NCAA Division I championship game. The Eddie Robinson Award and the Buck Buchanan Award will also be presented that night.

Here are biographies of the first four players named to the Payton watch list:

Armanti Edwards, Appalachian State, Senior, 6-0, 184, Quarterback

Edwards is attempting to become the first two-time winner of the Payton Award after claiming the honor in 2008 as a junior. The quick and elusive signal- caller piled up 3,682 yards rushing and 7,101 yards passing in his first three seasons, including 941 yards rushing and 2,902 yards passing last season. Edwards came in as a true freshman to win the starting QB job at Appalachian State and helped the Mountaineers capture their second straight national title. The poised, unflappable performer became one of a handful of quarterbacks to run for 1,000 yards and pass for 2,000 in his freshman year, posting 1,153 yards rushing and 2,251 yards passing. He also was only the second freshman to take his team to a national title game, joining Chad Pennington of Marshall, and was the first to win it. Despite being sidelined for four whole games and half of another with a chipped bone in his shoulder, Edwards came back to drive ASU to another national title as a sophomore with 1,948 yards passing, 1,588 yards rushing. He was a first-team All-American as a junior after being a second-team pick as a sophomore.

Chris Evans, Samford, Junior, 6-2, 218, Running Back

Evans established himself as one of the top running backs in FCS last season as he helped Samford make the difficult transition to the Southern Conference and post a winning season with a 6-5 record. He logged his second straight 1,000-yard season, rushing for a school-record 1,284 yards and 14 touchdowns, while averaging 4.9 yards-per-carry. An all-around back, Evans was second on the team with 26 pass receptions. For his efforts, he earned first team All- Southern Conference honors. Evans galloped for a career-high three TDs and had 134 yards in a 30-7 win over Chattanooga. Evans ranked 12th nationally with over 116 yards rushing per game. As a freshman in 2007, he rushed for 1,033 yards and five TDs and earned a place on the OVC all-newcomer team. That season, he rushed for a career-high 212 yards against Austin Peay. He also returned 16 kickoffs for 384 yards. In his first two seasons, Evans piled up 2,317 yards rushing, 19 TDs and 11 100-yard rushing games.

Will Ford, South Carolina State, Senior, 5-11, 185, Running Back

Ford has been the offensive spark plug for a South Carolina State team that won its first MEAC championship since 1994 and advanced to the playoffs for the first time since 1982 last season. He rushed for 1,499 yards and averaged 6.1 yards per carry with 13 touchdowns for a Bulldog team that finished 8-0 in the conference and 10-3 overall. For his efforts, Ford earned first-team All- MEAC honors and was a second-team All-American. He was first in the MEAC in rushing and 13th nationally with an average of 115 yards per game. In 2007, Ford rushed for 1,433 yards and averaged 6.6 yards per carry with four touchdowns. He set the school single-game record for rushing with 322 yards in 2007 during a 51-7 victory over North Carolina A&T, one of seven games with over 100 yards rushing. In his first three years with the team, Ford has rushed for 2,251 yards with 24 total touchdowns. Ford was a Payton Award finalist in 2008, finishing 12th. He rushed for 752 yards, a 6.7-yard average and 10 TDs as a freshman and led the team with 20 kickoff returns for 517 yards and a 25.9 average, including one return for a 90-yard TD against Coastal Carolina.

Pat Grace, Northern Iowa, Senior, 6-2, 240, Quarterback

Grace replaced graduated Payton Award runner-up Eric Sanders as the Northern Iowa quarterback last season and didn't miss a beat, leading the Panthers to a share of the Missouri Valley Conference championship and to within a few seconds of the NCAA Division I title game. In 2008, he passed for 2,041 yards and 14 touchdowns while completing 62% of his passes en route to earning second-team All-MVFC honors. The dual-threat quarterback also rushed for 618 yards and 11 TDs. He came back from a mid-season knee injury to play some of his best ball down the stretch. Grace passed for a career-high 255 yards and added 84 yards rushing in a 36-34 first-round playoff win over New Hampshire, and had a career-high 99 yards rushing in a 31-17 victory over Illinois State. He finished the season ranked 15th nationally in passing efficiency and 40th with 221 yards of total offense per game. In his first three seasons, two as a backup to Sanders, Grace has 2,247 yards passing with 30 total touchdowns.