Bye weeks are great for football teams that can use the extra week to prepare for tough play off games, rest and heal injuries but I am finding they are tough on Bearcat Fans who have enjoyed 11 consecutive Saturdays (in person for fans more devoted than I and in Maryville/KC with other weeks on radio with Award Winning John Coffey for the rest of us) of excitement following Northwest football. Thanks to everyone who wrote asking about some information during this off week. So I will write assorted facts this week about the bracket, other teams and some Bearcat minutia.
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All NCAA DII play off games played Nov. 15, 22 and 29 start at noon local time. With nearly all of Texas being in the central time zone, any play off games Northwest will play Nov. 22 or 29 will begin at noon Maryville time. Information on location and time for a potential Northwest semi-final game on Dec. 6 is:
If we are fortunate to advance to the semi-finals in the football playoffs, game times on Dec. 6th will be at 11 a.m. CT and 3 p.m. CT – both will be televised. One game will be on ESPN 2 and one game will be on ESPN Classic.
Obviously at this point the game and network assignments (Region 2 vs. Region 4 –we are region 4), as well as the potential host schools have not been determined. Those will be announced after the Regional finals are completed. The national championship game on Dec. 13 is also a noon Maryville time kick off.
During the Tjeerdsma era, the Bearcats have played top quality competition. Of the 23 other teams qualifying for the 2008 play offs, Northwest has played 15 of those schools since 1998 — some in the play offs but many in regular season (including a home game against West Chester PA where we paid them a guarantee and had a very early –11:00 kick off ??—so they could fly back that same day).
As I mentioned 2 weeks ago, our Region 4 has the fewest teams with 6 of the 31 teams making the play offs. The other regions are 2 (southeast) with 6 of 34 teams, 3 (north central including Northern Sun and Great Lakes leagues) with 6 of 44 teams and 1 (northeast) with 6 of 46. I would like to think the small number of teams in our region reflects the opinion of the power of the MIAA (and to a lesser extent the LSC in Texas).
The larger number of teams in 1/northeast and the tendency for teams from that region to get national rankings (despite the fact that the last team to win a national championship from the northeast was Delaware in 1979 when they defeated Youngstown State who have both long been DIAA powers and the fact that the last time a northeast school even made the championship game was 2000 when Bloomsburg was crushed 34-63 by Delta State in the only championship game this century to have a margin of victory of more than 7 points) leads to some unusual play off qualifiers from that region.
“Earned access” (a conference champion who is not in the top 6 of regional rankings but is in the top 8 gets into the play offs ahead of teams who are in the top 6) put 9-2 Seton Hill of the WVIAC as the #8 team in the region into the play offs ahead of #6 9-2 Edinboro who was also ranked #17 in the nation. IUP was #15 in the nation and did not make the play offs. Fayetteville State was 9-2 and ranked 25th but did not make the play offs. The northeast would have been even messier had CIAA champ 8-3 Shaw had been ranked 7th or 8th in the region and they would have “earned access” into the play offs ahead of #5 8-2 Southern Connecticut who was unranked nationally. Also 9-2 East Stroudsberg ranked 24th nationally did not make the play offs. But in our region and the southeast three teams make the play offs with 7-3 records.
Eight of the 24 semi-finalists for the 2008 Harlon Hill Award were from teams that did not qualify for the play offs.
Squad size for the play off games is 54 for both home and visitors.
Remember when Central Mo was ranked in the top 25 and feared? Back in the season opener Aug. 30, Central beat Minnesota State 29-9. Now Minnesota State is the #5 seed in Region 3 at 9-2 with their only other loss coming to 11-0 Minnesota-Duluth.
No conference put more teams in the play offs that the MIAA, but Central did not even make it to the Mineral Water Bowl as the top finisher in the MIAA to not make the play offs because they lost to 6-5 MoWest. MoWest did win 5 of their final 6 games …but those victories were over the bottom 5 teams in the MIAA and came by a cumulative point total of just 26. Mowest was just 3 field goals and less than 60 seconds away from 3-8. To make this situation even more embarrassing, the opponent in the MWB is 7-4 Augustana who lost to Emporia State 14-27 on September 6. ESU was 2-7 in the MIAA and lost their final 2 games by a combined score of 14-108.
The two former MIAA members who played November 8??? Missouri S&T (Rolla) beat Southwest Baptist 63-23. SWB finished 5-6 and MS&T is 6-4 with a make up game 11-15 against Truman. Both MS&T and SWB had losses to DIAA teams. MS&T beat SWB by a larger margin than Northwest did back on September 6 (63-28).
Not to detract from the fabulous achievements of the Northwest offense (which had had 21-7 lead on Abilene Christian at the end of the 1st quarter in August), but the improvement of the Northwest defense looks tremendous on paper. In the first 3 games, Northwest gave up 107 points (36 per game and two of those opponents were Southwest Baptist and Mowest). In the next 8 games, that defense gave up a total of only 82 points (10 per game against 4 teams that are or have been ranked nationally UNO, Pitt State, Washburn, Central and the rest of the MIAA).
If Northwest is fortunate to defeat the winner of the Nov. 15 UNO @ Pitt State game and if their Nov. 29 opponent is Abilene Christian, who will benefit from the steeper learning curve since August 29? The trio of Abilene Christian offensive stars QB Billy Malone, RB Bernard Scott and WR Johnny Knox are all seniors and all been starters all 4 years at ACU or their juco. While they are indeed good (best trio of all time on one team according to d2football.com) their improvement since August 29 could not rival the improvement of the Bearcat defense over the 2008 season.
If (if) Northwest does win Nov. 22 and if (if) ACU does win Nov. 22 and if (if) Northwest loses to ACU Nov. 29, then… Northwest will play two games in a row at Abilene Christian University. That second consecutive game would be the Aug. 29, 2009 season opener.
UNO lost to Truman 20-26 the week after losing to Northwest in Omaha 0-42. But on October 18 UNO traveled to Pitt State and lost only 28-35. The game was tied 21-21 after 3 quarters. UNO rushed for 299 yards and completed 70% of their passes. UNO averaged 7 yards per rush attempt and 7 yards per play total offense. But Pitt State controlled the ball running 72 plays to just 48 for UNO and dominating time of possession 37 minutes to just 23. Pitt State never punted and went for it 3 times on 4th down. The 2 teams combined for only 21 passes the entire game. UNO was penalized 7 times (Pitt St twice) and had 2 turnovers (zero for Pitt St).
Pitt St has not played in the play offs the past 2 seasons while UNO has now qualified for 4 consecutive seasons. UNO has lost their last 5 play off games. The last play off game between these two schools was the 2001 first round @ Pitt St with UNO losing 7-20. Pitt State lost the next week at North Dakota 0-38.
If Pitt State would defeat UNO on Nov. 15, then their Nov. 22 trip to Maryville would be their first since 2000 when they lost 35-28 on Sept. 16. Northwest has played twice at Pitt State since the inception of the Clash of the Champions in 2002 (play off games where the Bearcats were 1-1).
The 10-day forecast now predicts for Maryville Nov. 22 a cloudy high of 31 and a low of 26 (but that same service yesterday was predicting a sunny high for Nov. 22 in Maryville of 53!?!?!?!?!?). The average high is 46 and the low is 26 and the records are 74 and 1.
Thanks to Steve Grant (All-MIAA 2nd team fullback blocking for the great Jim Albin on the 1972 5-1 MIAA championship team) for the heads up about the Jeff Harlin column at www.d2football.com recounting the first 4 quarters of the 1999 national championship game.
While I do not mean to slight the achievements of the rest of the 1998 15-0 national championship season, my favorite memory is of #1 junior cornerback Charlie Pugh. In 1997 (first season after Jesse Haynes) Pugh was the second leading Bearcat rusher averaging 6 yards per carry. For 1998 he agreed to move to cornerback where help was needed. Charlie recorded 25 tackles and was 4th on the team in pass breakups using his all-round athletic abilities on defense. But Charlie could still carry the ball and did to “save” the undefeated 15-0 season. Pitt State had just driven 82 yards to score in the 4th quarter to tie the game 16-16. Charlie Pugh caught the ensuing kick off on the 1 yard out of the west end zone at Rickenbrode Stadium and returned it 99 yards for a touchdown. Northwest gave up an intentional safety in the final minutes and went on to win 23-18 and the undefeated season was preserved. Honor all the Bearcat players but keep a special spot for Charlie Pugh and others like him who sacrifice for the good of the team and do their job very well.
Another great Bearcat success story from an e-mail I sent earlier this week:
An absolutely astounding array of awards — even understanding that we were again undefeated MIAA champs!
Not to detract from the awards at the very top of the list but towards the bottom is the most remarkable story. 22 months ago Abe Qaoud was at the beginning of a very long hospital stay for multiple injuries sustained when his apartment building burned to the ground and he jumped from an upper window. But remember even further back that 39 months ago Abe Qaoud was just a walk-on who wanted an opportunity to keep playing football after high school.
Awards and winning are great but to do it with class and with quality people following team rules that are even more strenuous that the NCAA or MIAA require …what a convergence of ideals, talent and effort that goes far beyond football.
And if his team should lose a game before they would be crowned national champions, the success of he and his team will not be diminished nor forgotten.
With the Bearcat history against both UNO and Pitt St, the Nov. 22 playoff game in Maryville will be a challenge and a day to remember. Come early and be loud to do what we can (besides continuing to be generous donors) to help the Bearcats play well. — Chuck Place, Albany