Charleston Fishwrap on Big South's Auto-Bid Future

[Sly Fox]

Big South playoff bid could be a long way off

BY JEFF HARTSELL
The Post and Courier

It was with mixed emotions that Big South Conference commissioner Kyle Kallander presented the league's championship trophy to Charleston Southern last weekend.

While acknowledging the Bucs' miracle comeback against Coastal Carolina and worst-to-first run to a share of the title, Kallander knew that Charleston Southern's double-overtime win had likely cost his league its first-ever bid to the NCAA Division I-AA football playoffs.

Had Coastal Carolina won to improve to 10-1, it turns out that the Chanticleers almost certainly would have been picked as an at-large entrant in the 16-team field.

"If we win that game, we are probably playing at Furman this weekend," Coastal coach David Bennett said Tuesday.

Instead, the Chants are at home and the Big South, in only its fourth season of football, missed out on a shot at invaluable exposure and respect in I-AA football.

"Having a team in the playoffs would have been huge for us," Kallander said. "It's a matter of building and earning respect, and recognition that Coastal Carolina and the Big South deserved to be in. We all know that no matter how careful the I-AA selection committee is and how objective they try to be, but they are human. We need to be able to get to the point where they know who we are and respect the fact that we play pretty good football. You do that by making the playoffs and having success in the playoffs."

Even Bucs coach Jay Mills was disappointed that his team's win spelled Coastal's playoff demise.

"We really felt like that even at 9-2, they deserved to go," Mills said. "It's beyond me how they were not selected."

With only five football-playing members, the Big South is one team shy of the six required to be eligible for an automatic bid. Though Kallander said he is working hard on securing that sixth team - Presbyterian College, anyone? - it will be a matter of years before the Big South is in position to earn one of the eight automatic bids.

Even if Presbyterian, which has made known its desire to move up from Division II to I-AA, was admitted today, the NCAA requires that a league have six members for two years before it is eligible for an automatic bid.

And even then, NCAA rules limit automatic bids to half of the 16-team field, meaning the Big South would have to be considered one of the top eight conferences to earn that distinction.

"Once we become eligible, we would be the 10th conference eligible for an automatic bid," Kallander said. "So we'd have to earn it through our play on the field."

Said VMI coach Cal McCombs, "I think getting an automatic bid is a long way off."

The plight of Coastal Carolina and South Carolina State - which have won 19 and 18 games, respectively, over the last two seasons with no playoff bids to show for it - has some coaches calling for I-AA to expand its playoff field from 16 teams to 24, as in Division II and III.

"I think it's going to have to go in that direction," said Furman coach Bobby Lamb, whose team plays host to Nichols State in the first round Saturday. "We have a lot of 8-3 and 9-2 teams that are not getting rewarded. You look at Division I-A, where you have 117 teams and 58 of them go to bowl games. In I-AA, we have 123 teams and 16 go to the post-season. The numbers really don't match up for us."

A 24-team field, with the top eight teams getting first-round byes, would add one weekend to the I-AA playoffs. Division I-AA teams would have to play 11 straight games before the playoffs began, cutting back on 12th-game opportunities to make a big paycheck at I-A schools.

Kallander is not hopeful that the playoff field will be expanded.

"Our initial discussions with I-AA members have not been fruitful," he said. "Once we become eligible and maybe knock another conference out of their automatic bid, there will be a lot of people talking about this. But right now, there is resistance to do that."



Extra Points

--Coastal vs. Furman: Bennett continues to upgrade Coastal's schedule. Next year, the Chants will play Wofford, Georgia Southern, South Carolina State and Furman. Bennett said the Furman game was agreed to Monday. Coastal will play at Furman in 2006, and the Paladins will come to Conway the next season.

--Super Safety: Coastal Carolina coach David Bennett admitted that the "Super Safety" play that cost his team a playoff bid against Charleston Southern had not been practiced well enough.

"All we have to do is run out of the back of the end zone, and we don't do it," he said of the play, when receiver Jerome Simpson was supposed to take a safety and instead ran out of bounds at the 4-yard line with 1.5 seconds left, setting up CSU's tying TD. "We probably should have practiced it more, but I would not change anything we did ... It was a classic example of how you have to pay attention to detail."



Postseason Awards

All completely unofficial

PLAY OF THE YEAR

Coastal Carolina's ill-fated "Super Safety" against Charleston Southern

GAME OF THE YEAR

Charleston So. 34, Coastal Carolina 27 (2 OT)

Furman-Citadel was great, Furman's win over App State terrific, but nothing tops the crazy Coastal-CSU finish

COACH OF THE YEAR

Tommy Spangler, Presbyterian

Bobby Lamb, Buddy Pough, David Bennett and Jay Mills also did super jobs

OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR

QB Collin Drafts, Charleston Southern

Bucs are nowhere without the steady junior from Beaufort

DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR

LB William Freeman, Furman

Great LB group includes CSU's Jada Ross, Citadel's Porter Johnson, Coastal's Jamar Leath



Power Poll

Final ranking of the state's Division I-AA, Division II and NAIA football teams for the season:

Team (Record) Comment

1. Furman (9-2) How far can Paladins go in playoffs?

2. Coastal Carolina (9-2) CSU signs next year: 'Punt, Coastal, punt!'

3. Presbyterian (10-2) Blue Hose Big South-bound?

4. S.C. State (9-2) 18 wins, no playoff bids in 2 years

5. Wofford (6-5) Terriers slipped this year

6. Charleston So. (7-4) Closed with 5 straight wins

7. The Citadel (4-7) Higgins getting program in place

8. Newberry (5-4) SAC contender next season

9. Benedict (6-5) Solid season

10. N. Greenville (3-8) Late wins to build on

11. Allen (5-4) Good stepping stone for young program

www.charleston.net/stories/?newsID=53960§ion=sports

Its good to see Kallander has everything under control.

It is cool to see CCU get a matchup with Furman. That will give them another opportunity to build league credibility like they did this season against JMU (even though the Dukes turned out to be mediocre).

[bigsmooth]

i think the playoff system moving to 24 teams would be a good idea. it would certainly help the big south. if PC joins for the 06 season and we do not lose any other teams, we would be eligible for an automatic bid in 08. by then maybe we could lure a sc state and maybe ETSU will have their program back. true, some good 9-2 and 8-3 teams were left out and expanding the field would have included coastal. the negative is losing a big payoff game from a I-A team. i say lose the payoff game and expand the field, but i doubt that will pass. too many I-AA schools need the money.

[Chris Lang]

Typical "nothing to see here" story, but important nonetheless to the South Carolinians. Nothing has changed since the season started. Nothing will change. Could have plugged the same interview with Kallander from July into this story. I will go out on a limb and say the Big South will NEVER get an auto bid unless the field expands to 24 teams, no matter if it has the requisite six teams.

Actually, that's not much of a limb.

[beigledog]

If we did end up with Pres. College it would be another team to whoop up on LU. They are in the D2 playoffs as we speak.

[Sly Fox]

Actually the Blue Hose got smoked in the opening round of the DII playoffs by another school stepping up to I-AA.

I realize the story is just filler from yesterday's conference call, but it continues to show the lack of vision or effort by our commissioner.

[WinthropEagleFan]

sumner said:

Actually the Blue Hose got smoked in the opening round of the DII playoffs by another school stepping up to I-AA.

I realize the story is just filler from yesterday's conference call, but it continues to show the lack of vision or effort by our commissioner.

I keep reading these types of things on this board and Coastal's board, but the commish is saying that they are actively looking for another football school, I'm not sure what more he can say (or do)...I mean, what more are you guys looking for from the conference? It's not like the league has missed the boat on any prospective members for football that I can tell (ie. no geographically or competitively sensible football playing schools have changed leagues or started football or moved up from another division since this league started). Yes, the Big South miscalculated with Elon's departure, but they probably assumed that Elon's program wasn't ready to move to the SoCon (and they since haven't done anything to prove they were)...but since then, I'm not sure what more could be done, or at least what can be said publicly by any of the parties involved (ie. the commish can't go around yelling out names of schools that he wants to join). Again, I'm not being an apologist, because I've definitely not agreed with all of the moves the conference has made in the past, but I see all of this complaining about the football situation, but I haven't seen any realistic solutions offered by anyone.

[Sly Fox]

WEF - I think our frustration is built on the body of work from Kallander thus far. I agree that he can't publicly tip his hand about things that are going on. But we haven't seen any evidence that he's done much of anything other than keep in touch with PC over the past two years. Considering the fact that the Big South's future essentially hangs in the balance of our football situation, you would think he would lobbying publicly and we would be seeing more evidence of his work.

Perhaps he has been looking undre every rock and trying to influence schools across the region. But there is no evidence to that effect at this point.

Prebyterian heading our way is great ... but its hardly the answer to our league's woes.

[WinthropEagleFan]

I see what you are saying, but I'd be more concerned if the conference had dropped the ball on prospective teams that ended up going elsewhere. I mean, the conference can't make teams start a football team...they can't force teams to move up from other divisions...there are no I-AA independents worth going after (unless you want Savannah State, which I know you don't)...and except for that MEAC situation, is it realistic to see any teams in the southeast changing leagues to come to the Big South for football? I don't see any, unless Elon has decided to reconsider or the Citadel wants to join the VMI in this league.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's easy to sit here and say that the conference and the commish aren't getting the job done with respect to football, but if there aren't any viable options to begin with, then I'm not sure what more they can do? I mean, it's not like this league had a bid and lost it...You guys are at least now in a situation where you can at least compete for a league championship and are one team away from having a possible automatic-bid league...that's more than you guys had 5 or 6 years ago. I understand the need to get that extra team, but none of us can sit here and snap our fingers and create a program that right now doesn't exist...

[Sly Fox]

If other conferences can court schools away from us, we should be working to do the same to others. If we aren't trying to convince Elon & Citadel to jump ship right now, then we're not doing our job. Perhaps that is happening. Who knows? We can't just sit still and continue to be cannibalized by the SoCon and other leagues. If we aren't proactive, we'll continue to stay stagnant. That's no position to be in with schools like CCU weighing its options.

[WinthropEagleFan]

All valid points, but how often do conference officials publicly tip their hands that they're going after anyone in particular? In almost all cases, you hear individual schools lobbying for a move, but most conferences stay pretty tight-lipped about these types of things (the ACC expansion notwithstanding), which is what I assume is being done here, especially since in every single interview these days, Kallender (along with others in the league) mentions that they are actively pursuing new football members. Maybe I'm gullible, but to me, I tend to believe that's what the league is doing, but I don't expect to hear anything more specific unless a move is imminent.

[Sly Fox]

Usually when there are overtures being made, word tends to leak out at the prospective schools. There just hasn't been much buzz at any of the schools we've mentioned. But as I mentioned before, I could be 100% wrong. He could be banging on every door. But color me skeptical.

[WinthropEagleFan]

And for all I know, the conference office and all of the school presidents have made no move at all to get another football school and are just saying they are in the papers...I have no clue either...

[PAmedic]

sumner said:

Usually when there are overtures being made, word tends to leak out at the prospective schools.

Reading this, I had the same thought that SLY spoke here- GUARANTEE YOU if there were attempts being made SOMEBODY would have leaked it. There would be the usual denials but a lot of winking.

WEF, you do make some good points, but I think you'd be just as frustrated if your MBB team got shut out of the Big Dance every year because our conf was one team short. I think that's CCU's position as well. (?)

[WinthropEagleFan]

Oh, I definitely understand the frustration, but nobody in the league (except for VMI) came from a situation where they had that I-AA playoff berth available, so it isn't like the situation is any worse today than it was three years ago for any of these teams, and like I've said before, it isn't as if all of these teams have become available and the league has completely missed the boat on them. I see why people are frustrated, but I"m not sure throwing the commish or the conference under the bus about it is the right way at going about it.

[PAmedic]

point taken.

still not impressed w/ Kallender!