December 5th, 2006 12:00am
It will seem strange to have no Division II football on Saturday. In order to fit the semifinal games into a tight weekend schedule, ESPN asked that both be played on Sunday evening.
As a traditionalist, I don’t like anything that messes with college football on Saturdays. Having an occasional Thursday night game during the season is as far as I’m willing to bend on the issue.
But in this instance, if the games have to be played on Sunday night to get them on national TV, I’m all for it. In fact, I say go ahead and play them at 8 A.M. on Monday if that’s what it takes to get them broadcast. Football at this level needs as much exposure as it can get and in this day and age of television basically driving college sports, it’s a necessary evil for Division II to comply with the wishes of the television networks.
I don’t think having the extra day this week will make much of a difference in the outcome of either game. What will be interesting, though, is to see how it affects the championship game participants the following week. Not only will both teams lose that day of preparation time because of the Sunday games, but there is also an early start time for the title game that following Saturday. That’s not a lot of time to prepare for the biggest game of the season. These are just some factors to think about as we get closer to the championship game.
Harlon Hill Finalists
The three finalists for the Harlon Hill award were announced on Monday. They are Grand Valley quarterback Cullen Finnerty, Pittsburg State running back Germaine Race, and Chadron State running back Danny Woodhead.
Unlike some past years where I have disagreed with the finalist selections, I have no problem with these three players being named-- they are the three most qualified players this season. I have stated several times recently in this column that I believe Woodhead should win the award, but a pretty good case could be made for any of the three. The winner will be announced at a banquet in Florence the Friday night before the championship game.
Race Gets the Record
Pittsburg State’s Germaine Race rushed for 183 yards in the Mineral Water Bowl against Bemidji State on Saturday to finish with 6985 career rushing yards-- the most ever in Division II. Race also finished with 658 career points-- the most in college football history at any level.
National Semifinals
Bloomsburg (12-1) @ Northwest Missouri State (13-0)
The Bearcats will be hosting a night game for the first time in nearly 30 years in the first semifinal. Bearcat Stadium is not currently equipped with lights, so portable ones will be brought in and installed this week.
To have a chance against NWMSU, Bloomsburg is going to have to have its best defensive performance of the season. The reason I say that is because the Huskies’ offense style matches up very poorly with the Bearcat defense. Bloomsburg is a run first team that uses the run to set up the pass. Jamar Brittingham is a great back, but so are Harlon Hill finalists Danny Woodhead and Germaine Race and the Bearcats completely shut down both of them this season.
I think Bloomsburg is going to have a very difficult time moving the football in this game, so the Huskies will have to play great defense and hope for a few Bearcat mistakes to stay in it. BU may pull it off for a while, but in the end, NWMSU has more than enough talent on offense to score the necessary points to win the game. Northwest Missouri State 30 Bloomsburg 16
Delta State (12-2) @ Grand Valley State (13-0)
These are obviously two very good teams overall. But the intriguing part to me about this game is the quarterback play. Both quarterbacks (Scott Eyster from DSU and Cullen Finnerty from GVSU) are 4-year starters and two of best ever at this level. Finnerty is the all-time wins leader for a college quarterback and Eyster is second on the all-time passing yardage list in D-II.
Eyster and the DSU offense have gotten most of the accolades the past few seasons, but this Statesmen team is tremendous defensively. They give up just 11 points and 226 yards per game and have allowed more than 17 points in a game just once all season. The Lakers will have their work cut out for them to move the football.
I do think Delta State will be right in this game until the end. The DSU defense will limit what the Lakers can do offensively and the Statesmen are obviously good enough on offense to move the football. But I have to give the edge to GVSU for a couple of reasons. Number one, it’s obviously tough for a southern team to go up north and play this time of the year. At this point, the forecast doesn’t call for it to be overly cold, but the game is at night and the winds off of Lake Michigan this time of the year can be brutal. The other factor is that this is the fourth straight road game for DSU, and the fourth straight tough opponent. I have to believe that GVSU is a fresher team and that is big in December. Grand Valley 21 Delta State 14
Mailbag
If the national championship game ever moved out of Florence where do you think it should be played?
I think the game should continue to remain in Florence for a couple of reasons. First, the community of Florence does a terrific job sponsoring it and they do everything in a first-class manner. Secondly, the Harlon Hill award originated in Florence and is sponsored by the City of Florence. If you move the championship game, the Harlon Hill award would cease to be part of the championship weekend and I don’t think that is good for D-II football.
But, to address your question, I think there would be two places that make the most sense if the game ever moved. One spot would be Edmond, Oklahoma, where the University of Central Oklahoma is located. UCO has a new, state-of-the-art stadium and Edmond is located in the Oklahoma City metro area, which is obviously large enough to have the hotel and restaurant space to host this type of an event. The drawback to Edmond might be that the locals may not support the game that well as evidenced by the fact that UCO doesn’t draw that well for football.
The second spot would be Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium. It’s easy to get to since it’s in the middle of the country, the support for the game would be tremendous since KC is in the heart of D-II’s most passionate fans, and last but not least, the D2football.com home office is located there (just kidding on that one). The main drawback would probably be weather. Arrowhead isn’t enclosed and it can get pretty cold in KC in mid-December.
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