MEAC Statement on Heritage Bowl
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on Dec 13 2009. Filed under Sports.
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The Heritage Bowl should be an option for the team that wins the MEAC. I would be okay with the second place team going though. The FCS playoffs is where the MEAC champion belongs.
Speaking as a non-HBCU FCS fan (McNeese State), I do not think South Carolina State has been a “whipping boy” in the playoffs over the past two years. They just had a very tough first round draw in having to go to Appalachian State. If they’d have gotten to play, say, the OVC champ like someone from the Missouri Valley gets to every year, they’d have probably won.
Don’t do it, Dennis Thomas. We need representation in the playoffs! Don’t follow the SWAC’s lead. SC State has competed heartily against the once 3-time FCS champion, App St, and thus, has earned respect across the country. Let’s not forget FAMU having won the first Div I-AA championship in 1978. Since then, no other HBCU has returned to glory (FAMU made the semi’s in 1999 though). How about both! Have the MEAC take the automatic bid and send the 2nd place team to the Heritage Bowl. That’s a win-win, huh? So this year, SC State goes to the playoffs and FAMU would have played PV A&M in the Heritage Bowl. Sounds like a good crowd draw to me. Both teams were ranked in the top 25 at season’s end…both have good bands (FAMU having the best of course). I just don’t buy the fact that a team (like SC State) works hard…goes 19-0 (or so) in the MEAC…breaks records doing so…only to play PV A&M? That’s a slap in the face to the program.
I just want the MEAC as a conference to be better prepared to contend for a national championship. If we can be honest, we can say that D-I black colleges are not on standard with other FCS programs in the way of recruiting or resources to make for a better conference. Historically, that’s on the powers-that-be.
In contemporary times, with our lack of support, that’s on us.
I think that bowl games and classics are a good way to build resources and exposure for the conference as a whole, so that we can establish better fundraising networks and recruiting bases. Once black college conferences are positioned to hire better coaches and build better facilities, which in turn will bring in better players, then I believe we should take the automatic qualifier and run to the championship with it.
No one starts out of the gate a championship contender. Some feel that competing in the playoffs will help build that profile, and I can understand the logic. I just think the conference at large should improve, rather than the same 3 or 4 teams every season, so that the MEAC and SWAC can be regarded with the same respect as the CAA or SoCon. And I think the quickest and most logical way to do that is to concentrate the product into post season games; at least for the interim.
JC. Sounds like you WANT the MEAC to skip the playoffs and go to the Heritage bowl…