For the last twenty years the MIAA had been a relatively stable league. Small changes here and there but overall the league has looked the same. Then a few years ago the MIAA grew to sixteen teams. That did not last long, and now we are at fourteen. Scheduling gets really tricking with 14 teams and only 11 games per team.
Schools in the MIAA have no say in their league schedule. I was surprised to hear some do not understand the fact that Pitt State does not have input on their order of games in the conference. This season, Pitt had two open dates, from Omaha and Truman leaving, so PSU added Abeline Christian and Northwestern Oklahoma to fill the open dates as non conference games.
The current MIAA football schedule is absolutley ridiculous. I was going to write an entire column on it, until I heard last weekend that the MIAA is losing two teams in football. Our 14 team league, is going to be a 12 team league next season. Any day now the MIAA is going to release the NEW 2014 schedule. Until this week, all of us thought we would not play Northwest or Central next season.
With the news that Southwest Baptist and Lincoln are leaving the MIAA for football only to play in the GLVC, all remaining league teams will be able to play each other. On the surface, this would seem to be a good move for the remaining members. Think about it. Two lower tier teams leaving makes the MIAA a stronger conference, right?
There are several schools that are not pleased with this development. Think about the bottom half of the league. When they have SBU or Lincoln on their schedule, that means they quite possibly don’t have to play two of the top half teams that season. They have two more chances at wins.
Of course, this means there will not be an inturruption with Pitt vs NW, although both sides are saying discussion on the Fall Classic will take place after the season is over. The money is probably too good to pass up, but I hope they give this tradition a break. I would prefer a home, Arrowhead, home sequence. Get this game back to campus, at least on a rotating basis.
Don’t think for a minute the MIAA is set at twelve teams. This week I have already heard of several league teams looking at their options. Its always interesting to watch these types of things and how they devlope. One thing is for certain; don’t make any major plans based upon the Gorillas long range league schedule because the only constant in the MIAA is change.
It Homecoming and Abilene Christian, and FCS (formerly 1AA) transition school makes their first trip to the sold out Jungle. Remember, because of these record crowds make your way into the stadium by 1:30. The Wildcats run a 4 wide receive offense. They are a 60/40 pass/run team. They have a senior QB (17), RB (26) and excellent wide receivers (47,38,6, and 4). If our defense plays well, the Gorilla win this game. The crowd can really have an effect against a spread team. Let’s get after it from the start and make some noise.
Go Gorillas!
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