Friday’s First Edition: SWAC and WAC Lose

WACdown

The WAC’s bleak future is rooted just a little more in the present. 7220 Report has the breakdown: the New Mexico Bowl is passing on a WAC participant for the Pac-12. Last season was the first in the bowl’s short history without a WAC representative, though by virtue of the conference not qualifying enough teams to fulfill all its bowl tie-ins. This year’s New Mexico Bowl exclusion though is a repercussion of the league’s paring down in 2012.

The WAC is down to just three guaranteed tie-ins for the 2011 postseason: the Humanitarian, Hawaii and Poinsettia. In addition to the New Mexico Bowl, the WAC loses its Kraft Fight Hunger invitation to either Army or the ACC.

There are three guaranteed invitations, and five teams with the look of a bowl qualifier. Hawaii is guarantee a home invite if it reaches eligibility, leaving the other four (Idaho, Fresno State, Nevada, Louisiana Tech) to jockey for two positions. It’s likely either the Pac-12, Mountain West or Conference USA fails to fill all its invitations, which should open a fourth opportunity for WAC members. But a situation similar to 8-4 Temple’s postseason exclusion last season could arise.

SWACdown

When Jacksonville State was banned from the NCAA Playoffs for low Academic Progress Reports in 2009, it set a precedent that continued with last week’s tournament banned laid on Jackson State and Southern. One problem: as members of the SWAC, neither Jackson State nor SU would participate in the Playoffs without a ban. That’s because the SWAC does not send its champion, or any team for that matter, to the tournament. Instead, its season concludes with a nationally televised conference title game between the two divisional leaders.

Taking its cue from the NCAA, the conference issued a similar ban for JSU and SU on next season’s title game. JSU’s ineligibility is particularly noteworthy as the Tigers enter 2011 with one of the best offenses in the Championship Subdivision (33.2 ppg) led by NFL-level talent, quarterback Casey Therriault. The SWAC’s showcase game not featuring its premiere match-up (which would likely be JSU’s offense vs. Grambling’s defense) is the latest in what has been a trying off-season for the conference.

At the end of the regular season, the 2009 Eddie Robinson Award winner Henry Frazier left Prairie View A&M for the MEAC’s North Carolina Central. Some perspective on what a loss this was for the SWAC: Frazier had built PVAMU, a program that was on life support and renowned only for being the single worst in all of Division I football into an undefeated conference champion and FCS Top 25. And the university lost him to a school that has been DI for just a few years.