Passing The SoCon Torch

GREENVILLE, S.C.–With the long-awaited news of Appalachian State and Georgia Southern’s move to FBS football and the Sun Belt Conference effective at the end of the 2013 season, the Southern Conference football landscape will take on a much different dynamic in 2014, but fans will begin to see that play out as soon as this upcoming season, with both aforementioned programs ineligible for a conference and FCS postseason.

With such transition in the Southern Conference, the nation’s fifth-oldest conference will be affected in the two major sports, with the College of Charleston also leaving to join the CAA, while the tradition-rich league loses its two most decorated football members, and when the Mountaineers and Eagles make that ascension in 2014, the FCS will lose two of its most-successful programs, with a combined nine national titles (Georgia Southern 6, Appalachian State 3) between the two juggernauts.

So, the natural question has to be asked, which is, who is set to carry the torch as the league’s program that will maintain the kind of class and elite level football that Appalachian State and Georgia Southern brought to the league over the past two decades. Obviously, you can’t replace programs with that type of success and following. In its rich history, the SoCon has experienced plenty of success, and has been able to see the league do well at the turnstyles every fall Saturday, with Appalachian State, Marshall and Georgia Southern bringing that elite talent, and rowdy, loyal fan following.

Marshall, of course, left in 1997 but despite the dominance and success of the Thundering Herd in the early-mid 1990’s prior to ascending to the FBS and the Mid-American Conference, the SoCon still had Appalachian State and Georgia Southern, which were programs that could more than help the league hold its own despite the league’s most dominant in recent seasons program moving up a level.

At some point shortly thereafter, the fear of losing Georgia Southern and Appalachian State has to have crossed the minds of former commissioners Wright Waters, Alfred White and Danny Morrison, however, its John Iamarino that now is charged with providing the right contingency plan for the league at perhaps the most critical point in the 92-year history of the league. What Waters, White and Morrison likely pondered was the exit at one school and then the other, but the perfect storm in college athletics, and particularly for FCS football, has presented itself and presented a nightmare for Iamarino and the league’s administrators.

Big Sky Brethren:

Losing Georgia Southern and Appalachian State takes more than a chunk out of the SoCon’s football success and tradition. It would be like the Big Sky losing Montana and Eastern Washington. The Big Sky is an interesting conference to look at in that regard because it might be the only FCS conference that has encountered something similar to the SoCon, losing two of its most successful programs to the FBS ranks, with Idaho moving on,  as well as Boise State.

Like Appalachian State and Georgia Southern, Idaho and Boise State was one of the biggest rivalries in the Big Sky, particularly in football, as the two programs won a combined 14 conference titles during their membership in the league (Idaho 8, Boise State 6), and numerous playoff appearances, but neither won a national title. At the time when those programs exited for the Big West–Idaho in 1997 and Boise State in 2000–neither was considered the top program in the league at the time of their departure, with Montana laying claim to that specific title.

The Big Sky moved on, and still remains among the best conferences in the FCS, despite losing those two tradition-rich programs.

Appalachian State actually faced Boise State in the postseason in 1994, and now some 19 years later, both will be FBS members. It’s easy to see the many comparisons that will be made between Appalachian State and Boise State, but that’s a different article for a different occasion.

Like the Big Sky when it lost the great potato state rivalry, the SoCon will lose its best rivalry when Appalachian State and Georgia Southern move to the FBS.

Both Appalachian State and Georgia Southern have Boise State potential, but its also likely that one of the two programs will end up as the proverbial nomads of FBS football like Idaho.

If there is a potential of this scenario presenting itself, Appalachian State is the program in better position to make a charge towards a potential BCS Bowl bid in the future be in the newly fashioned FBS playoffs, and likely won’t be as a Sun Belt member. Georgia Southern is well behind Appalachian State in facilities, but projects are in place to help the Eagles quickly close that gap.

The SoCon Torch Is Passed:

With Appalachian State and Georgia Southern now apart of the SoCon’s history in terms of potential football titles, the program most feel has the potential to step up and fill the void as the league’s new juggernaut is Wofford. Since moving to Division I as an official member in 1997, Wofford has claimed  four Southern Conference titles (2003, ’07, ’10 and ’12) while having made six postseason appearances, including making it as far as the FCS semifinals in 2003, losing 24-9 to eventual national champion Delaware. Wofford now has the longest-tenured and most successful head coach, in Mike Ayers.

Slated to challenge Wofford’s authority might be Chattanooga, who like the Terriers has four Southern Conference titles to its credit since joining the league in 1977, and the Mocs haven’t won a league crown or made a playoff appearance since 1984 under the direction of Buddy Nix. However, three six-win seasons under Russ Huesman have the Mocs at the doorstep of success, and without Appalachian State and Georgia Southern factoring into the league race, the Mocs might be a major factor.

The last two seasons have seen the Mocs drop heartbreakers to Georgia Southern, with a 28-27 loss in Statesboro in 2011 and a 39-31 triple-overtime game at Finley Stadium last fall. Chattanooga returns more starters than any team to the fold this fall, with 21 of 22 back, including 10 of 11 starters from the nation’s 13th-best defensive unit last season, according to the final national total team defense stats for the 2012 season.

The Citadel, Furman and Samford could also figure into that upper tier of the league in the near future. We all saw what The Citadel was able to do in 2012, with two of the more impressive wins in recent memory, including getting wins over both new Sun Belt members, as the Bulldogs became a part of history becoming the last team of only a handful of teams to ever hand Georgia Southern and Appalachian State a loss in the same season since the Eagles joined the SoCon in 1993, as The Citadel became the last team to ever accomplish the feat in 2012. Few will ever forget the resounding 55-28 win the Bulldogs recorded in their last trip to Boone as a Southern Conference member, handing the Mountaineers one of their worst losses in SoCon history on their home turf.

Furman is the lone remaining program in the SoCon with a national title, winning the school’s only crown in 1988, with a 17-12 win over then independent FCS foe Georgia Southern in Pocatello, ID., to capture the title. Furman owns more conference crowns than any member, with 12 league titles, with Wofford and Chattanooga’s four being the closest to that mark. The Paladins, however, are coming off a disappointing 3-8 season under Bruce Fowler, who enters his third season at the helm in 2013. Fifteen starters are back for Furman, including one of the league’s top young signal-callers, in Reese Hannon.

Samford, who is the SoCon’s most recent addition joining back in 2008, is coming off a 7-4 season in 2012. Pat Sullivan’s squad, which returns 13 starters from a team that won seven games for the first time since 2003, and posted a 5-3 league mark–the Bulldogs’ best league record as a SoCon member. Samford hasn’t been to the postseason since 1992, but could make a real run at the playoffs and a conference title this fall with offensive weapons such as running back Fabian Truss and quarterback Andy Summerlin returning to the fold in 2013.

It figures to be a couple more years before Mark Speir gets Western Carolina back to the form it enjoyed towards the middle portion of the first decade of the new millennium, however, Speir and staff have visions that are far greater for the Catamounts, which involves getting the Catamounts back to their 1980’s status, which saw the likes of defensive back Tiger Greene and future All-Pro NFL kicker Dean Biasucci lead the Catamounts to the cusp of a national title in 1983, only to lose to Southern Illinois in the title game.

Success has been hard to come by since, which includes some of the school’s finest talent, including future NFL talents David Patten and Brad Hoover. Speir’s spread offense, which will be led by quarterback Troy Mitchell and speedy scat-back Darius Ramsey coming out of the backfield, as both figure to give opposing head coaches in the SoCon plenty of headaches in the very near future.

Finally, Elon is a program that just joined the Division I ranks in 1999 after a successful run at the NAIA and Division II levels, and while the Phoenix have yet to establish the tradition of some of their league foes, Elon did break through with a nine-win season in 2009 and made its first playoff appearance. Having just joined the SoCon in 2003, Elon has already produced the SoCon’s all-time leading passer, in Scott Riddle and leading receiver Terrell Hudgins, while defensively, saw linebacker Chad Nkang have one of the best seasons in league history in terms of single-season tackle totals.

Head coach Jason Swepson, who heads into his third as the head coach after replacing Pete Lembo when he took the Ball State coaching post, will feel some pressure after the Phoenix have struggled the past two seasons, and lose the league’s top receiver the past two seasons, in Aaron Mellette, who caught more TD passes in a career than any receiver in SoCon history, with 37-career scoring catches.

So who takes the torch as the league’s most-feared opponent in the first season without either Appalachian State or Georgia Southern being part of the SoCon title race since 1971? If I had to guess, it would have to be Wofford. But don’t count out Chattanooga, Furman and The Citadel to make it an exciting SoCon race in 2013.