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July 18, 2007
CSN West: Day Two at the Big Sky Football Media Days
Kent Schmidt, CSN Columnist
Park City, Utah -- On day two of the Big Sky Conference football media event, it was time to visit with the coaches of the teams. I also got a chance to talk to Commissioner Doug Fullerton over lunch.
The big news today was who was not was there. Weber State Coach Ron McBride was being hospitalized late yesterday after collapsing at the BSC golf tournament. McBride was going through tests and was hospitalized overnight as he has had a history of heart troubles in the past. It appeared as if he was fine and the health trouble yesterday was due to the heat of the day.
Besides that unpleasant news, the next buzz around this morning’s festivities was centered on Portland State Coach Jerry Glanville, as well as Big Sky favorite Montana’s Bobby Hauck.
What is the new with the coaches?
The biggest news is all the actual first year Big Sky coaches. Four Big Sky schools will have new leadership this year. The four new coaches are Idaho State’s John Zamberlin, Montana State’s Rob Ash, Sacramento State’s Marshall Sperbeck, and of course, Portland State’s Jerry Glanville.
While these four coaches have the commonality of being new, the four coaches are quite different.
Glanville is a coach that garners your attention /users/31/07/37/smiles/595146.gif even with his talks. Ash is high spoken but has a soft tone to his voice. Zamberlin is a former NFL player and you can tell has the motivation in his resume. Sperbeck knows he is taking over a big jump from his former position as a JUCO head coach to the Division I ranks.
While all seem to have different characteristics and styles, one other commonality is their passion not being in question. All think they can turn around their respective program’s success on and off the field.
“We could be as big as the Green Bay Packers in Portland,” said Glanville. /users/31/07/37/smiles/eusa_cla.gif “All we need to do is get two percent of the Portland population hooked on our program.”
“We will be doing (turning around) our team both on and off the field—in the season and offseason," said Zamberlin. “We have already started the turnaround in spring ball.”
Sperbeck said, “We have a great opportunity in Sacramento. All we need to do is get a better product on the field.”
Ash said, “We were late in getting to Bozeman but I have both my offensive and defensive coordinators from Drake here. Also, we are not running much different systems (both offensively and defensively) than what was run before."
While Northern Colorado Coach Scott Downing is now in his second season, he is a relative newcomer and he also hopes to turn things around after a one win season a year ago.
Downing said, “We are making progress. We saw this in spring ball. We as (UNC) coaches have a realistic goal for the season in terms of achievement.”
Another turnaround hopeful team is Eastern Washington. Coach Paul Wulff hopes his Eagles can stop mistakes this year that were seen a year ago.
“We hope to stop the interceptions, the fumbles, and the missed tackles that we had last year. All of these cost us games a year ago.”
While turnaround is hoped at several BSC schools, that has not been a concern in some time at Montana. While Coach Bobby Hauck has had to deal with a number of off the field issues including some suspensions, he has high expectations for his team again.
“We don’t look at the preseason stuff,” said Hauck in regards to be picked to win the BSC. “We just need to put it on the field.”
Northern Arizona Coach Jerome Souers, who happens to be the senior member of the BSC coaching fraternity, thinks his team is ready for a breakout season.
“We return a number of key components on each side of the ball,” said Souers. “Our biggest question is at the quarterback position.”
What are the topics discussed with Doug Fullerton?
We discussed issues of the FCS automatic bids, FCS playoff expansion, and Big Sky expansion.
On the FCS playoff expansion topic, several conferences are bidding to get an automatic playoff spot--the most notably being the Northeast Conference out east. Should the NEC (or any other conference) be accepted? To note, there is legislation in place right now to allow half the field to at-large bids—meaning that right now only eight conferences can have automatic bids.
“Something has to be legislated into our playoff system as more and more Division I schools and conferences become playoff eligible,” said Fullerton.
If a ninth (or more) conferences become playoff eligible, there are several ways that might account for these. None, however, will be without some changes to all of FCS.
One option might be to do something similar to what the NCAA men’s basketball tournament does with a play-in game on the week before Thanksgiving weekend. One way this could happen is to do a seeding before the season, possibly based on a conferences’ GPI (Gridiron Power Index).
For example, the eighth and ninth best conferences would be predetermined based on the previous year’s rankings with a playoff expansion to 17 teams. These two conference’s schools would end their regular seasons a week before the remainder of schools and the other conferences would remain unchanged. These two leagues would then play without a bye.
The single opening round playoff game would be at the same time as the final regular season game for the remainder of schools. The opening round winner than would be moved into the regular 16-team field.
Another option might be to just move the entire regular season start date a week before it starts today and have an opening round on the week before Thanksgiving. This might be a better option if more than one team was added to the field.
A number thrown out in this option could be 20 with four opening round games. This option would also expand the at-large number, depending on the number of automatic bid conferences.
This option would likely be better for all schools than the play-in game as it would still allow a bye week for everyone. It would also allow the entire FCS to still have a bye and would not cut into the traditional championship date of being just before the FBS bowls start.
The playoff topics will likely be discussed at future NCAA meetings.
On the third topic of Big Sky expansion, the league is continuing to have this as a topic on their yearly president’s meeting. Expansion, however, is not imminent.
“Right now, there are no schools that meet the academic standards and our geographic footprint,” said Fullerton.
With the current number of nine, it is good for football with four home and away games, it does not bode well for non-football sports were an even number is better.
“One might suggest looking at a non-football school as an option to get the best of both worlds but we (the Big Sky Conference) still wants to keep the core sports stipulation in tact,” said Fullerton.
With the core sports being an issue, it would be unlikely that any expansion will happen in the near future.
With that, the media days were over. I might add that the Big Sky Conference did a whale of a job presenting the media with this event. It is a great chance to meet all Sports Information Directors and coaches—something I had not had a chance to do to many of the people before.
July 18, 2007
CSN West: Day Two at the Big Sky Football Media Days
Kent Schmidt, CSN Columnist
Park City, Utah -- On day two of the Big Sky Conference football media event, it was time to visit with the coaches of the teams. I also got a chance to talk to Commissioner Doug Fullerton over lunch.
The big news today was who was not was there. Weber State Coach Ron McBride was being hospitalized late yesterday after collapsing at the BSC golf tournament. McBride was going through tests and was hospitalized overnight as he has had a history of heart troubles in the past. It appeared as if he was fine and the health trouble yesterday was due to the heat of the day.
Besides that unpleasant news, the next buzz around this morning’s festivities was centered on Portland State Coach Jerry Glanville, as well as Big Sky favorite Montana’s Bobby Hauck.
What is the new with the coaches?
The biggest news is all the actual first year Big Sky coaches. Four Big Sky schools will have new leadership this year. The four new coaches are Idaho State’s John Zamberlin, Montana State’s Rob Ash, Sacramento State’s Marshall Sperbeck, and of course, Portland State’s Jerry Glanville.
While these four coaches have the commonality of being new, the four coaches are quite different.
Glanville is a coach that garners your attention /users/31/07/37/smiles/595146.gif even with his talks. Ash is high spoken but has a soft tone to his voice. Zamberlin is a former NFL player and you can tell has the motivation in his resume. Sperbeck knows he is taking over a big jump from his former position as a JUCO head coach to the Division I ranks.
While all seem to have different characteristics and styles, one other commonality is their passion not being in question. All think they can turn around their respective program’s success on and off the field.
“We could be as big as the Green Bay Packers in Portland,” said Glanville. /users/31/07/37/smiles/eusa_cla.gif “All we need to do is get two percent of the Portland population hooked on our program.”
“We will be doing (turning around) our team both on and off the field—in the season and offseason," said Zamberlin. “We have already started the turnaround in spring ball.”
Sperbeck said, “We have a great opportunity in Sacramento. All we need to do is get a better product on the field.”
Ash said, “We were late in getting to Bozeman but I have both my offensive and defensive coordinators from Drake here. Also, we are not running much different systems (both offensively and defensively) than what was run before."
While Northern Colorado Coach Scott Downing is now in his second season, he is a relative newcomer and he also hopes to turn things around after a one win season a year ago.
Downing said, “We are making progress. We saw this in spring ball. We as (UNC) coaches have a realistic goal for the season in terms of achievement.”
Another turnaround hopeful team is Eastern Washington. Coach Paul Wulff hopes his Eagles can stop mistakes this year that were seen a year ago.
“We hope to stop the interceptions, the fumbles, and the missed tackles that we had last year. All of these cost us games a year ago.”
While turnaround is hoped at several BSC schools, that has not been a concern in some time at Montana. While Coach Bobby Hauck has had to deal with a number of off the field issues including some suspensions, he has high expectations for his team again.
“We don’t look at the preseason stuff,” said Hauck in regards to be picked to win the BSC. “We just need to put it on the field.”
Northern Arizona Coach Jerome Souers, who happens to be the senior member of the BSC coaching fraternity, thinks his team is ready for a breakout season.
“We return a number of key components on each side of the ball,” said Souers. “Our biggest question is at the quarterback position.”
What are the topics discussed with Doug Fullerton?
We discussed issues of the FCS automatic bids, FCS playoff expansion, and Big Sky expansion.
On the FCS playoff expansion topic, several conferences are bidding to get an automatic playoff spot--the most notably being the Northeast Conference out east. Should the NEC (or any other conference) be accepted? To note, there is legislation in place right now to allow half the field to at-large bids—meaning that right now only eight conferences can have automatic bids.
“Something has to be legislated into our playoff system as more and more Division I schools and conferences become playoff eligible,” said Fullerton.
If a ninth (or more) conferences become playoff eligible, there are several ways that might account for these. None, however, will be without some changes to all of FCS.
One option might be to do something similar to what the NCAA men’s basketball tournament does with a play-in game on the week before Thanksgiving weekend. One way this could happen is to do a seeding before the season, possibly based on a conferences’ GPI (Gridiron Power Index).
For example, the eighth and ninth best conferences would be predetermined based on the previous year’s rankings with a playoff expansion to 17 teams. These two conference’s schools would end their regular seasons a week before the remainder of schools and the other conferences would remain unchanged. These two leagues would then play without a bye.
The single opening round playoff game would be at the same time as the final regular season game for the remainder of schools. The opening round winner than would be moved into the regular 16-team field.
Another option might be to just move the entire regular season start date a week before it starts today and have an opening round on the week before Thanksgiving. This might be a better option if more than one team was added to the field.
A number thrown out in this option could be 20 with four opening round games. This option would also expand the at-large number, depending on the number of automatic bid conferences.
This option would likely be better for all schools than the play-in game as it would still allow a bye week for everyone. It would also allow the entire FCS to still have a bye and would not cut into the traditional championship date of being just before the FBS bowls start.
The playoff topics will likely be discussed at future NCAA meetings.
On the third topic of Big Sky expansion, the league is continuing to have this as a topic on their yearly president’s meeting. Expansion, however, is not imminent.
“Right now, there are no schools that meet the academic standards and our geographic footprint,” said Fullerton.
With the current number of nine, it is good for football with four home and away games, it does not bode well for non-football sports were an even number is better.
“One might suggest looking at a non-football school as an option to get the best of both worlds but we (the Big Sky Conference) still wants to keep the core sports stipulation in tact,” said Fullerton.
With the core sports being an issue, it would be unlikely that any expansion will happen in the near future.
With that, the media days were over. I might add that the Big Sky Conference did a whale of a job presenting the media with this event. It is a great chance to meet all Sports Information Directors and coaches—something I had not had a chance to do to many of the people before.
