No offense.
I think the MEAC-SWAC Challenge – pitting top participants from the only two Division I black college conferences — is a great idea.
Just at the wrong time.
When Grambling and South Carolina State face each other on Sunday, there will be national television exposure from ESPN2, a terrific setting in Orlando, and what looks to be an entertaining matchup featuring 2008 title-winners from both the Southwestern Athletic and Mid-Eastern Athletic conferences.
But the black college championship remains a mythical crown, since the Challenge is played as the first game of the season — rather than the last.
And, from a competitive standpoint, the teams are often remade in the intervening offseason, meaning last year’s league-smashing juggernaut might be this year’s hobbled rebuilding project.
Which is exactly how it played out when I covered the 2006 edition, featuring Grambling and Hampton. The contest was a shell of what it could have been: Record-setting GSU passer Bruce Eugene had graduated, and the Tigers looked nothing like the group that had gone undefeated in league play — and beaten opponents by an average of more than three touchdowns — the season before. That happens when you are transitioning at quarterback.
Dennis Thomas and Duer Sharp, commissioners respectively of the MEAC and SWAC conferences, understand the down sides.
Both have confirmed on-going negotiations to move the contest.
“We are excited about a postseason game at the end of the year,” Thomas told me. “Hopefully in the future, we will have something to announce. We are working on it.”
The 2009 edition of the MEAC-SWAC Challege, perhaps understandably, got me to thinking about the old Heritage Bowl — played from 1991-99 as the first NCAA-sanctioned black-college postseason game, and featuring these same two leagues.
In fact, the last time Grambling and South Carolina State met, in 1994, was as participants in the Heritage Bowl — with Willie Jeffries’ Bulldogs besting Eddie Robinson‘s squad 31-27. SCSU would appear in three of the nine playings of the Heritage Bowl, losing to Southern in 1994 and 1997. Grambling beat Florida A&M in the 1993 edition.
Back then, however, the SWAC title was determined by season-ending record. Since 1999, the league has crowned a champ at its own postseason event — played each December at Legion Field in Birmingham, Ala.
Sharp said negotiations to switch the Challenge to the end of the year wouldn’t necessarily end the 11-year-old title match.
“I would hope it would be in addition to the SWAC Championship Game,” Sharp said.
Certain mistakes would have to be avoided this time.
The Heritage Bowl, in its infancy, was thought to be the culmination of a series of unaffiliated black-college postseason games, many of which Grambling appeared in — amongst them, the Yam, the Vulcan, the Pecan and, of course, the Orange Blossom Classic.
For coaches like Robinson, who had toiled so long in the shadows of racism, the contest felt like the culmination of a life-long dream: “I’d hoped for this; I’d hoped for a bowl,” Robinson said in 1991. “Now we can feel like we belong.”
Well, sort of. The game, incredibly, wasn’t televised — robbing it of a critical lift in general fan interest. In the 1990s, too, the concept of major underwriting from advertisers was still in its infancy.
Within a decade, and it’s really no surprise, the Heritage Bowl was gone.
Fast forward another decade, and the MEAC-SWAC Challenge has already gotten further along in building this required infrastructure, and now needs only to reposition itself at the end of the season.
That instantly transforms the game from interesting into important.
“Any time you can settle things on the field, between the two conference champions,” Sharp said, “I think that’s a great opportunity.”
I agree… But doesn't MEAC send champ to NCAA I-FCS playoffs? I'm guessing getting them to stop that would be a big issue.
Bring back the heritage bowl!
Swac Champ vs Meac Champ!
2 Conferences enter only one Conference leave as National Champs!
Sorry Tuskegee. Join a conference.
I don't want the MEAC to pull out of the playoffs. If the game is in the beginning of January, when the playoffs are over, MEAC fan would support it.
Unless Dr. Thomas truly wants to break the MEAC up and have schools leaving our conference, he will make sure that this new edition of the Heritage Bowl still allows the MEAC to maintain our automatic bid into the FCS playoffs so that the MEAC Champion can automatically compete for the NCAA CHampionship. Anything else is unacceptable.
Compete for a Ncaa championship???? Lol.
When was the last time any meac made it to the second or third round of the playoffs?
Leave the game where it is.
I, too say leave the game where it is. All things considered, "IT IS WHAT IT IS." Players come and hopefully they graduate and they're gone. That's what they're suppose to do. This matchup of the SWAC and the MEAC brings back those players who are left, and who too will hopefully graduate and they'll be gone. And ITS OK. Again, I say leave it where it is! A black woman and a real football mom's opinion.