The Bobcat Nation

By Ann Green
STAFF WRITER
agreen@greenvillenews.com


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It will be turkey sandwiches to go for the Furman Paladins as they spend Thanksgiving weekend on the road at Montana State as the football playoffs begin.

The first-round matchup Saturday will be in Bozeman, Mont., with kickoff set for 11:30 a.m. Mountain Time (1:30 p.m. Eastern). In addition, the Paladins are on the same side of the playoff bracket as defending national champion Appalachian State, which handed Furman (8-3, 6-1 Southern Conference) its lone SoCon loss this season.

"They talk about regionalizing everything, but the good news is we're in the playoffs. The bad news is we're on the road," Furman coach Bobby Lamb said. "You have to play everybody to win a national championship. It will be a great experience for our kids to go out to Montana. We've never been there before."

Montana State (7-4, 6-2 Big Sky) lost to Montana, 13-7, over the weekend as the Bobcats fought for a share of the Big Sky regular season title. With the win, the Montana Grizzlies nailed down the No. 2 seed in the playoffs behind No. 1 App State.
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"We don't know a whole lot about Montana State," Lamb said. "They beat Colorado early in the year. That's the exciting thing about the playoff system. You spend the first two days doing a research project. We'll probably get tape of them (today)."

Wofford, which was a long shot at making the field, isn't in the playoffs.

But Coastal Carolina, the team that beat both Wofford and Furman this season, is in and will play at Appalachian State in the first round.

If Furman survives against Montana State, the Paladins will take on the winner of the App State-Coastal Carolina game in the quarterfinals on Dec. 2.

"Bottom line is anything can happen in this tournament. You have to go through Boone to win the national championship," Lamb said. "We'll think about that when we get there. We have a tough test this first game."

Furman players, coaches and their families gathered at Lamb's home on Sunday afternoon to watch the televised announcement of the 16 teams in the field.

The Paladins were confident they'd make the playoffs and were hoping for a home game at least in the first round. They were shocked when they learned they'll be traveling three-quarters of the way across the continent for their first-round game.

Furman's starting quarterback, former Greenwood High standout Renaldo Gray, immediately was on the cell phone with his mom.

"I told her we were going to Montana State. She couldn't believe it," Gray said. "She was like, 1/8No you're not. Be for real with me.' Then she finally got it that we're really going. She had an interest in going to all the playoff games, but that may be a little far for her."

Gray, who has had a week to get treatment on his ankle, which he re-injured in Furman's final regular season game on Nov. 11, said a road trip is fine with him.

"It's all about winning and surviving. It doesn't matter which team we play. We just have to go out, prepare as a team and take care of Furman," he said.

Furman secured a playoff berth for the seventh time in eight years and the 15th time overall.

The Paladins won the national championship in 1988, were runner-up to national champ Montana in 2001 and last year advanced to the semifinals, where they fell to eventual national champ App State.

The single-elimination tournament involves three weekends of play at campus sites capped by the championship game on Dec. 15 at a neutral site in Chattanooga, Tenn.

The Division I-AA national championship is dropping the I-AA designation and will be known this year as the NCAA Division I football championship.

It's nice to see Furman just happy to be in the field. The coach seems genuinely excited about traveling to Montana, and the players seem to have a great mindset about traveling across the country.

As opposed to Portland State's Tim Walsh, who was crying in today's Oregonian about MSU being in the field instead of PSU.

14-0, Tim. You had your chance.

PapaG wrote:It's nice to see Furman just happy to be in the field. The coach seems genuinely excited about traveling to Montana, and the players seem to have a great mindset about traveling across the country.

As opposed to Portland State's Tim Walsh, who was crying in today's Oregonian about MSU being in the field instead of PSU.

14-0, Tim. You had your chance.

Yep, in conference where it mattered the most. I'm glad the Big Sky didn't give PSU credit for their GOOD LOSSES (is there such a thing when you get clobbered by 40 in both?). I'm glad the selection committee did its homework and rewarded the correct team (and a team that is playing HOT to end the season).

In the end, Portland State's tough football schedule didn't matter.

The victory at New Mexico didn't matter. Montana State's losses to Chadron State and Eastern Washington didn't matter.

What apparently put the Bobcats in the NCAA Division I-AA playoffs and left Portland State out was PSU's really bad play in Bozeman, Mont., on Oct. 7, when the Vikings played their worst game of the season and lost 14-0.

The players, coaches, administrators and families found it out Sunday morning at Hoffman Hall on the PSU campus. They filled the building and wired the three big television screens for the ESPNews announcement show.

Most anticipated that the Vikings would be in with their 7-4 record and 6-2 record in the Big Sky Conference, a schedule that included three Division I-A teams and the victory at New Mexico. When Montana beat Montana State 13-7 in Missoula on Saturday, leaving the Bobcats also at 7-4 and 6-2, it was thought the Vikings were in.

So the mood was upbeat at Hoffman Hall, but it became uneasy in the early part of the show, when Montana State was the fourth team announced. Not only did the Bobcats make it in with a 7-4 record, they got a home game against Furman.

When the last two teams in the 16-team bracket -- Tennessee-Martin and Southern Illinois -- were announced, there were thumps of hands slapping tables, plenty of muttering and a few sobs. Then the building emptied in a hurry.

"When you leave it in the hands of a committee," PSU interim athletic director Teri Mariani said, "you're going to tend to get disappointed more often than you get rewarded.

"I just don't see how they could take Montana State over us when they play and lose to a Division II school (Chadron State). Obviously, they're saying our schedule didn't hurt us, but they're also saying it didn't help us."

PSU football coach Tim Walsh said: "You have to win to take it out of the committee's hands. We did what we had to do after (the loss at Montana State), but they take a team that lost to three Division I-AA teams (Eastern Washington, UC Davis and Montana) and a Division II school over us.

"These are the facts of life, and it's a hard lesson to learn. When you put the ball in someone else's hands, unfortunately sometimes politics is involved. And I guess we're not as politically correct as other teams.

Stay classy Portland

I truly believe the playoff selection committee did not want to set a precedence by saying you could schedule 3 1-A teams to boost your strength of schedule and expect to get into the playoffs regardless of how you performed against those 1-A teams. What would then keep any 1-AA from scheduling Michigan, Texas, and USC just to boost their strength of schedule. I think they sent a clear message.

catamaran wrote:"I just don't see how they could take Montana State over us when they play and lose to a Division II school (Chadron State). Obviously, they're saying our schedule didn't hurt us, but they're also saying it didn't help us."

Really? 14-0 doesn't say anything to you Tim?

Portland State probably lost out when they put in their bid to host, if they even put 1 in. I'm sure it was a toss-up between the 2 teams, but I would bet that Cat fans support, and a nice hosting bid clinched it for the Cat's.

What I was trying to say last week when I was saying that PSU wasn't the shoe in everybody thought they were (and all the while saying I didn't think a 7-4 MSU team was in either). Strength of schedule is important, but to a non-computer, strength of schedule means very little unless you show something against those tough opponents. Other than New Mexico, PSU's great strength of schedule only served to show they could lose to good teams.

grizbeer wrote:Portland State probably lost out when they put in their bid to host, if they even put 1 in. I'm sure it was a toss-up between the 2 teams, but I would bet that Cat fans support, and a nice hosting bid clinched it for the Cat's.

It's my understanding that the bids aren't even opened until after the committee determines the teams in the field, then they look at bids to help determine matchups. Though the knowledge of support for MSU vs. PSU could have been in the back of committee members minds when selecting the field.

kmax wrote:

grizbeer wrote:Portland State probably lost out when they put in their bid to host, if they even put 1 in. I'm sure it was a toss-up between the 2 teams, but I would bet that Cat fans support, and a nice hosting bid clinched it for the Cat's.

It's my understanding that the bids aren't even opened until after the committee determines the teams in the field, then they look at bids to help determine matchups. Though the knowledge of support for MSU vs. PSU could have been in the back of committee members minds when selecting the field.

I actually thought I read that the bids were due well before the selection committee met, so that info could have been a factor to some extent.

Sorry, no link on this ... just going from memory.

Bay Area Cat wrote:

kmax wrote:

grizbeer wrote:Portland State probably lost out when they put in their bid to host, if they even put 1 in. I'm sure it was a toss-up between the 2 teams, but I would bet that Cat fans support, and a nice hosting bid clinched it for the Cat's.

It's my understanding that the bids aren't even opened until after the committee determines the teams in the field, then they look at bids to help determine matchups. Though the knowledge of support for MSU vs. PSU could have been in the back of committee members minds when selecting the field.

I actually thought I read that the bids were due well before the selection committee met, so that info could have been a factor to some extent.

Sorry, no link on this ... just going from memory.

Yes, I know that they are due in before the meeting, but it was my understanding that the committee didn't actually look at them until after picking the teams to use as a factor in determining matchups and home games only. I could be wrong, that is just the way it had been told to me.

Ahh, sorry. I didn't read your post correctly. My brain replaced "opened" with "submitted."

This is what we went through last year.

The Committee made it clear that they were going to look at the number of Division I wins, head-to-head outcomes, and then common opponents. They don't even have to worry about "losses" (good or bad, if there is such difference) because the losses wash out after you go through the above priorities first.

In our case, we beat PSU head to head, and had the same number of Div I wins. Case closed.

You can't have the Committee looking at injuries, where they played, yadda, yadda. They'd never fill the bracket.

The incessant arguments never cease to both entertain and amaze me. (But then again, America has more attorneys per capita than any country in the world, so that tells me something too.) To me, there is no argument. Both teams 7-4 with a 1-A win. October 7 -- MSU 14 - PSU 0 - end of argument.

OldTiredGriz wrote:The incessant arguments never cease to both entertain and amaze me. (But then again, America has more attorneys per capita than any country in the world, so that tells me something too.) To me, there is no argument. Both teams 7-4 with a 1-A win. October 7 -- MSU 14 - PSU 0 - end of argument.

Hey! You don't seem so tired to me.

Have anyone been to a PSU game here in Portland besides them playing either the Cats or the griz? I have been to almost every game here in Portland in the last two years, and their attendence is terrible. Maybe there's 6000 at home games!? PSU good, but their home game support sucks.

Did the committee consider that?