Changes spice up SWAC competition

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07/20/2010 - Birmingham, AL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Prairie View A&M quarterback K.J. Black remembers - rather painfully, perhaps - some of the blitzes that came his way during Southwestern Athletic Conference play last season.

"It kind of woke me up," said the field general of the reigning SWAC champions, and the 2010 SWAC Preseason Offensive Player of the Year.

It's not just Black. Everybody has to be on his toes in the SWAC, because everyone is watching each other.

A lot has been changing in the conference in recent years, starting, of course, with Prairie View winning the SWAC title last year for the first time since 1964. The Panthers' emergence is part of a trend of improvement among the Texas schools, if Texas Southern can raise its play under coach Johnnie Cole the way Prairie View has done under Henry Frazier III.

Yet really what stood out Tuesday at the SWAC Football Kickoff Luncheon and Media Day was how the coaches have been changing around the conference. In decades past, you used to know many of the head coaches would be graduates of their school, or that Eddie Robinson would be collecting black national championships at Grambling State or John Merritt would be winning games at Jackson State.

The trend in the SWAC, and really across college football, is to go younger with the coaches and try to reach for former NFL players and assistant coaches. In the 10-team SWAC, only two head coaches are on the sidelines of their alma maters, Cole and Alabama State's Reggie Barlow. And the 37-year-old Barlow, the former wide receiver and returner with the Jacksonville Jaguars, Oakland Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, with whom he won a Super Bowl ring, could look across the room at former NFL player and assistant coach Stump Mitchell, the first-year head coach at Southern University.

Meanwhile, Alabama A&M's Anthony Jones, who is only his ninth season is the longest-tenured head coach in the SWAC, could look across the room to a former Super Bowl champion teammate, Arkansas-Pine Bluff head coach Monte Coleman, who, like Jones, played for the Washington Redskins.

Change, according to those in the know around the league, has been good.

"Put it this way," Jones said, "any time you make changes, you're making changes because you're expecting expectations to change. So when that happens, guys who are taking these jobs understand what they're walking into. Of course, their energy level will be different, their expectation level will be different.

"Any time you have guys who have played in the NFL, the best way to say it is they've been to the top. So they know what it's like to have some of the best facilities, they know what it's like to have some of the best equipment, some of the best people around, and so on. They know what it takes to win and be successful at a different level. So when that happens, they come into a situation, as they're coming into here, and they are requesting more resources into their programs."

Prairie View has seen what winning does for a program. Once a national laughingstock with a record 80 straight losses, the Panthers are 9-1 in each of the past two seasons and keep gaining national acclaim in the Football Championship Subdivision. They are the team to beat in the SWAC, not surprisingly anointed the preseason pick in the conference's preseason poll. Frazier, now in his seventh season with the Panthers, points to a win-now society for some of the changes across the conference.

The new coaches, Frazier said, are "bringing in their own philosophies and different things that may transcend what the universities have done in the past. It's one of those things that make for an interesting conference."

"The game's a young man's game for the most part because it's a grind," added Grambling State head coach Rod Broadway.

Naturally, the change in coaches brings a change in coaching styles, including more creativity - not the wing-T or options of yesteryear. The game is faster, with quarterbacks and wide receivers the ones to watch more so than the running backs. Defensively, it's all about being aggressive, as Black will attest from the blitzes he faced after he transferred to Prairie View from Western Kentucky of the Sun Belt Conference.

"In this league, which is really different from a lot of other places," Barlow said, "if you have a hundred-yard rusher, you don't turn the ball over, you control the clock, in this league you lose. In most leagues, that usually means you win."

The 51-year-old Mitchell, who spent 21 seasons in the NFL as a player and assistant coach, doesn't come aboard as a younger head coach, but his background is something that aids in recruiting. Mitchell is all business, and young players can see what that has done for him.

"It gives these players that we're coaching the opportunity to just work hard and just dream. That's the bottom line, they have to dream," Mitchell said. "Most of these coaches that have played in the NFL, you see why they played in the NFL because they're big. Now I'm one of the smaller ones. With my guys, they all feel like, well, 'Man, he played in the NFL? I think Google is wrong.' They Google me 10, 15 times to see if I'm the same guy. It just shows them that discipline is real; it can get you places that the undisciplined guy can't get regardless of how talented he is."

"I think it's a positive," Coleman added about the changes in the conference. "It helps the SWAC out, it shows the good brand of football that the SWAC is."

Prairie View, behind Black, led the SWAC with 10 selections on the preseason first and second teams, which were selected by coaches, sports information directors and selected media across the conference. In fact, the Panthers' eight first-team selections surpassed the number that any other school had on both teams.

Grambling senior defensive end Christian Anthony was named the SWAC Preseason Defensive Player of the Year and helped the Tigers to seven overall selections, which tied Texas Southern for the second most.

Alabama A&M was selected to repeat as the Eastern Division champion and to again face Prairie View in the SWAC Championship here at Legion Field on Dec. 11.

SWAC PRESEASON POLL (Coaches, Media, and selected Sports Information Directors)

Eastern Division 1. Alabama A&M (15 first-place votes), 98 points 2. Jackson State (5), 86 3. Alcorn State (2), 69 4. Alabama State, 50 5. Mississippi Valley State, 27

Western Division 1. Prairie View A&M (17), 104 2. Grambling State (2), 79 3. Texas Southern (2), 69 4. Southern, 42 5. Arkansas-Pine Bluff (1), 37

PRESEASON SWAC ALL-CONFERENCE TEAM

Offensive Player of the Year - K.J. Black, QB, Prairie View A&M Defensive Player of the Year - Christian Anthony, DE, Grambling State

First Team

Offense

OL- Russell Jackson, Alabama A&M; James Dekle, Prairie View A&M; Tim Tusey, Prairie View A&M; Ramon Chinyoung, Southern; Charles Smith, Texas Southern. RB- Frank Warren, Grambling State; Donald Babers, Prairie View A&M. WR- Nick Andrews, Alabama State; William Osbourn, Texas Southern; TE- Ryan Singleton, Alcorn State. QB- K.J. Black, Prairie View A&M

Defense DL- Frank Kearse, Alabama A&M; Christian Anthony, Grambling State; Donovan Robinson, Jackson State; Quinton Spears, Prairie View A&M. LB- Afu Okosun, Alabama A&M; Cliff Exama, Grambling State; Max Sencherey, Prairie View A&M. DB- Anthony Johnson, Jackson State; Kerry Hoskins, Jackson State; Chris Adingupu, Prairie View A&M; Jason House, Southern

Specialists PK- Ari Johnson, Grambling State; P- Pedro Ventura, Prairie View A&M; KR- Kiare Thompson, Grambling State

Second Team

Offense

OL- Anquez Jackson, Alabama A&M; Bruce Beal, Alabama State; Antonio Colston, Jackson State; Terrael Williams, Jackson State; Chris Browne, Southern. RB- Cornelius Walker, Grambling State; Martin Gilbert, Texas Southern. WR- Edward Johnson, Alcorn State; Shaun Stephens, Prairie View A&M. TE- Larry Donnell, Grambling State. QB- Arvell Nelson, Southern

Defense

DL- Kynjee Cotton, Alabama State; Malcolm Taylor, Alcorn State; Reginald Foster, Mississippi Valley State; Rolando Melancon, Texas Southern. LB- Ryan Rich, Jackson State; Rory Malone, Mississippi Valley State; Dejuan Fulgham, Texas Southern. DB- Korey Morrison, Alabama A&M; Donovan Masline, Alabama State; Markkus Davis, Mississippi Valley State; DB- De'Markus Washington, Texas Southern

Specialists

PK- Brady Faggard, Prairie View A&M. P- Josh Duran, Southern. KR- Mareo Howard, Arkansas-Pine Bluff

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2007 online football betting Preview

My fellow Americans, as tempting as it may be to don the coat and HD-ready tie in order to deliver this State of the Game address before the cameras, I know better. As Brad Paisley sings on his latest album, "I'm so much cooler online."

The ideas for this annual essay to kick off the MySportsbook.com college football betting preview flowed like frat-house beer, which is to say they were cheap and spilled all over the floor. The 2007 season will be better than 2007, if only because there will be more of it. A year ago, the NCAA Football Rules Committee made two rule changes in the interest of speeding up the game. These changes went over like Kobe burgers at a vegan banquet.

To its credit, the rules committee rectified its mistakes. This season the clock once again will start when a kickoff is received, rather than when it is kicked, and the clock will not start so quickly on a change of possession.

However, kickoffs have been moved back five yards, to the 30, which will force more returns. (Thus forcing the clock to run. Clever, huh?) Special teams might decide a lot of games, because coaching strategy will come straight out of another new Paisley lyric (almost), I'd like to check you for kicks.

Paisley sings with a twang, which is why he's appropriate for this college football season. The sun coming up over the 2007 college football betting lines season rises from the south. It's a Southern football world. As the Southeastern Conference begins its 75th year, the power shift is noticeable.

Eight-figure budgets, glamorous settings -- and that's just for the head coaches. The SEC has four coaches who have won national championships -- the greatest aggregation of coaching know-how since Eddie Robinson dined alone.

Steve Spurrier, Phil Fulmer, Nick Saban and Urban Meyer have given lie to the idea that a conference championship game is too daunting a hurdle on the road to No. 1. In six of the past 10 seasons, the national champions played and won a conference championship game -- three of the six (Tennessee, 1998; LSU, 2003; Florida, 2007) from the SEC.

2007 College Football Betting Preview

There will be more of the same this season, if the preseason prognostications are correct. Six SEC teams are in the preseason coaches' poll, more than from any other conference. Only one conference has talent so deep that a team with 15 returning starters, including the best quarterback in the league, from an eight-win season is considered an afterthought. That may speak more to Kentucky's losing legacy than to the wisdom of the predictions, but there you have it. And seriously, keep an eye on Wildcats QB Andre' Woodson.

The reach of the South extends all the way to No. 1. Take a look at the team that is a consensus pick to win the national championship. The quarterback is from Shreveport. The best wide receiver is from Nashville. The top recruit is from New Orleans.

So what's the campus doing in Los Angeles? Hey, it is the University of Southern California.

USC lost two Pacific-10 Conference games a year ago, the first time that had happened in five seasons, and university officials withstood the urge to form blue-ribbon panels to unearth the cause of such a disaster. Instead, the Trojans gathered themselves and routed Michigan, 32-18, in the Rose Bowl.

USC's losses at Oregon State and at UCLA last year should have given pause to those who question the Pac-10's football prowess (such as, without naming names, L.M. from Baton Rouge). The league only got deeper this season; Dennis Erickson is taking over an Arizona State team that never quite got out of its own way under his predecessor, Dirk Koetter.

Erickson will resume his quest to become the first coach to win a national championship at two schools. Both he and Spurrier, now in his third season at South Carolina, returned to college football at schools with lower profiles than where they won their titles.

That isn't the case for the third coach looking for the national championship double. You may have missed this, but NASA reported the astronauts on the space shuttle last spring made contact with what can only be described as beings from another galaxy.

The leader of the aliens said, "We come in peace," followed by, "So how do you think Nick Saban will do at Alabama?"

The public is reacting to the new Crimson Tide coach as if he is the Barry Bonds of college football -- beloved at home for what his fans believe he is going to do, hated on the road for his intimidating attitude and for what his detractors believe he did (bend NCAA recruiting rules). I made this comparison from the dais at a charity dinner in Mobile, Ala., last month, and the chill that washed over me didn't come from the air conditioning.

Saban will attempt to prove that he can remake in Tuscaloosa what he built in Baton Rouge, much like another member of the national championship fraternity. Bobby Bowden is attempting to remake at Florida State what he built at, um, Florida State. Bowden rebuilt his offensive staff, bringing in four new coaches led by Saban's former offensive coordinator, Jimbo Fisher, to jump-start an offense that has been dead for a couple of years.

Las Vegas Sports Lines

The Atlantic Coast Conference is expected to show new signs of life, too. That is said with no disrespect toward last season's champion, Wake Forest, which provided one of the best story lines of 2007. The Demon Deacons begin this season in their customary position, overshadowed by the Virginia Techs, Miamis and Florida States.

It's not that Wake will find it difficult to duplicate its success in 2007 as much as the feeling that success engendered. Surprising success is the narcotic of sport. It never feels quite so euphoric the next time. Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese has figured this out. He refers to 2007, when a league looked down upon by fans and foes alike took three undefeated teams into November, as "Cinderella."

The fairy tale may be over, but the Big East has four genuine Heisman Trophy candidates in Louisville quarterback Brian Brohm, West Virginia tailback Steve Slaton and quarterback Pat White, and Rutgers tailback Ray Rice. Rutgers, as did Wake Forest and, of course, Boise State, proved last season that the have-nots in college football occasionally have quite a lot.

The Broncos' rousing 43-42 overtime victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl has raised the profile of all schools in conferences that don't get automatic BCS bids. This season, TCU and Hawaii are the preseason favorites to burst through the BCS doors and earn an at-large bid. The Warriors return 14 starters from an 11-3 team, including quarterback Colt Brennan.

Brennan not only broke the single-season record with 58 touchdown passes in 2007, but he also led Division I-A in passing efficiency (186.0). The senior is expected to contend for the Heisman Trophy, and neither his success nor the rise of his team should come as any surprise in the 2007 season.

After all, Hawaii is the southernmost team in the country.

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