By Jim Henry

jhenry@joplinglobe.com

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Nebraska-Omaha quarterback Zach Miller hadn’t seen anything like this before.

“It’s exciting,” the senior quarterback said at Monday’s MIAA Football Kickoff Luncheon in the Arrowhead Club. “We’ve never really experienced a gathering, a get-together like this. It’s special, something that I feel lucky and blessed to be a part of it. I’m excited at how the conference is trying to move forward. The whole situation is exciting.”

The Mavericks, coming off their first undefeated regular season in 53 years, are the new kid on the MIAA block after their former league, the North Central Conference, disbanded after last year.

Ten years ago the MIAA and NCC were two of the top NCAA Division II football conferences in the country, but in recent years, the MIAA moved ahead.

“I’ve been in the NCC for a total of 25 years,” said Pat Behrns, who’s 105-53 in the previous 14 years as UNO’s head coach. “When the NCC was at its best, we were probably equal to the MIAA. But once we lost Morningside and you could see everybody splitting up, we did tail off a little bit. We were not where this league is right now. That’s a concerning point for us.”

Concerns or not, the Mavericks are expected to make an immediate impact at the top of the MIAA football standings. UNO received three first-place votes and was picked second in the coaches preseason poll behind two-time defending champion Northwest Missouri State.

“That’s pretty lofty right now,” Behrns said. “It will be interesting to see if we can measure up to that on a week-to-week basis. What we’re coming out of and what we’re going into are two different things.

“To me, this group down here is much more skilled,” Behrns said. “The receivers, the defensive backs, there is more team speed in this league than what we came out of.

“Now the interior linemen are good, but the only place I can compare them is what Northwest (Missouri State) had compared to what we had. Then I look at Northwest, and they won four games by seven points or less. They had some battles, and you add all that up, on a week-to-week basis, it’s going to be pretty intriguing.”

The Mavericks and Bearcats have met eight times in the last 10 years. Last year UNO handed the Bearcats their only regular-season loss, a fourth-quarter comeback for a 25-21 triumph.

“Nebraska-Omaha is a very physical team, very physical on defense,” Tjeerdsma said. “They are going to play really good defense.

“On offense ... at least they haven’t been a no-huddle team, which we see quite a bit in our league. They are going to hammer at you. The one thing the teams in our league are going to have to be ready for when they play UNO is it’s going to be a physical football game. They’ll throw the football, but physically they are going to get after you.”

In the last dozen years, the Mavericks won nine NCC titles and made seven playoff appearances. Their venture south into the MIAA makes a strong conference even stronger.