August 06, 2008 12:25 am
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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.
“Us coming into the league, I don’t think that’s what’s going to make it the strongest league in the country,’ Behrns said. “I think it has been probably the last five years or more, maybe since 1999. It probably was in my estimation. I hope we can help that by our level of play, but only time will tell.”
“It’s a powerhouse conference,” said Miller, preparing for his third year as a starter. “I’m glad we can be a part of it. We know week in and week out that the competition is at the highest level. You know you have to prepare your best every week. The best guys in Division II are going to be on that football field this season.”
Regional change
The MIAA schools not only have a new league opponent, but they also have a new conference in the Southwest Region.
The Great Northwest Athletic Conference joins the MIAA and Lone Star Conference in the region. The Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference — no longer in the Southwest — is in the Northwest Region with the Northern Sun and Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
The GNAC consists of five teams — Central Washington, Western Washington, Western Oregon, Humboldt State (Calif.) and Dixie State (Utah). They will play an eight-game league schedule — home and home with each foe — and the league champion is not assured a playoff berth.
Kansas City, here we come
In recent years the MIAA has played its men’s and women’s basketball postseason tournaments at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City.
Commissioner Jim Johnson announced Monday that the league will bring a total of eight championship events to the Kansas City area this school year in an 11-week period — basketball in March, men’s and women’s golf and tennis in April and baseball and softball in May.
“We’ve really made a pledge to the city of Kansas City to use this as the hub for the MIAA, to promote the MIAA in Kansas City, to engage our more than 80,000 alums in Kansas City,” Johnson said. “We want to send a message to Kansas City on how important they are to us and how important we want to be to them.”
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