Some folks around the Lone Star Conference have called it a “circular firing squad.” Others have used names that aren’t printable. Even those not quite as grumpy about the idea have a hard time explaining it because, like a transitional relationship status, it’s complicated.
Perhaps a catechism might be the best format for exegesis of a concept as nuanced as the Lone Star Conference Football Playoffs. Texas A&M University-Commerce and Midwestern State University will kick off at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday at Memorial Stadium in Commerce in the title game of this tournament.
Will Saturday’s game determine the Lone Star Conference champion?
No. A&M-Commerce is already LSC Champion. The Lions finished with a perfect 6-0 record in conference play to earn their second consecutive league championship. A&M-Commerce’s first-place finish also earned it top seed in the LSC Playoffs.
So conference play is over. Then these are postseason games?
No, these count as regular-season games.
They’re regular-season games against LSC opponents that don’t count in the conference standings? Isn’t that weird?
Yes. It’s very weird.
Why are they doing this?
They’re doing this because it has been very difficult for schools in the Lone Star Conference to find enough Division II opponents to fill their schedules. The Lone Star Conference currently has only seven schools that play football. In order to be eligible for the NCAA Playoffs, a Division II football team must have played nine Division II opponents. That means that LSC schools have to find three non-conference games within Division II.
What’s so hard about finding non-conference DII opponents?
There aren’t very many nearby. The Lone Star Conference’s closest neighbor is the Great American Conference, composed of schools in Oklahoma and Arkansas. The GAC has 12 schools that play football, so they have no motivation to play non-conference games. The 11-team conference schedule also corresponds to the maximum number of regular-season games a DII school may play, also 11.
Oklahoma? Didn’t those schools used to play in the LSC?
Yes. The Lions’ traditional regional rival, Southeastern Oklahoma State, left the LSC in 2011. East Central, Northeastern Oklahoma State and Southwestern Oklahoma State also left that same year. Ouachita Baptist left in 2000. They’re all in the GAC now.
Why did they leave?
You’ll have to ask them. Travel time and costs, the LSC’s membership fees and many other factors have been cited as possible reasons. In any case, they’re gone.
Who else can the LSC schools play?
Well, the only DII independents in this part of the world are the Oklahoma Panhandle State Aggies…more on them in a moment. But our next-nearest neighbor conference after the GAC is the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, which has 10 football schools. So they aren’t in particular need of finding non-conference opponents…at least not right now…more on that in a moment, too. After the RMAC, the next-nearest available DII opponents are pretty far to the east or north. Strangely, there are no DII schools in Louisiana.
So this whole LSC Tournament thing is really about filling up the schedule with DII opponents, and it’s really just a smokescreen to obscure the lameness of playing the same teams twice during the regular season?
No comment.
Whose idea was this?
No one individual is taking full credit or blame for this business, but the LSC proposed it early in 2013, when it became apparent, with the pending departure of University of the Incarnate Word and Abilene Christian University, that the rapidly shrinking LSC was looking at schedule problems in football. Many of the athletics directors were for it because the proposal offered a way to escape the expense, time and hassle of scheduling games in faraway places to find other DII opponents. It’s likely that most of the non-conference games would have been road games, as the potential opponents wouldn’t need the game as much as the LSC teams, and would have a bargaining advantage in scheduling. The LSC coaches were unanimously against the idea, but their opposition did not prevent it from happening.
Why were the coaches against it?
There are myriad reasons why coaches hate facing the same team more than once. In the Lone Star Conference, the talent level is so high and there’s so much parity, that it’s a very difficult prospect to beat the same team twice. The Lions experienced that last season, during which A&M-Commerce defeated Angelo State during the regular season, err, the conference game, but lost to the Rams in the LSC Playoffs. Furthermore, the LSC’s top four teams are placed into a bracket with one another in the format. Two games against two very tough football teams aren’t just difficult to win, they also present an increased risk for injuries – a particular concern late in the season, when everyone is banged up.
Isn’t it bad for the LSC for its best teams to be defeating one another during the last two weeks of the regular season? Wouldn’t that hurt the conference’s ability to send more teams to the NCAA playoffs?
Yes and yes. The 2014 Lions suffered greatly as a result of this format. That was an excellent team that was headed for the playoffs, but the loss to Angelo State in the second round of the LSC Tournament cost the Lions a playoff berth. Note: The Lions missed the playoffs not because they lost the LSC Tournament, but because the loss in that game weakened their overall profile in the matrix of criteria that the NCAA uses to determine which teams qualify for the playoffs.
Is this the silliest thing in college football?
That’s debatable, but if the Lone Star Conference Playoffs were a dog, they would be Poochie.
Will this absurdity ever end?
Yes, it will end this week. Help is on the way! Next season, the Lone Star Conference will gain three new football schools. Oklahoma Panhandle State University, the University of Texas of the Permian Basin and Western New Mexico University will all join the LSC in football, bringing the number of conference games to nine, the exact amount of DII opponents needed to be eligible for the NCAA Championship. WNMU is defecting from the RMAC. UTPB will be a first-year program. OPSU is a Heartland Conference member which had been independent in football since the other Heartland schools don't play football. OPSU will be joining the LSC for football only.
Aren’t those schools very far away from Commerce?
Yes, but we don’t care. OPSU is in Guymon, Okla., UTPB is in Odessa and WNMU is in Silver City, N.M., which is almost in Arizona. But we really don’t care. It’s a safe bet that the Lions would rather hop a plane for Greenland to play on sheet of permafrost if it meant not having to play in another LSC Football Playoffs.
