NC A&T and the MEAC…What To Do?
Here we sit, just one full weekend into the FCS season and a huge question with only three words comes to mind.
What to do?
And this isn’t pertaining to any of the major FCS power conferences, this is a very interesting and stirring question for the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. And the ramifications of this question could have an effect on the entire landscape of the FCS Playoff picture.
2017’s HBCU National Champion, North Carolina A&T, who was the only school to finish undefeated at 12-0, has picked up right where they left off, in 2018. They waltzed into the FCS Kickoff and took down Jacksonville State. And depending on which ranking you happen to admire most, the Gamecocks were somewhere between 6 and 10 in all of them. Instead of taking the traditional opening weekend off, the Aggies scheduled themselves at nearby FBS East Carolina. After a delayed game Saturday, they went into Greenville and took down their FBS neighbor on Sunday.
So far the only thing that has slowed down the Aggies is Mother Nature.
With the prospects of going undefeated again and not playing the almost unanimously predicted second-best team in their conference, Howard, should North Carolina A&T be happy playing for the HBCU National Championship again? Or should the MEAC give them the option of playing in the FCS Playoffs. This is something head coach, Sam Washington, mentioned was his ultimate desire during the summer.
It would take a policy change by the MEAC for this to happen. And, frankly, it probably should have last year. Maybe the conference could create some provision, stating that if their conference champion would garner an at-large from The FCS Playoff Selection Committee, they would be given the option to participate in the playoffs or take the conference’s automatic berth in the Celebrations Bowl. Right now, the MEAC has forfeited their playoff bid for the bowl game. But this might be the right time to implement an alteration.
This wouldn’t be an unprecedented action, as far as the HBCUs go either. The Southwestern Athletic Conference had decided to end their divisional championship match-up after the regular season, to determine who would get their bid to the Celebrations Bowl. After the announcement last season, the SWAC got a lot of backlash from their fan bases, wanting to keep the title game. And later this summer, they reversed direction and put the title game back on the docket.
Granted, the MEAC’s history in the FCS playoffs is not good lately. Nobody from the conference has won a playoff game this century, in which they are 0-19. But this North Carolina A&T team is starting to sway even this stubborn guy’s opinion. They’ve more than proven they deserve a chance, if they really want it. The question is in the MEAC’s hands now…
What to do?
