Well, good luck seeing the game if you aren’t going. ESPN360.com will be showing it, and the results can be spotty. On the bright side for those attending, an extra pre-game treat.
…the illustrious Summerall Guards will be performing twice at Heinz Field. The Summerall Guards will perform their full routine outside Gate A of Heinz Field before the game and will perform a six-minute routine on the field at halftime.
…
Consisting of 61 members, the Summerall Guards are first-class (seniors) cadets who go through a rigorous physical training and initiation process and are chosen for their physical stamina and drill proficiency.
Membership is considered a high honor at the military college. The platoon’s purpose is to exemplify, through a unique series of movements based on the old German close order drill and performed to a silent count, the exactness and thoroughness with which The Citadel cadet is trained. The series has never been written and has been passed down since 1932 from class to class, through strict rehearsal and memorization.
The Citadel is taking the money this season. This will be their second 1-A opponent they face this season.
It is The Citadel’s second game with a I-A team this season, its sixth in the last three years, and its ninth in the last five years.
In his first 14 games as the Bulldogs’ coach, Kevin Higgins has faced Florida State, Ole Miss, Texas A&M and Pitt – not to mention defending I-AA national champion Appalachian State, Furman and Georgia Southern of the Southern Conference, the so-called best I-AA league in the nation.
“It’s a challenge,” is about all Higgins will say about the schedule.
Most teams in The Citadel’s position would be playing Mars Hill this week – defending I-AA champion Appalachian State did last week. Furman played West Georgia before losing to North Carolina, and Western Carolina ends its season with Florida, after starting it with Chowan.
The football team will earn $750,000 for the school against Texas A&M and Pitt this season, and has totaled about $2.8 million for eight “money games” since 2002.
By the time the Bulldogs play Arizona in 2010, they will have made about $5.1 million in 14 games against I-A teams in a nine-year period.
Well, The Citadel is not even a good 1-AA team, so they are in demand. Especially with the upsets and close games better 1-AA teams have given other schools this year. If you are going to play a 1-AA team, you damn well better be sure you can beat them.
The Citadel is coming off a tough 38-35 loss to Charleston Southern. The Citadel HC Kevin Higgins saw good things from the game.
“Our wide receivers only had two big drops against Charleston Southern. They did a much better job that game.”
So, they have that going for them.
Even a 50 point thumping (which we never do to anyone, even a bad YSU team last year) gains you nothing but scorn from media (and jerks like me). No D-1 team should be playing a D-IAA team for real, nor charging fans money to see it. It stinks. A real association (or the BCS cartel of conferences in this case) should enforce D-1 on D-1. When both PSU and Pitt are playing D-1AA teams instead of each other, it’s insane.
Back to the issue at hand. No, the best antidote would have been to play WVU this week and beat them! But that’s a pipe dream. So the BETTER (aka realistic) antidoe would be a school like Syracuse, who will mimic (on paper anyway) some of the way MSU plays (to give the coaches a chance at immediate reinforcement in their instruction), has a respectable name to elicit the players’ respect (or at least not total disregard) and hard work, but somewhat down in talent to enable a solid win. Too bad they aren’t on the tilt this week.
