November 14, 2003

Southern looking to join league

By Kris Henry
Tidings Correspondent

After hitting a wall following five seasons as an NAIA independent football team, Southern Oregon University will start the ball rolling for a move to the Frontier Conference beginning Tuesday in Helena, Mont.

Frustrated by concerns over scheduling, playoff accessibility and postseason recognition for its players, Southern Oregon will be joined by Eastern Oregon in applying for football-only membership to the NAIA conference during Tuesday's annual fall meeting of its football coaches.

"We're just kind of stuck between a rock and a hard spot (as an independent)," says Phil Pifer, director of athletics at SOU. "Hopefully we're making progress to having a solution to our problems."

Pifer, SOU head football coach Jeff Olson, Eastern Oregon AD Rob Cashell and Mountaineers head coach Jim Fenwick are scheduled to present their case for admission to the Frontier coaches and athletic directors. If approved, the proposal would then be forwarded to the presidents at each institution for a decision at their Dec. 11 meeting in Lewiston, Idaho.

"I think most of the football coaches are in favor of the expansion, and the athletic directors, too," says Ron Kenison, commissioner of the Frontier Conference. "We're kind of excited about getting more teams into our conference."

Kenison says the major questions for the expansion involve travel finances and scheduling for the Montana-based Frontier Conference.

The eight-team conference has five football programs, with each of those teams squaring off twice in a double round-robin format.

Adding a sixth team would enable the conference to maintain its format for a total of 10 Frontier games and still have room for a couple nonconference affairs.

Adding two teams would mean cutting the conference slate to a traditional one-game format for a total of six conference games, with teams then having to pick up about four nonconference games.

For Carroll College head coach Mike Van Diest, the added travel costs of bringing non-Montana programs into the fold isn't the issue nearly as much as where his Fighting Saints and the others would go to find more nonconference opponents.

Much like for SOU and Eastern Oregon, scheduling options are limited in Montana.

"That's a real tough situation when all the same teams are vying to play the same people," says Van Diest, whose Saints are the defending NAIA champions and ranked No. 1 this season. "I don't know how that's going to work down the road."

Pifer says the plan he and Cashell will introduce at Tuesday's meeting involves admitting both programs for a seven-team football conference. In their scenario, the Montana schools could continue to play each other twice in a season, with the second meeting counting as a nonconference game.

Eastern Oregon already has three of the five Frontier teams on this year's schedule to go with its annual meeting with Southern Oregon. The Raiders have played Montana State-Northern the past four seasons, and Frontier mate Rocky Mountain in 2001 and '02. SOU also squared off in 2002 with Montana-Western and Carroll College in the NAIA Championship Series.

The only Frontier team to escape SOU's schedule in recent years is Montana Tech. Lewis-Clark State College, the University of Great Falls and Westminster College don't field football programs.

"For us, it's a good deal," Pifer says. "The travel's going to be a wash based on what we need to do as an independent. I think we can work it out to where it's a good deal for all of us."

Cashell agrees that the financial picture won't be much different than the current one for the Mountaineers, who just last week made the decision to drop from the NCAA Division III level in football to the NAIA status it has in all other sports.

"We're already playing each other to a certain degree," says the former Montana-Western AD. "It possibly isn't as big of a shift budgetwise or a financial strain as most might think."

"We're going to spend that money going somewhere," adds Cashell, "and if we can spend it in a conference and provide our kids with all the positives that brings, then it's an even better situation for us and Southern Oregon."

Scheduling issues and finances aside, Van Diest says the addition of SOU and/or Eastern Oregon would be nothing but positive for the Frontier Conference.

"Adding Southern Oregon, as good as they are, obviously it would do nothing but strengthen the outlook of our conference," says Van Diest, "and I think Eastern Oregon has done a lot over the past few years to strengthen its position."

Another side to the expansion is simply NAIA institutions looking out for one another.

"I think as an NAIA member," says Van Diest, "we have to look at helping everybody and how we can help Southern Oregon and Eastern Oregon and their plight as an NAIA institution."

That would be just fine for Olson, who has grown weary of SOU's independent status.

"It's an uphill battle for us every year if we don't do something," says the eighth-year coach. "We've hit a wall, and it's not budging."