With the preseason “classics” now behind us, college football season is now fully underway. Couch potatoes’ calendars are surely marked with the dates of such annual “games of the century” as Tennessee-Florida, Miami-Florida State and Michigan-Ohio State.
This year, however, the most historic matchup is not amongst the usual suspects, and I’m not talking about Oregon-Oregon State.
On Nov. 3 in the tiny hamlet of Statesboro, Ga., Furman running back Louis Ivory, last year’s winner of the Walter Payton Award, will travel to meet Georgia Southern and their running back, Adrian Peterson, who took home the same award, given annually to I-AA’s best player, in 1999.
At no time in Division I history, be it in I-A, or I-AA, have two winners of either the Heisman trophy or Payton award met on the field. That is, until the Paladins and Eagles cross paths.
The two were featured in a recent Sports Illustrated, but something tells me the Florida State-Clemson telecast, scheduled for the same day at the same 3:30 p.m. kickoff time, will pound Fox Sports Net’s broadcast of the Ivory-Peterson clash in the ratings.
And, that’s a shame.
Perhaps the subtitle of the Walter Payton Award should be the player over whom I-A coaches lose the most sleep (and jobs) for not recruiting him more aggressively. Either of the Bowdens would love to have either of the Southern Conference’s two pearls.
Though they might not put up numbers quite as impressive in I-A, they would still be NFL prospects, and, with the klieg lights focused upon them, might have even received the SI cover, instead of being buried deep within the recesses of the college football preview.
In fact, were the sport not football, Peterson and Ivory would have the chance to compete against the big-money schools at the end of the year in the NCAA Tournament, and perhaps put on the sort of show that Jackie Stiles of Southwest Missouri State did in women’s basketball. If you had half of a passing interest in women’s college hoops, you knew who Stiles was this year even if you couldn’t quite remember it was Southwest or Southeast Missouri State.
Thus the plight of Peterson and Ivory.
Everyone knows the stories of I-AA, Division II, and Division III players, from Randy Moss to Jerry Rice to Payton himself, who go on to NFL greatness. The issue is not that these players finally got the chance to be recognized by the media and fans alike.
The injustice comes in the form of the four year purgatory they must spend away from the attention equally skilled players are enjoying at places like Tennessee.
The third-string center at UT probably has a higher Q rating than Cecil Moore, Ocasio Cofield or Matt Wilhjelm. He probably has more notoriety than even Paul Hamilton.
There’s talk of a Division I-A contraction. Someday soon, SI might well tout rankings of team from 1-65 instead of 1-117.
Of course, teams 66-117 aren’t exactly annual powerhouses. They might as well be I-AA teams. The difference, however, is that the nominal status of I-A gives them at least an outside chance of exposure, a chance significantly greater than I-AA teams enjoy.
A couple of years ago, a quarterback by the name of Daunte Culpepper put Central Florida on the map. The Golden Knights, as we learned they were to be called, even garnered an ESPN game or two. UCF will never have quite the ring to it as UT, OSU or USC. But, for the years he was there, Culpepper at least garnered the Knights a supporting role.
Meanwhile, Adrian Peterson and Louis Ivory can’t even get on the stage. Sure, there’ll be the championship game on ESPN, but what if the players around these spectacular backs can’t quite get them there?
The Ivory-Peterson match-up, along with Georgia Southern’s trip to the Mini-Dome Oct. 27, will be televised, but not by any major carrier. Don’t go looking for the Buc game in your dorm, however. The channel which carries the contest, Comcast Sports Southeast, is so small, not even the vastly expanded channel lineup includes them.
So you’ll probably miss history.
Already we know all too well that not even every team in I-A has a shot at a national title
No one really considered Tulane a contender a couple of years ago, despite their undefeated record.
The idea, then, that teams in Division I be subdivided into two categories for football, so that smaller schools can have a shot at a, if not the, national championship, is faulty.
Even if I-A is pared down, not all will have equal shots. If we just leave the major conferences like the Big East, SEC and Big Ten, and one year, Florida, Miami and Northwestern all finish with identical undefeated or one-loss records atop the polls, who do you think will play in the national championship?
If you’re thinking playoff, dream on. That will happen when Roy Kramer, et al, and the bowl profiteers roll over in their graves, and they’re not going anywhere anytime soon.
Why not open Division I to both I-A and I-AA teams? Marist doesn’t really have a shot at the basketball championship, either. But why erect another barrier to attention? Aren’t the three divisions enough already?
The distinction between I-A and I-AA is just a 12th man, one of perception, that Peterson and Ivory must face between themselves and their hard-earned attention.
Unfortunately, that might be the only way to bring them down.

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