Moore Sports - MIAA Adding Kanza Bowl could be big for Hornets
By C.J. Moore
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
The MIAA added a second postseason bowl game on Tuesday, signing an agreement with the Kanza Bowl.
In the past, the top MIAA team to not make the Division II playoffs has been invited to the Mineral Water Bowl. Starting this season, the top team not to make the playoffs will have a choice to play in either the Mineral Water Bowl or the Kanza Bowl. The next team in line will take the other bowl game.
The Lone Star Conference is the other conference that will send a team to the Kanza Bowl, which will be played at Hummer Sports Park in Topeka.
This could not come at a better time for Emporia State. ESU coach Garin Higgins said on Tuesday that his team’s goal every year is to make the playoffs.
I’ll say what Higgins isn’t going to say: The Hornets are still at least a year or two away from even thinking about making the playoffs. The MIAA is just too tough, and the Hornets are still too young.
But there’s no reason why Emporia State cannot leap into the second tier of MIAA teams, which will be competing for the two bowl spots.
Last year, three MIAA teams — Northwest Missouri, Pittsburg State and Nebraska-Omaha — made the playoffs. Missouri Western went to the Mineral Water Bowl and lost to Augustana, a team Emporia State beat in its second game last year.
While the Hornets went just 2-7 in the conference, they were not far from being in contention to play in the Mineral Water Bowl.
The Hornets had three winnable games that they lost — at home against Missouri Southern, at Washburn and at Missouri Western. They led most of the game against Missouri Southern and ended up losing by one. They lost 14-8 at Washburn, where they were 1-of-13 on third-down conversions. And even with an anemic first half, falling behind 28-0, they nearly pulled off a comeback at Western, losing 28-21.
When Emporia State went to Western, both teams were tied for last place in the conference. The Griffons ended up winning four straight to finish 5-4, the same record the Hornets would have had if they won those three winnable games.
But that was a young team, and these things happen to young teams. Higgins was forced to give 21 freshmen significant playing time. This year the Hornets will start few freshmen; however, they will still be young because of their reliance on the sophomore class.
The reason Northwest Missouri is so successful every season is because the Bearcats start mostly juniors and seniors. They have plenty of depth with their underclassmen. Those underclassmen patiently wait. They get bigger, faster and stronger. They get extra practice time every year because the Bearcats always make deep postseason runs, and by the time they’re juniors, they are ready to keep the program at the top.
Higgins is trying to build that kind of depth and has had three recruiting classes now. Since he redshirted his entire first class, his team could be extremely experienced in a couple of years, when his first class becomes redshirt seniors.
Making a bowl game this season would give those young guys inspiration that the program is going in the right direction, and it would also give them a new goal to shoot for in the following few seasons: The playoffs.
Plus, it would give Higgins and his staff extra practice time.
“It’s almost like another 15 days of spring ball,” Higgins said.
So when Higgins says that his goal is to always make the playoffs, he’s saying that because that’s what his team needs to hear. That’s what the public expects him to say. But he knows making a bowl game would be a big first step, and with the MIAA’s additional bowl game, that now becomes a realistic goal this season.