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Football

Trying to Make Sense of the Snub

After Towson destroyed #7 New Hampshire on Saturday afternoon, everything that could go wrong went wrong.
 
The men's basketball team lost at Eastern Kentucky in overtime on a touch foul with 1.4 seconds left with the game tied, 69-69. An injury-riddled, top-seeded volleyball team fell at home to #4 Hofstra in five sets in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Tournament, ending a remarkable season at 25-4. James Madison blew a 21-10 halftime lead, and fell to Old Dominion at home in football, 38-28.
 
Why did the James Madison game mean so much to Towson's football chances? If the Dukes had won, that would have created a five-way tie for first place in the CAA and Towson would have won the tiebreaker based on having the best Sagarin Ratings (after Old Dominion) at 122. Villanova was 125th, Richmond was 132nd and New Hampshire was 146th.
 
That would have given Towson a second straight automatic bid, but with James Madison losing, Villanova snagged the bid thanks to its earlier win over Old Dominon, 38-14. So the Wildcats were in, and Old Dominion at 7-1 in the league, was a no-brainer, even though they were ineligible to win the automatic bid due to the Monarchs' exodus to Conference USA next season.
 
A little more than 15 hours after those three important losses, the FCS selection committee met to determine the playoffs and decided to go with another team with the nickname "Wildcats" - UNH. Less than 24 hours before, Towson defeated New Hampshire, 64-35, from Durham. Yet the committee decided to ignore that performance for some reason.
 
"I can't speak for them, but I'm incredibly disappointed by them," said Towson football coach Rob Ambrose minutes after the brackets came out on ESPNU's selection show. "[Our players] earned it. They've more than earned it. I said it yesterday, this is the toughest group of men I've ever had to serve with. I would do anything so they could have what they earned."
 
If there is a bright side, it's for the football players returning next season with a chip on their shoulders. But nobody can console seniors like defensive end Frank Beltre, who played for two different coaching staffs or wide receiver Tom Ryan, who came in as a true freshman in 2009 and will be forever known as the receiver who made the miraculous 4th-and-29 play against Old Dominion in 2011.
 
What about safety Jordan Dangerfield, who was suspended by the CAA in what would have been his final game? Or quarterback Grant Enders, who came from Lackawanna Junior College to lead the Tigers to their first CAA Championship last season and led them to a co-championship this season with his passing and running.
 
These are the players who deserved another opportunity to play another game. They earned it. If there was another FCS team in the nation that played with more adversity and came out with a 6-2 conference record, please find one. Every team goes through injuries, but how many FCS teams play LSU and Kent State (10-1) in the same season with no bye for 10 straight weeks and fight off-the-field controversies before the Villanova game and end up winning four straight (three on the road).
 
Towson is still trying to earn respect and for whatever reason had to win the automatic bid to get in. Maybe you need to go to eight straight playoffs like New Hampshire to get that respect. Yet it's awfully hard to continue to win your own conference year after year. The CAA only sent three teams to the FCS playoffs for the first time since 2006. That might not happen next season when the field is expanded to 24. And the loss of Old Dominion won't help the league's reputation.
 
Looking for a bright side? Towson is becoming a football program you can't just schedule for Homecoming anymore. In fact, Ambrose is having trouble schedule teams to play home games.
 
"We can't get people to come here to play us," said Ambrose. "When we were a one-win team, anybody in the country would play us. Now no one wants any part of us. It seems nobody wants any part of us in the playoff level either. Scheduling is a seriously difficult issue now in our non-conference schedule. You're always going to have to play one FBS game to support the budget; that's the way it is."
 
You would think that Towson would catch a few breaks this season. Not with the schedule, or the playoff committee, or any of the teams that could have helped them in the final day of the season. The national picture didn't break either for them or Richmond (8-3) or Lehigh (10-1) which were also snubbed.
 
These players will come back to Towson 20 years from now at a tailgate and wax nostalgic about how great the 2011 season was. Then somebody will bring up the 2012 team and wonder, "what could that 7-4 team had done in the playoffs if given their rightful opportunity."
 
"I thought the goal is for the best 20 teams in the country to play for the national title," said Ambrose. "This isn't rec ball. We're not going to give trophies for showing up. These men have earned the respect of each other, this institution and anyone they lined up against. After last week's game, there are a whole bunch of people taking a big sigh of relief, that God help them if they lined up against us next week.
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