Post by Lurking Dog on Jul 26, 2023 21:22:41 GMT -5
From The Athletic...
Theathletic.com
A college football conference like no other: Tales from the Pioneer Football League
A college football conference like no other: Tales from the Pioneer Football League
By Jayna Bardahl
Jul. 26, 2023
It was hour 12 at LaGuardia Airport when the brain fog really settled in.
This group of Marist football players, coaches and staff had been camped out since their 8:10 a.m. flight was canceled due to heavy fog in New York. They were the third and final group left in their 85-person travel party; the lucky ones took off after less grueling delays of their own.
No hope remained for the team to arrive at Morehead State with time left to practice. Coach Jim Parady and the last group didn’t land until 11 p.m. Friday night when they were welcomed to Columbus with an hour-and-a-half bus ride to their hotel. It was 2 a.m. when they checked into their rooms and the realization dawned: Game time was less than 12 hours away. And their equipment was stranded in Washington, D.C.
“That was about as big of a nightmare as we’ve ever had,” said Parady, the longest-tenured head coach in Division I football, entering in his 32nd year.
At the mercy of the travel delay, kickoff changed from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. the following day. Marist beat Morehead State 31-21. Still, this was a travel disaster nothing like Marist had seen before, but one always possible for a team that plays in a conference like the Pioneer Football League.
“That was the worst-case scenario of any team travel that I’ve encountered,” said PFL commissioner Patty Viverito, who has led the conference since 1994.
“When you come up with assignments for fights, don’t put all your quarterbacks on one plane and just hope that enough planes land that you can fill the team,” Viverito added with a laugh. It’s advice that illustrates the peculiarity of the PFL, the most geographically diverse conference in college football.
Stretching from New York to San Diego and to , the PFL started out of necessity, Viverito said, after the NCAA passed legislation in 1991 requiring Division I institutions to sponsor all sports at the same level. The non-scholarship conference helped charter members Butler, Dayton, Drake, Evansville and Valparaiso — plus San Diego a year later — meet this requirement in the Football Championship Subdivision.
Now, the PFL has 11 member schools, most recently adding Presbyterian and St. Thomas in 2021. With the exception of Valparaiso and Butler, no two schools are located in the same state. Just two pairs of schools compete in the same conference in sports outside of football: Drake and Valparaiso (Missouri Valley) and Davidson and Dayton (Atlantic 10). The PFL’s headquarters are in St. Louis, but no teams are located in Missouri.
St. Thomas (Minn.) jumped from D-III to the PFL in 2021. (John Autey / MediaNews Group / St. Paul Pioneer Press via Getty Images)
In college football today, conference realignment at the highest level is driven by the biggest brands and revenue generators. Geography has been de-emphasized, even if a 3,000-mile spread presents challenges. The PFL is already well-trained in navigating an expanded map.
“Certainly, if we had 12 programs that were all within bus trip distance, that would be better in terms of the amount invested. But that’s not what non-scholarship football in Division I football looks like right now,” Viverito said. “Right now, what we’re looking at is 11 programs committed to this model and they happen to be scattered across the country.”
Viverito said alignment of values takes precedence over geography in the Pioneer Football League. With the exception of Morehead State, every school in the PFL is private, and many have a historically strong academic reputation. It also helps that the league is football-only.
“A coast-to-coast league is more problematic for almost every sport other than football,” Viverito said.
Nonetheless, many PFL coaches and players can think back to a story or two that make playing in a nationwide collegiate league unique, for better or for wo
The airplane hierarchy
Anthony Lawrence found his footing as San Diego’s starting quarterback as a redshirt freshman in 2015. In winning team MVP honors, he led his team to a 9-2 record and a share of the PFL championship. But any smiles when thinking back on the on-field success can always be paired with a smirk about what went on behind the scenes — or more accurately, on those Southwest plane rides.
“There were two senior O-linemen who wanted a small guy in the middle seat, so not by my own choice, but I was chosen to be the middle seat for those two O-linemen that whole year,” said Lawrence, a four-time All-PFL athlete. “People definitely try to take advantage of the young guys to try to create the best travel trip for themselves.”
Depending on the school, PFL teams opt to fly if the bus ride to their opponent is more than six to eight hours long. These determinations are also dictated by each program’s budget. Butler associate athletic director Ken LaRose said the total cost of a bus trip (including lodging and all other expenses) is between $20,000 to $30,000, while a total flight budget falls between $45,000 to $75,000.
When a flight is needed, it’s time for folks like Cody Tescher, USD’s director of football operations, to step in.
Tescher, an O-lineman for the Toreros from 2011 to 2013, acts as San Diego’s travel agent during the season. For a school like USD that flies to each conference road game, travel logistics follow a precise agenda. The Toreros leave on Thursday to get acclimated to the time change, as they are at least two time zones away from every other PFL team. An administrator travels with the group to proctor exams on Friday for players missing class time.
After kickoff on Saturday afternoon, Tescher watches the game clock with an eagle eye, anticipating whether the team will make it to their evening flight back west. Tescher likes to account for roughly three hours of game time but said he is “always worried” about in-game delays that threaten the schedule.
“When we play Davidson, they’re more of an option team, so they’re running the ball. I can expect the game to go a little bit faster,” Tescher said. “But for some of the more spread teams, the games can take up to three and a half hours with commercials.”
Most PFL teams fly back to their campuses on Saturday nights — or on red-eye flights — in hopes of giving players time to prepare for the school week and coaches a day to evaluate film.
“Sunday becomes kind of a zombie day because you’re worn out, but it can’t be wasted either,” said LaRose, who was Butler’s head coach from 1992-2001.
Teams across the Pioneer League vary when it comes to flying charter or commercial. When USD flies commercial, Tescher prefers Southwest for the two free checked bags: one personal and one for equipment per player. It’s here where the travel hierarchy comes in, as younger players usually carry the extra baggage filled with miscellaneous whiteboards and headsets.
And they’ll probably get stuck with the middle seat, too.
“If you had a freshman that had a last name that started with A, B, somewhere toward the front of the alphabet,” Lawrence said when referring to the boarding order of the flight, “they’re definitely getting their ticket switched with seniors.”
“We had a freshman quarterback that traveled with us this past season and if he was in a window or an aisle seat and one of us veterans were in the middle?” said Butler quarterback Bret Bushka. “Yeah, we were definitely swapping tickets.”
‘Part of the allure’
In 2011, when his team played in the Division III Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, St. Thomas coach Glenn Caruso read an article that listed the Tommies’ season road travel at 64 miles total. It’s a number he scoffs at now, as that’s just a fraction of what it would take his team to get to its closest PFL opponent.
“To say geographically condensed is probably a severe understatement,” Caruso said of his teams’ former conference. “Fast forward a decade and we’re flying to and New York and . I think it’s the largest spread in terms of conference footprint as anyone could have ever imagined.
“But I also believe that’s part of the allure of why I was attracted to the Pioneer League.”
Caruso and other PFL coaches are quick to reap the benefits of the league’s national span. Trips to USD can include a walk down the San Diego boardwalk. Trips to Stetson can include a drive to the beach.
“Just to have an opportunity to come to is always good for teams to enjoy the warm weather,” said Stetson coach . “I want to say everybody is excited about playing Stetson.”
Other schools are located close to major cities like Minneapolis (St. Thomas), Indianapolis (Butler) and New York (Marist).
“I think sometimes it’s looked at as, especially from the outside looking in, ‘Man, you guys got to travel all over the place. That must be horrible,’” said Presbyterian coach Steve Englehart. “But the spin of it is it’s a really good thing.
“There are a lot of great places in this conference where schools are that you can go and take some time to understand and enjoy and maybe make it a little bit of an educational purpose as well for these kids. I think that’s something that, looking in the future, we’ll try to do to help ease the burden of the long travel.”
Dayton and San Diego each have 12 league titles, though St. Thomas went undefeated in just its second season in the league in 2022 after making the leap from D-III to D-I. Davidson is also on a hot streak after three consecutive FCS playoff appearances. There’s a high level of competition within the PFL, but no school has ever made it further than the second round of the FCS playoffs.
“It’s a very undervalued league,” said former USD coach Dale Lindsey, the winningest coach in USD history. “I think the NCAA, now with an automatic (playoff) bid for the conference winner, has helped our footing with the non-scholarship players.”
The PFL operates in a financial model different from others in Division I athletics, but its coast-to-coast stretch soon won’t be uniquely its own. As conferences at all levels — including the Big Ten — expand their footprints nationwide, Davidson coach Scott Abell said to embrace the opportunities that come with travel. A national recruiting footprint and a schedule that introduces different styles of play are just some of the ways his program found success in one of college football’s most unconventional leagues.
“It’s hard to fight change, and it’s hard to fight when your sport evolves as ours is right now and it’s not done. It’s a long way from being done,” Abell said. “I think we’re about the most unique Division I league in the country right now.
“We’re non-scholarship, we’re committed to making this national league work. We’re committed to playing high-caliber football, and I think it shows.”
Theathletic.com
A college football conference like no other: Tales from the Pioneer Football League
A college football conference like no other: Tales from the Pioneer Football League
By Jayna Bardahl
Jul. 26, 2023
It was hour 12 at LaGuardia Airport when the brain fog really settled in.
This group of Marist football players, coaches and staff had been camped out since their 8:10 a.m. flight was canceled due to heavy fog in New York. They were the third and final group left in their 85-person travel party; the lucky ones took off after less grueling delays of their own.
No hope remained for the team to arrive at Morehead State with time left to practice. Coach Jim Parady and the last group didn’t land until 11 p.m. Friday night when they were welcomed to Columbus with an hour-and-a-half bus ride to their hotel. It was 2 a.m. when they checked into their rooms and the realization dawned: Game time was less than 12 hours away. And their equipment was stranded in Washington, D.C.
“That was about as big of a nightmare as we’ve ever had,” said Parady, the longest-tenured head coach in Division I football, entering in his 32nd year.
At the mercy of the travel delay, kickoff changed from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. the following day. Marist beat Morehead State 31-21. Still, this was a travel disaster nothing like Marist had seen before, but one always possible for a team that plays in a conference like the Pioneer Football League.
“That was the worst-case scenario of any team travel that I’ve encountered,” said PFL commissioner Patty Viverito, who has led the conference since 1994.
“When you come up with assignments for fights, don’t put all your quarterbacks on one plane and just hope that enough planes land that you can fill the team,” Viverito added with a laugh. It’s advice that illustrates the peculiarity of the PFL, the most geographically diverse conference in college football.
Stretching from New York to San Diego and to , the PFL started out of necessity, Viverito said, after the NCAA passed legislation in 1991 requiring Division I institutions to sponsor all sports at the same level. The non-scholarship conference helped charter members Butler, Dayton, Drake, Evansville and Valparaiso — plus San Diego a year later — meet this requirement in the Football Championship Subdivision.
Now, the PFL has 11 member schools, most recently adding Presbyterian and St. Thomas in 2021. With the exception of Valparaiso and Butler, no two schools are located in the same state. Just two pairs of schools compete in the same conference in sports outside of football: Drake and Valparaiso (Missouri Valley) and Davidson and Dayton (Atlantic 10). The PFL’s headquarters are in St. Louis, but no teams are located in Missouri.
St. Thomas (Minn.) jumped from D-III to the PFL in 2021. (John Autey / MediaNews Group / St. Paul Pioneer Press via Getty Images)
In college football today, conference realignment at the highest level is driven by the biggest brands and revenue generators. Geography has been de-emphasized, even if a 3,000-mile spread presents challenges. The PFL is already well-trained in navigating an expanded map.
“Certainly, if we had 12 programs that were all within bus trip distance, that would be better in terms of the amount invested. But that’s not what non-scholarship football in Division I football looks like right now,” Viverito said. “Right now, what we’re looking at is 11 programs committed to this model and they happen to be scattered across the country.”
Viverito said alignment of values takes precedence over geography in the Pioneer Football League. With the exception of Morehead State, every school in the PFL is private, and many have a historically strong academic reputation. It also helps that the league is football-only.
“A coast-to-coast league is more problematic for almost every sport other than football,” Viverito said.
Nonetheless, many PFL coaches and players can think back to a story or two that make playing in a nationwide collegiate league unique, for better or for wo
The airplane hierarchy
Anthony Lawrence found his footing as San Diego’s starting quarterback as a redshirt freshman in 2015. In winning team MVP honors, he led his team to a 9-2 record and a share of the PFL championship. But any smiles when thinking back on the on-field success can always be paired with a smirk about what went on behind the scenes — or more accurately, on those Southwest plane rides.
“There were two senior O-linemen who wanted a small guy in the middle seat, so not by my own choice, but I was chosen to be the middle seat for those two O-linemen that whole year,” said Lawrence, a four-time All-PFL athlete. “People definitely try to take advantage of the young guys to try to create the best travel trip for themselves.”
Depending on the school, PFL teams opt to fly if the bus ride to their opponent is more than six to eight hours long. These determinations are also dictated by each program’s budget. Butler associate athletic director Ken LaRose said the total cost of a bus trip (including lodging and all other expenses) is between $20,000 to $30,000, while a total flight budget falls between $45,000 to $75,000.
When a flight is needed, it’s time for folks like Cody Tescher, USD’s director of football operations, to step in.
Tescher, an O-lineman for the Toreros from 2011 to 2013, acts as San Diego’s travel agent during the season. For a school like USD that flies to each conference road game, travel logistics follow a precise agenda. The Toreros leave on Thursday to get acclimated to the time change, as they are at least two time zones away from every other PFL team. An administrator travels with the group to proctor exams on Friday for players missing class time.
After kickoff on Saturday afternoon, Tescher watches the game clock with an eagle eye, anticipating whether the team will make it to their evening flight back west. Tescher likes to account for roughly three hours of game time but said he is “always worried” about in-game delays that threaten the schedule.
“When we play Davidson, they’re more of an option team, so they’re running the ball. I can expect the game to go a little bit faster,” Tescher said. “But for some of the more spread teams, the games can take up to three and a half hours with commercials.”
Most PFL teams fly back to their campuses on Saturday nights — or on red-eye flights — in hopes of giving players time to prepare for the school week and coaches a day to evaluate film.
“Sunday becomes kind of a zombie day because you’re worn out, but it can’t be wasted either,” said LaRose, who was Butler’s head coach from 1992-2001.
Teams across the Pioneer League vary when it comes to flying charter or commercial. When USD flies commercial, Tescher prefers Southwest for the two free checked bags: one personal and one for equipment per player. It’s here where the travel hierarchy comes in, as younger players usually carry the extra baggage filled with miscellaneous whiteboards and headsets.
And they’ll probably get stuck with the middle seat, too.
“If you had a freshman that had a last name that started with A, B, somewhere toward the front of the alphabet,” Lawrence said when referring to the boarding order of the flight, “they’re definitely getting their ticket switched with seniors.”
“We had a freshman quarterback that traveled with us this past season and if he was in a window or an aisle seat and one of us veterans were in the middle?” said Butler quarterback Bret Bushka. “Yeah, we were definitely swapping tickets.”
‘Part of the allure’
In 2011, when his team played in the Division III Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, St. Thomas coach Glenn Caruso read an article that listed the Tommies’ season road travel at 64 miles total. It’s a number he scoffs at now, as that’s just a fraction of what it would take his team to get to its closest PFL opponent.
“To say geographically condensed is probably a severe understatement,” Caruso said of his teams’ former conference. “Fast forward a decade and we’re flying to and New York and . I think it’s the largest spread in terms of conference footprint as anyone could have ever imagined.
“But I also believe that’s part of the allure of why I was attracted to the Pioneer League.”
Caruso and other PFL coaches are quick to reap the benefits of the league’s national span. Trips to USD can include a walk down the San Diego boardwalk. Trips to Stetson can include a drive to the beach.
“Just to have an opportunity to come to is always good for teams to enjoy the warm weather,” said Stetson coach . “I want to say everybody is excited about playing Stetson.”
Other schools are located close to major cities like Minneapolis (St. Thomas), Indianapolis (Butler) and New York (Marist).
“I think sometimes it’s looked at as, especially from the outside looking in, ‘Man, you guys got to travel all over the place. That must be horrible,’” said Presbyterian coach Steve Englehart. “But the spin of it is it’s a really good thing.
“There are a lot of great places in this conference where schools are that you can go and take some time to understand and enjoy and maybe make it a little bit of an educational purpose as well for these kids. I think that’s something that, looking in the future, we’ll try to do to help ease the burden of the long travel.”
Dayton and San Diego each have 12 league titles, though St. Thomas went undefeated in just its second season in the league in 2022 after making the leap from D-III to D-I. Davidson is also on a hot streak after three consecutive FCS playoff appearances. There’s a high level of competition within the PFL, but no school has ever made it further than the second round of the FCS playoffs.
“It’s a very undervalued league,” said former USD coach Dale Lindsey, the winningest coach in USD history. “I think the NCAA, now with an automatic (playoff) bid for the conference winner, has helped our footing with the non-scholarship players.”
The PFL operates in a financial model different from others in Division I athletics, but its coast-to-coast stretch soon won’t be uniquely its own. As conferences at all levels — including the Big Ten — expand their footprints nationwide, Davidson coach Scott Abell said to embrace the opportunities that come with travel. A national recruiting footprint and a schedule that introduces different styles of play are just some of the ways his program found success in one of college football’s most unconventional leagues.
“It’s hard to fight change, and it’s hard to fight when your sport evolves as ours is right now and it’s not done. It’s a long way from being done,” Abell said. “I think we’re about the most unique Division I league in the country right now.
“We’re non-scholarship, we’re committed to making this national league work. We’re committed to playing high-caliber football, and I think it shows.”
