The Championship Subdivision News Log

With one game remaining in his conference career, Southern Illinois University tailback Deji Karim has positioned himself for one of the Missouri Valley Football Conference’s biggest honors.

Karim, the nation’s second-leading rusher behind North Dakota State’s Pat Paschall, stands a good chance to become only the second Saluki tailback to win the league’s offensive player of the year. Karim, a fifth-year senior who only became a full-time starter this season, is second in the country in rushing (137.8 yards per game) and all-purpose yards (187.7 yards per game).

In nine games, he has hit the 100-yard mark six times. Against Illinois State and Division II Southwest Baptist, he had more than 200 yards rushing.

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Give this Southern Illinois University football team credit; they know how to throw a party.

For a year, Nov. 14 has been a red-letter date on the Saluki calendar. It is the last regular season game scheduled at McAndrew Stadium. Beginning next year, the Salukis will play several hundred yards to the south at a new, but as of yet, unnamed stadium.

Even if the Salukis were mediocre, or even bad, Nov. 14 would have been a joyous occasion. Although it holds a lot of history, the outmoded McAndrew Stadium needs to be replaced.

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BROOKINGS, S.D. - Southern Illinois University’s defense took the drama out of Saturday’s Missouri Valley Football Conference de facto championship game.

Going up against the top scoring defense in the country, the No. 3 Salukis flirted with their second straight shutout on the way to a 34-15 victory over No. 9 South Dakota State. With its fourth league road victory in four tries, SIU earned its seventh straight trip to the postseason and at least a tie for the MVFC title.

A win against Missouri State next weekend - in McAndrew Stadiums’ final regular-season game - will give the Salukis (8-1, 7-0 MVFC) the first-ever 8-0 league mark and an outright championship.

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CARBONDALE - Deji Karim had to stop himself momentarily after he was asked if Southern Illinois University’s football team is treating Saturday’s game with co-conference leader South Dakota State as a playoff game.

“Oh yeah,” he said, before pausing. “We’re treating it as another conference game, but you know what I’m saying? Every game for us has been a playoff game, basically a playoff atmosphere, because we don’t want to lose and not have a chance to be conference champions. This has been what it comes down to all the way from the start of the season in conference play, so we’ve got to finish it.”

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Founded in 1985 as the Gateway Football Conference, the Missouri Valley Football Conference is celebrating its 25th season of FCS (Football Championship Subdivision) football during the 2009 season. As part of a season-long celebration, the conference is paying tribute to its all-time greats by selecting a Silver Anniversary Team. Also selected was an NFL Greats and Institutional Greats team.

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To say it was an upset is putting it mildly.

For the first time since 1983, the SIU football team won a game in Cedar Falls, Iowa against its rivals from the far north. The win allowed the Salukis to jump to No. 3 in the Football Championship Subdivision.

So who else gets the feeling this win will resonate just a little more than nearby Carterville’s latest game?

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CEDAR FALLS, Iowa - “Go Southern Go” never sounded so good, and Southern Illinois University’s football team earned every word Saturday.

Moments after the fifth-ranked Salukis fought off second-ranked Northern Iowa, 27-20, they joined a pack of fans nestled in the southwest corner of the UNI-Dome to sing the school fight song. SIU became the first team since 2006 to win a conference game in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and broke a 12-game spell that saw the home team win every game in the series.

The victory also moved SIU (5-1, 4-0 Missouri Valley Football Conference) into a tie with No. 14 South Dakota State (5-1, 4-0) atop the conference standings with four games remaining.

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CARBONDALE - The burst, and the shimmy, were officially back for Deji Karim on Thursday night at McAndrew Stadium.

One came before the other in the final scrimmage of the preseason for Southern Illinois University. Karim, a 5-foot-11, 200-pound fifth-year senior, lost two defenders with a spin move to his left on one carry, then bolted through a hole on the left side for a 26-yard gain. It was the longest play from scrimmage in SIU’s 69-play exhibition in front of nearly 1,000 fans.

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CARBONDALE - For the first time since 1989, Southern Illinois University’s football team will open the season at a Football Bowl Subdivision school, but the Salukis may be as well prepared as ever to do so.

SIU, 9-3 last season, comes off its sixth straight Football Championship Subdivision playoff berth. The Salukis tied Northern Iowa for the Missouri Valley Football Conference regular season title and got the league’s automatic playoff berth with a 27-24 win last year at McAndrew Stadium. UNI made the playoffs as an at-large, and lost at home in the semifinals to eventual champion Richmond in the final minute.

SIU returns 19 starters overall from coach Dale Lennon’s first squad and with another year in the system, could have a big season. The Salukis kick off that season Sept. 5 in Huntington, W.Va., against Marshall.

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CARBONDALE - Robert Spann likes to take things into his own hands, so it was only natural for Southern Illinois University to give him more room to roam this fall.

The transfer from Northeast Oklahoma A&M finished fifth in the country in tackles as an inside linebacker last season. This year, he’s moved over to the outside position, where the 6-foot-2, 245-pound junior will have more of a chance to chase down tackles as part of the Salukis’ 3-4 defense.

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CARBONDALE - The names from the 2004 Southern Illinois University football team jump out at you.

Joel Sambursky. Craig Turner. Arkee Whitlock. Craig Coffin. And a 6-foot-4, 260-pound tailback named Brandon Jacobs.

“That team was so good, and they were beating teams so handily,” SIU Sports Information Director Tom Weber said. “There was one game, against Northern Iowa, that Sept. 25, 2004 game, where we had just been pounding everybody. We beat SEMO by 39, we beat William Penn by 50, then we played Northern Iowa, which was tough. I believe we won 40-36, and I want to say we had an interception late in the game. We stopped them on our 2-yard line.

“That was as close as any team came to beating us in 2004, other than the game against Northern Illinois.”

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He’s not the 305-pound All-American offensive lineman he was in 1990. But a fit-and-trim, 230-pound Scott Fuchs is ecstatic to be back at North Dakota State.

“From the day I left NDSU and from the start of my first job at Valley City State, it was pretty much the goal to get back to NDSU,” Fuchs said.

Fuchs was a member of the last Bison football team to win a national championship – the 1990 NCAA Division II title in Florence, Ala.

“That was a long time ago,” Fuchs said.

After coaching stints at Valley City State, Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Minnesota-Crookston, Nebraska-Omaha, Grand Valley State and Southern Illinois, Fuchs was named NDSU’s offensive line coach last January – replacing Pat Perles, now an NFL assistant with the Kansas City Chiefs.

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Philadelphia, PA (Sports Network) - There was little doubt that the addition of North Dakota State and South Dakota State would make a brutal Missouri Valley Fall Conference race even more competitive.

But when the dust had settled last season, it was traditional powerhouses Northern Iowa and Southern Illinois sitting on top of the league. Things will likely be just as competitive in 2009, but UNI and SIU are again the teams that should set the pace.

Northern Iowa is looking for a share of its third consecutive MVFC title and has developed into one of the more consistent programs in FCS under coach Mark Farley, going from a top-10 team to a squad capable of winning a national title in almost any given year.

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ST. LOUIS – Founded in 1985 as the Gateway Football Conference, the Missouri Valley Football Conference will celebrate its 25th season of FCS (Football Championship Subdivision) football during the 2009 season. To kick off the league’s 25th Year Celebration, the Missouri Valley Football Conference is paying tribute to its all-time greats - those who have had stellar careers or played with distinction in the National Football League.

 Included in the list are former NFL Most Valuable Players, Pro-Bowl selections and Super Bowl participants. In all, former conference players have combined to play in 15 Pro Bowls and earned four MVP honors, while 12 players have combined for 23 Super Bowl appearances. Notably, 16 former league players on the list are currently active in the NFL.

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Central Arkansas defensive end Larry Hart, one of just two underclassmen among the 2008 finalists for the Buck Buchanan Award, presented to the top defensive player in FCS, heads up a group of four players added to the 2009 Buchanan watch list.

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Thirteen student-athletes highlight nearly 400 who earned selection to the 2008 Missouri Valley Football Conference Honor Roll, as announced by the league office.

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CARBONDALE - Southern Illinois University unveiled a special logo and special plans to celebrate the 73rd and final season of football at McAndrew Stadium Tuesday.

The school plans to celebrate “The Mac” with special collector’s edition schedule cards and posters, a celebration with all former coaches and players and an online contest to pick the stadium’s top-five moments.

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CARBONDALE - Dale Lennon hopes to see a see-saw spring game at 1 p.m. today at McAndrew Stadium, as the Southern Illinois University football team officially closes spring practice.

The Salukis could return eight starters on offense and 10 on defense, but key position battles continue on the offensive line, wide receiver and running back.

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CARBONDALE - Phil Meyer is back in Illinois, just in a different shade of red.

Meyer, Southern Illinois University’s new offensive line coach, played three years of college ball at Illinois State, and coached the Redbirds’ offense in 1994. A year before that, he was the assistant head coach in Carbondale under Bob Smith.

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CARBONDALE - In 2006, Southern Illinois University’s football team became the first squad from the Missouri Valley Football Conference to ever beat a Big Ten team. In 2012, the Salukis hope to become the first to beat Missouri, as SIU announced a Sept. 8 game that year in Columbia, Mo., Wednesday.

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