The Championship Subdivision News Log

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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Illinois State quarterback Drew Kiel was nearly perfect, completing 20-of-22 passes, but the effort wasn’t enough to keep pace with Eastern Illinois in a 31-6 season-opening loss at O’Brien Field Thursday night.

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NORMAL - Illinois State football coach Brock Spack first called it “ribbing” then offered the more modern term of “trash talking.”

However Spack said it, senior tailback Geno Blow was listening.

“I was a little worried about his stamina as a tailback in the spring,” Spack said. “I told him ‘I don’t know if we can hand you the ball 20, 25, 30 times a game. I don’t know if you can handle that.’”

“I took it kind of personally,” said Blow.

At Spack’s urging, Blow embraced a conditioning and nutrition program that has his weight up to 205.

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NORMAL –The Illinois State football team’s Passages scrimmage has come to represent the end of the physical portion of preseason practice and the beginning of preparation for the season opener.

First-year Redbird coach Brock Spack took one look at the calendar after the Aug. 15 event and another at his team and decided otherwise.

Spack put his team through another week of full pad workouts that culminated with a closed-to-the-public scrimmage Saturday at Hancock Stadium.

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NORMAL, IL - Illinois State football coach Brock Spack is hardly obsessed with size when it comes to his linebackers.

“I started a freshman there (in the middle) last year at 210,” said Spack, the former linebackers coach and defensive coordinator at Purdue. “I want athletes.”

Which athlete will play middle linebacker for the Redbirds in the Sept. 3 season opener at Eastern Illinois has yet to be determined.

“He’s got to be a big playmaker,” Spack said. “The mike linebacker should be the leading tackler on the team. He should be making plays all over the field. He’s go to be a great tackler and be able to run.”

The top contenders at the position are juniors Paul Wright and Tony Trujillo. Junior Tommie Westbrook and redshirt freshman Jayme Comer also are part of the competition.

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NORMAL - As the Illinois State offensive line works to replace 600 pounds worth of graduated three-year starters in Joe Niklasch and Jonathan St-Pierre, tackle Dane Zumbahlen isn’t worried if the Redbirds surrender a bit of bulk in the process.

“Joe and John really helped us being all compact and running the ball a lot,” Zumbahlen said. “We’re more of a spread offense now. We’re not as big of an offensive line, but I think we’re a lot more athletic. I think it will play to our strengths. I’m pretty excited.”

Zumbahlen and Chris Riley return at the tackle positions. Also part of the first team early in fall camp are guards Nick Bledsoe and Charles Dennis and center Cal McCarthy.

“Our first group is pretty athletic. They seem like they have a good cohesion,” said Coach Brock Spack. “Our second group is getting better. We’ll try to develop some young players as we go through training camp.”

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In the eyes of a few on the Illinois State football team, practice has officially begun after the team’s first Bird Drill and the first practice in full pads on Saturday. All can agree that camp took a more physical turn as the Bird Drill debuted mid-way through the team’s fifth session at Hancock Stadium on a surprisingly hot and humid afternoon.

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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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ST. LOUIS - After a posting a 3-8 overall record in 2009 and finishing eighth in the Missouri Valley Football Conference standings, the Illinois State football team was projected to finish eighth in the league’s preseason poll conducted by member head coaches, media and sports information directors. However, senior wide receiver Eyad Salem, senior running back Geno Blow and junior defensive back Kelvyn Hemphill were honored as members of the conference’s preseason first team at the league’s annual Media Day held in St. Louis on Monday.

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NORMAL, Ill. - The oldest football rivalry in the state of Illinois and the 12th-longest in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) will continue through 2013, thanks to a recently signed contract between Illinois State and Eastern Illinois. In addition, a three-year contract was signed with FCS opponent South Dakota of the Great West Conference beginning in 2011.

The new contract with Eastern Illinois adds a year to the current deal, which includes the 100th meeting between the two schools in 2011. To date, ISU and Eastern Illinois have met 97 times, with the first game taking place in 1901. The Redbirds lead the series, 50-38-9, and have won six out of the last seven meetings.

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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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SAN ANTONIO — UTSA head football coach Larry Coker announced Wednesday that Mike Menefee, Eric Roark and David Ross have been hired as assistant coaches and all three will begin their appointments immediately.

“I’m very excited about completing phase one of assembling our coaching staff,” said Coker, who was introduced as head coach on March 6. “All three of these coaches bring an enormous amount of experience to UTSA. More importantly, they are high-character people who carry that hard-hat, lunch-pail mentality to work with them every day and that is important as we begin our recruiting processes.”

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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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Former Illinois State quarterback Kevin Glenn was released by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League (CFL) Monday following a winter of trade talks and contract renegotiation attempts between Glenn and the Blue Bombers.

Glenn played for Winnipeg from 2004-08. He began his career in the CFL in 2001 with Saskatchewan and quarterbacked the Roughriders through the 2003 season.

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Dan Shula – the grandson of NFL coaching legend Don Shula – has been named an offensive assistant for the Illinois State football team, head coach Brock Spack announced Monday. Shula comes to Illinois State following a two-year graduate assistantship (2007-08) at Miami (Fla.), where he worked primarily with the Hurricanes’ offensive line.

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Illinois State head football coach Brock Spack announced Wednesday that Jim Williams, who had been serving as the Redbird football team’s director of football operations and recruiting coordinator, will also coach ISU’s special teams, tight ends and H-backs during the 2009 season. Williams will also continue to serve as the Redbird football team’s recruiting coordinator and director of football operations.

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Former Illinois State linebacker Kye Stewart has signed a professional contract to play for the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League (CFL). Stewart is the 16th Illinois State player in program history to play in the CFL.

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NORMAL, Ill. – Former Illinois State offensive lineman Joe Niklasch (Hartland, Wis./Arrowhead HS) has signed a professional contract to play with the Bloomington Extreme of the Indoor Football League. Niklasch joins teammate Jonathan St-Pierre as Illinois State football players from the 2008 team that have been selected to play in the professional ranks. St-Pierre was drafted by the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League (CFL) with the 10th pick overall of the 2008 CFL Draft.

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Redbird head football coach Brock Spack announced Tuesday that former Washington graduate assistant coach Luke Huard has been named the quarterbacks coach and Spence Nowinski as the defensive line coach.

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