Back In Business

Well, it's mid-August. The fall athletes are back on campus. And it's cloudy and rainy outside. Everything is back to normal in East Texas...

The 2008 Tiger football team has been on campus now for about a week, getting ready for the season opener on Sept. 6 against St. John's. It's an exciting time to be an ETBU football fan. I didn't really say much here on the blog last spring about it, but this is a big game for our program. It's about as big as a season opening, non-conference game can be, I guess.

When you talk about signature programs in college football, you think of a few like Notre Dame, maybe Texas, maybe USC, etc. In Division III, there are a handful of those kinds of teams. St. John's is one of them. Their coach (John Gagliardi) is a legend. He's been at SJU now for over 55 years and is averaging about two losses -- TWO losses -- per season. That's absolutely ridiculous. The Johnnies are national title contenders every season, including this one.

ETBU coach Mark Sartain talked about putting the Tigers on a national stage when he took the job back in December of 2006. There's two ways of doing that -- one, of course, is to make the playoffs, which we've done only once in eight years. The only other way is to schedule top national opponents, such as St. John's. This is the Tigers' opportunity, for one big weekend, to participate in a true national game of the week.

Why is it a national game of the week? You've got the established power taking on a team looking to head in that direction. You've got North vs. South. You've got Minnesota against Texas. Our athletes against their football players. Whatever comparison you want to make, it applies to this game.

The Tigers will get another dose of this in a couple of months when we go out to California to face Azusa Pacific, which is a top-notch nationally-reknowned NAIA program. Texas against California. That one will also carry some juicy storylines in that regard.

I've had the opportunity to go out and watch a couple of practices already, enough to have a first-look opinion. The Tigers are interesting. The coaches welcomed 146 players last Wednesday for fall camp, including about 60 freshmen and a dozen or so transfers. We typically take media guide photos on reporting day, so I had the opportunity to see these guys up close.

Physically -- and again this is my opinion -- this is the most impressive-looking ETBU team we've had in nine years. I'm talking about just pure physical, athletic-looking guys. Fans of the Tigers will be shocked to see this team in uniform compared to some in the past. They look like -- and not meaning to slight anyone who's worn an ETBU uniform in the past, by any means -- but these are just different-looking players.

None of that translates into a single win, touchdown, or even first down, unfortunately. But ETBU should be a much more explosive, exciting team to watch this season -- on both sides of the ball. If the opener were today, there would be 10 players who have started games at ETBU on the field on defense. Offensively, the team speed is three times better than last, with an offensive line that returns five starters. And there's a deep class of talent at quarterback, led by incumbent starter Stephen Oehlschaleger.

We are expecting an exciting year. You have to practice and perform in games, of course, and the Tigers have their work cut out for them with arguably the toughest schedule the program has ever faced. But it will be interesting to see this team unveil itself in less than three weeks up there in Minnesota.