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SoCon's powers still high

By: John Frierson
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Mike Ayers

GREENVILLE, S.C. — Seated at a table in the back right corner of the Pinehurst room — all the conference rooms at the Embassy Suites are named after elite golf courses — Rodney Allison looked around and saw a lot that has changed and a lot that has remained the same.

“The thing that sticks out more than anything is that the major powers are still (at the top of the conference),” the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga coach said Wednesday during the Southern Conference Football Rouser.

“Appy’s still here, Wofford’s still here, Furman’s still here. There have been a few changes at Georgia Southern, but for the most part your power teams are still here and constant.”

The elite programs are constants in part because of their stability at the top, Allison said. Mike Ayers has been the head coach at Wofford since 1988, Jerry Moore arrived at Appalachian State a year later,and Bobby Lamb was an assistant at Furman from 1986 to 2001 before taking over the program in 2002.

“I’m not saying it’s always the case, but there is something to coaches being there for an extended period of time and year in and year out doing the same thing and building the program,” Allison said. “That’s gone on at Appy for sure and Wofford for sure and I think Furman for sure. Meanwhile, Georgia Southern went through a couple of coaching changes and dropped off a little bit.”

Since taking over at UTC in 2003, Allison has a record of 16-40 and the Mocs haven’t won more than three SoCon games during any of his five seasons. UTC finishing in the bottom half of the conference standings is one of the things that has been relatively consistent for most of the past two decades.

The last time the Mocs finished among the top four in the standings was in 1998, when they went 4-4 in SoCon play for the second year in a row. The last time UTC had a winning league record was 1991.

The 2003 season also was Elon’s first in the SoCon. The Phoenix, a Division II program 10 years ago, hardly tasted a drop of success in their first four seasons, winning a combined five SoCon games. But last season, their second under coach Pete Lembo and first with quarterback Scott Riddle, the Phoenix rose from the cellar of the SoCon.

One good season doesn’t mean that Elon has arrived, but after it went 7-4 in 2007, 4-3 in the SoCon, the perception among the conference’s coaches and the media is that the Phoenix are for real. Three-time defending national champion Appalachian State was picked to win the SoCon and Elon was picked to finish second, ahead of Wofford and Georgia Southern.

“I’m not saying it was a fluke or anything like that, but I want to see how they do this year,” Allison said of the Phoenix. “Hopefully we can get in a position where we can see if we’re for real up there (in the top half of the standings).

“I just think there are still some questions there, and I’m anxious to see how Elon does this year. If they are (for real), that just adds another cog to the power base in this conference.”

The SoCon already is as deep as it has been during his two decades at Wofford, Ayers said.

“It’s a league where, quite frankly, there’s no gimmes,” he said. “It’s a battle and it’s as competitive in recruiting as it is on Saturdays. ... There’s no ‘easy’ in this league.”

There were two new coaches at the rouser: Pat Sullivan of Samford, which is the SoCon’s newest member, and Western Carolina’s Dennis Wagner, who replaced the fired Kent Briggs.

UTC was picked by the coaches and the media to finish seventh, followed by WCU, and Samford is expected to bring up the rear in its debut season.

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