Commentary:

Making a tough road

easier to navigate
By Steve Behr, sports editor
sports@wataugademocrat.com

Sometimes, I’ve been accused of being old-school. Other times, I’ve just been accused of being old.

I can’t help it. I prefer reading an actually newspaper to reading them online, dining in to drive throughs and though I prefer writing on a computer with spell check and a word processor, I like hearing the clickity-clack of a typewriter every now and then, just for old-times sake.

(For our younger readers, people used to write on things called typewriters. Ask your grandparents about them.)

I also like my college football on Saturdays, day or night, and prep football on Friday night.

Yet, I’m giving my endorsement to Appalachian State playing Friday against Wofford.

Watauga’s agreement to move its home game against rival Freedom to Thursday makes this endorsement much easier to make. Now the High Country has two good rivalry games on back-to-back nights.

The best part about this arraignment, at least for me, is the cooperation of the two football programs. Neither team is blind to each other’s situation.

Watauga knows that being on national television is a golden opportunity that is too good for Appalachian State to pass up.

Appalachian State respects Friday night as the night for prep football. They show that respect by allowing prep football coaches to watch practices and have allowed Watauga’s other programs, most notably girls’ soccer and baseball, to use their facilities.

And when Appalachian State needed a softball field, Watauga came to the rescue by allowing the Mountaineers to use the Carroll Complex.

The relationship between town and gown is good in athletics. That’s why this situation will work.
This is a move that Appalachian State has to make. I remember when ESPN decided to make any night Saturday night when it came to college football. It’s kind of like the NFL making Monday, and then Thursday night, Sunday afternoon. It’s amazing, when given the proper television technology, how leagues and networks can change the calendar.

Yet, it’s hard for me to blame a league, such as Conference USA, the Mountain West Conference, the Western Athletic Conference and the Mid-American Conference, to play on a cold Tuesday night instead of a crisp Saturday afternoon.

Being on television means exposure to the nation that e-mailings, snail-mailings and media guides can’t deliver.

Hey, it beats watching strongman competitions and poker.

If the teams playing midweek football didn’t play during those nights, their chances of wrestling television time from the SEC, ACC, Big East or Big 10 would be next to nothing, unless they played one of the teams from a power conference. They smaller conferences need the exposure that money can’t buy.

Those are just the second-tier conferences that have 85 scholarships. Getting an FCS team on prime time ESPN usually doesn’t happen until the playoffs.

It’s too good of an offer for Appalachian State to pass up. As crazy as things were following the Mountaineers’ 34-32 win over Michigan, just think how things would have been if it had been on national television.

That’s not to say that things will be wild should the Mountaineers beat Wofford, or vise-versa for that matter.

But, by being on television, there might be a game-breaking player catching the rerun (logic says that any potential recruit would be playing Friday night), and he might consider ASU or Wofford, instead of a middle-tier FBS conference school.

Charlie Adams, the director of the North Carolina High School Athletics Association, is correct when he says that Friday night’s for football. He’s not crazy about the Mountaineers hosting Wofford on a Friday, but he’s appreciative of Appalachian State giving Watauga and the NCHSAA plenty of notice about its plans.

In principle, I share his misgivings. Some people will stay home and watch a college game instead of bundle up and head to a local high school. Not only is it lost revenue that is always needed on the high school level, but it takes away from the atmosphere at high school games.

In reality, this is a move that can work for both ASU and Watauga. There’s plenty of passion to go around for the two Watauga County teams.

Hopefully, those who plan on going to a high school game that Friday night still go, even if it means taping the ASU-Wofford showdown. Even more, I hope that those in the High Country will visit Jack Groce Stadium that Thursday for what should be a terrific game between two rivals, and then head to Kidd Brewer Stadium for more of the same against the two defending SoCon champions.