MEAC Commissioner Dennis Thomas’ plan to split the conference into two divisions, create a league championship football game and bring back the Heritage Bowl if the conference adds a 10th football-playing school has drawn mixed reaction from league coaches. Nine of the 11 MEAC schools currently field a football team, but the league may add two teams in the next two years. Winston-Salem State University and Savannah State University have already applied for membership to the MEAC, while North Carolina Central University is expected to apply in the near future.In the event that the league expands, Thomas said the MEAC and Southwestern Athletic Conference are discussing a revival of the Heritage Bowl to include the conference champions to decide the black college national title. The MEAC champ would forego the Division I-AA playoffs to play in the game.
The leagues met eight times in the Heritage Bowl during the 1990s, but the MEAC champ skipped the game five times to go to the Division I-AA playoffs
Several MEAC football coaches said that Thomas's ideas for adding money to the conference coffers though football should be explored.
Joe Taylor, Hampton: "Championship games and revenue-generating bowls are the direction college football is heading. We would just be following the trend."
Al Lavan, Delaware State: "Revenue has to be a significant consideration. Because of the competitiveness of the two conferences, you can't turn a blind eye to the revenue possibilities."
Morgan State's Donald Hill-Eley and Lee Fobbs of North Carolina A&T do not share that vision, at least if it means the conference champion will be locked out of the I-AA playoffs. "Ultimately, it's a goal of ours to win the I-AA national championship," said Fobbs.
"(Black colleges) fought so hard to be included, and recognized nationally, that you don't want to turn back 40 years of progress," said Hill-Eley.
Thomas and others are banking on the notion that black folks and more importantly, corporations, are willing to invest in a black college national championship game and surrounding events, parties, step shows, fashion shows, and general camaraderie.
They also are banking on the idea that some unspecified amount of money offsets the chance to play for a national championship.
Opting out of the NCAA football playoff process isn't unprecedented. The Ivy League does not participate, supposedly for reasons of academics and missed class time (though those concerns somehow disappear during the NCAA basketball tournament).
The SWAC often is not represented in the I-AA playoffs, either, because league members Grambling and Southern play the annual "Bayou Classic" on Thanksgiving weekend, which coincides with the first round of the playoffs.
What Thomas envisions with the long-range plan he recently floated is a 12- or 14-team MEAC within the next several years split into two divisions.