Inside Hotlanta and the SIAC

By Hal Lamar
Photos by Patsy Collier-Lamar

HBCU Grid Teams Miles, Bowie State Advance to NCAA Playoffs

The Miles College Bears of Fairfield, Alabama on the outskirts of Birmingham will travel to Hickory, North Carolina to face the Lenoir-Rhyne Bears Saturday, November 23rd to commence the first round grid mix in the Division II NCAA football playoffs.

For the Golden Bears, its their second trip to NCAA post-season action. In 2012, they lost round one to West Alabama 41-7.

Lenoir-Rhyne, meanwhile, has fared better in the post season. The Bears even graduated to the Division II championship in 2013, getting a first round bye that year and defeating three opponents before losing to NW Missouri State 43-28.

Should Miles win the contest on the 23rd (and on the road), they will face either Bowie State or Carson-Newman in next week's round two. The CIAA vs. SIAC. Now that's a game worth walking to see!

Bowie State, the 2019 champs of the CIAA, finished the season 11-0. The last five years have been productive ones for the Bulldogs. They have managed to make it to post-season play five times and, counting this year, have won the CIAA championship twice, losing the crown to Winston-Salem State 17-14 in 2015.

The Bulldogs have managed to advance as deep as round two, losing last year 46-16 to Valdosta State, the year the Blazers won the Division II national crown.

For those of you reading this,like this humble but broke scribe, who can't make it to either game, the Lenoir-Rhyne sports web page indicates they will televise it via Stretch Internet (https://portal.stretchinternet.com/lr/ . The Bowie-Carson Newman game will be carried on the CIAA Sports network. Visit https://theciaasn.com/bowie/.
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XTRA POINTS: A scheduled final game between Kentucky State University and Lincoln University of Missouri was cancelled earlier this season. Reason: we're told lack of ticket sales.
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CLASSIC IN THE RAIN: Back on October 26, the forecast for Birmingham Alabama that day was a 70% chance of rain and thunderstorms. That explains why I was a little surprised when I perused the box sxores of both Alabama A&M and Alabama State for attendance figures at the 78th Magic City Classic at historic Legion Field. Depending on which team's box score you read, there were either 37,852 or 53,217 behinds in seats for the event which routinely draws at or close to Legion Field's capacity of 71,594. The attendance totals have fascinated me since I became a fan of the Classic supported by the fact that both A&M and Alabama State were once members of the 107 year old SIAC. Still, Noah's flood wouldnt have kept the hard-core from attending the event which this year went into three overtimes before the Bulldogs bit last 43-41.

I think the orrganizers should write a book telling curious ones, wannabe promoters and maybe the crowd that cancelled the KSU-Lincoln game which was scheduled for this weekend how you attract those behemoth crowds year after year for 78 years . Do you know that the organizers have already started advertising next year's MCC scheduled for October 31 (halloween) 2020 . Check out the web site and you'll find a countdown clock has alrready stared running!!!

PREDCITIONS FOR THE PLAYOFFS
Miles over Lenoir-Rhyne
Bowie State over Carson-Newman

Got an item? Contact Hal -> hallamar at comcast.net