With only a few games remaining for the Colonels football team, the chance to repeat as conference champions will be decided in the next three weeks of play. With Texas St., Stephen F. Austin and McNeese left on the schedule, Nicholls will have to win all three games and have a number of scenarios happen in order to win the conference title and make the playoffs.
After defeating Southeastern University in its first conference game of the year, Nicholls has not been able to gain an advantage early in the conference schedule with losses against Northwestern St. and Sam Houston St., but with four conference wins and key losses from the top teams in the conference, another playoff berth could be in the cards for the Colonels.
At the sixth position in the conference with a 1-2 record, it would seem as if the team was far from the top spot, but only one game separates Nicholls from NSU, Texas St., SHSU, SFA and McNeese.
The last time a two-loss team won a conference title was in 1991 when SHSU shared the title with McNeese and earned an at-large bid into the playoffs.
McNeese, a team that lost its head coach before the start of conference, is in the early lead in the conference race with wins over SFA and SHSU, which are the two other teams who share the conference lead with McNeese. The Cowboys will face Southeastern University and NSU before its showdown against Nicholls in the last game of the season.
SFA is tied with McNeese and SHSU for the conference lead and is coming off a 31-10 win against Southeastern. The Lumberjacks will host SHSU this week, then will travel to Thibodaux to face the Colonels and will host NSU in its last game of the season.
SHSU is coming off a loss to McNeese but has wins over Nicholls and NSU to stay in contention for the conference title with SFA, Southeastern and Texas St. left on the schedule.
Texas St. and NSU are in a tie for second at 2-2, with Texas St. beating McNeese and Southeastern but losing to SFA and NSU. Texas St. will host Nicholls Thursday on Fox Sports Southwest and has one more conference game against SHSU.
NSU has wins over Nicholls and most recently Texas St., with close losses against SHSU and Southeastern. The Demons will travel to take on Ole Miss before returning to conference to face McNeese at home and then SFA on the road.
Southeastern’s only win came against NSU in overtime but they have lost to Nicholls, Texas St. and SFA in its first four games. Southeastern will travel to McNeese and host SHSU in its last two games of the season.
If Nicholls does win out, the team’s record will be 6-5, which may not earn an at-large bid into the playoffs. Earning the outright title would guarantee the team a playoff berth.
Beating SFA and McNeese, the current top two teams in the conference, would give the team a head-to-head advantage, which means if Nicholls were tied with SFA and McNeese at the end of the season, Nicholls would earn the automatic playoff bid.
SHSU and NSU have the head-to-head advantage over Nicholls. This means both teams would have to have at least three losses by season’s end. If either team still has two losses by the end of the season along with the Colonels, the title would be shared, but the playoff berth would go to the other team.
Head Coach Jay Thomas said his team is treating every week as a playoff because Nicholls plans to repeat as champions.
“Our destiny is based off what we do, and every game in conference is a playoff scenario,” Thomas said. “You have to play out the season and see what happens, and it all starts this week with Texas St.”
Thomas said in the past few years, determining the conference champion has come down to either the last game or couple of games, and in the beginning of the season, coaches in the conference believed that a team could have more than one loss and still recover to win the title.
“I think all the coaches knew there was a lot of youth in the league, and it would come down to which team got hot towards the end of the season,” he said.
With the parity in the league this year, Thomas believes these last remaining weeks will test the character of each team, and the champion will have earned the conference crown.
“It’s a dog fight right now, and every team has a shot,” Thomas said. “I know our team has what it takes to compete, but we have to take it one game at time and one week at a time.
