BLOG 2: BULLDOGS ALREADY HAVE SOMETHING TO SMILE ABOUT

By Sandy Gholston

Big Rapids - - Ferris State University recently announced its 2008 fall football schedule and head coach Jeff Pierce found he already had something to smile about his spring.

Considering each weekend of football in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference is a grueling test of wills – Pierce wanted to make sure his Bulldogs had every possible edge in the race for the title. At the start of April, as Ferris begins spring football drills, the program announced good news as it managed to fill its opening week slot with a non-conference game against new GLIAC member institution Tiffin (Ohio). The game is scheduled for Aug. 30 and will be played on the Dragons’ home turf in Ohio.

Although it’s hardly ideal to begin the schedule with consecutive road games, the Bulldogs felt it was necessary to schedule a non-conference opponent before venturing back to Ohio one week later. On Sept. 6, Ferris returns to Ohio to take on a tough Ashland team that ended the 2007 campaign ranked 22nd in the nation and earned a trip to the NCAA Division II playoffs.

“We knew for that first week we wanted to pick up a game and we wanted to find a good opponent and we feel like we were able to get that with Tiffin … a team that’s going to be coming into our league, but a team that was not going to be on our schedule so it actually worked out great for us,” said Pierce, who is happy his Bulldogs will have an opportunity for a non-conference game to work through the usual week-one bugs to get ready for the first conference test of the season against the Eagles, who finished 8-2 last season and earned their first trip to the national playoffs since 1997.

You can bet neither Pierce no Ashland coach Lee Owens wanted to have their team at any kind of a disadvantage going into that league opener against an opponent with already one game to its credit. The Ferris-Tiffin contest is especially important considering the GLIAC announced that Ashland has secured a week one, out-of-conference home game against Bloomsburg (Pa.) on Aug. 30 at 1 p.m. That should level the playing field and allow both teams to get in that first game prior to the start of GLIAC action.

If you have any questions, ideas or comments feel free to contact Sandy Gholston at sgholston2@netzero.com