THURSDAY NIGHT'S GAME Grambling State (8-2, 5-0, SWAC) at Texas Southern (4-6, 1-4 SWAC), 8 p.m.

Texas Southern, which was 0-11 last season, could still get to .500 on the season, but to do that, they'll have to go through traditional SWAC power Grambling, a team chasing the SWAC West Division title.

"It is with a heavy heart and careful deliberations that we have come to this extremely difficult decision," said director of athletics Patrick Lyons. "The dissolution of the MAAC Football League after the 2007 season and the lack of equitable opponents in Division I FCS football was the main factor in the decision." Iona was a founding member of the MAAC Football League in 1993 and played in the conference until it was disbanded after the 2007 season.

The Gaels posted a record of 59-94 over the 15 seasons and won the MAAC championship in 1993 and 2007.

That quartet, which joins 12 other players already on the list, will be among the 16 players who will be on the official ballot distributed to voters next week. The three finalists for the Payton Award will be announced on Dec. 1.

The winner of the 22nd Walter Payton Award, symbolic of the top player in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), will be announced at the annual Sports Network Awards banquet on Dec. 18 in Chattanooga, TN at the Marriott Hotel. The Eddie Robinson Award, which goes to the top coach in FCS, and the Buck Buchanan Award, which is given to the top FCS defensive player, will also be awarded the night before the NCAA Division I football

The pair will join 14 other players on the ballot for the 2008 Buchanan Award. Voting for the Buchanan Award will be conducted next week.

The winner of the 14th Buck Buchanan Award, symbolic of the top defensive player in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), will be announced at the annual Sports Network Awards banquet on Dec. 18 in Chattanooga, TN at the Marriott Hotel. The Walter Payton Award, which goes to the top player in FCS, and the Eddie Robinson Award, which is bestowed upon the top coach, will also be awarded on the eve of the NCAA Division I football championship game.

College basketball has its conference tournaments to determine bids and seeding in the NCAA Division I Basketball Tournament. In FCS this season, we have a final weekend that will offer similar suspense.

Instead of March Madness, welcome to the November Nail Biters.

The results made life a lot simpler for the NCAA football committee, packaging a bunch of games into a tidy little bunch of elimination contests in the final weekend of the regular season.

Teams like James Madison, Appalachian State and South Carolina State wrapped up automatic bids to join Weber State in the 16-team field, while Cal Poly, Montana, Northern Iowa, Southern Illinois, Villanova and Wofford moved several steps closer to at-large berths.

OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK Edwin Gowins, Stony Brook, 5-10, 220, Freshman, Running Back, Bellport, N.Y.

Gowins completed his second incredible rushing performance in a row, piling up 250 yards and three touchdowns on 20 carries to lead Stony Brook to a 40-26 Big South Conference victory over VMI. He had 278 yards and three TDs in the previous week's 68-9 victory over Iona, the top rushing game in FCS this season.

The Dukes (9-1) received 106 of 120 first-place votes and 2,986 points of a possible 3,000 following their 48-24 victory at home against then-12th-ranked William & Mary. JMU closes out the regular season this Saturday on the road against Towson.

Along with James Madison, the rest of the top 10 stayed the same this week.

Imagine if this game had determined an automatic bid to the NCAA Division I Football Championships? Riding down on the train from Sports Network headquarters in Hatboro for an hour to historic Franklin Field on a crisp Saturday morning in the fall, there is a certain feeling of anticipation as you engross yourself in the traditions of Ivy League football.

But one tradition that I've never understood, nor care to figure out, is why the Ancient Eight does not allow their teams to play postseason football? "Harvard sponsors 43 sports and the athletes get to play for national championships in 42 of them," said Jay Mills, the former Crimson offensive coordinator and now the head coach at Charleston Souther

The Cedar Falls Police Department and Tri-County Drug Enforcement Task Force served a search warrant at the home of Gray and Williams, both seniors, on Friday morning.

A police spokesman said a quantity of marijuana and items for using and selling marijuana were found during the search.

GAME OF THE WEEK No.12 William & Mary (7-2, 5-1 CAA) at No. 1 James Madison (8-0, 6-0 CAA), 1:30 p.m.

All that stands between James Madison and its first league title since 2006 and first top-four playoff seeding in school history are two wins. The first hurdle to be cleared is perhaps the toughest, as the Dukes will take on playoff hopeful and red-hot William & Mary.

I don't want to hear teams having to strike all mention of certain teams from their public records, or about schools having to remove banners from their gymnasiums. Sports isn't about taking a George Orwell-1984 approach to history.

I watched with my own eyes when Villanova played and lost to UCLA in the 1971 NCAA Division I Basketball Championship. It didn't matter to me, or millions of other fans, than the NCAA subsequently vacated Villanova's participation in the tournament for the alleged use of an ineligible player.

So when you get to November, losing can be a cruel fate.

Just ask Massachusetts, which dropped a 21-20 decision at home to Maine on Saturday afternoon. Only two years removed from a spot in the FCS championship game, it would take a miracle for the Minutemen to advance to the playoffs for a third straight season after they suffered their fourth loss.

OFFENSIVE PLAYERS OF THE WEEK Ryan Berry, South Dakota State, 6-3, 190, Senior, Quarterback, Watertown, S.D.

Berry established Missouri Valley Football Conference and South Dakota State single-game records with seven touchdown passes in a 52-21 victory over Illinois State on Saturday. Berry completed 17-of-29 passes for 237 yards with scoring strikes of 11, 51, 40, eight and 16 yards in the first half. He add TD tosses of four and three yards in the second half.

The first seven spots in the poll remained the same as the previous week.

The Dukes (8-1) had their final off week before preparing for Saturday's game at home with No. 12-ranked William & Mary (7-2) in a Colonial Athletic Association contest that can clinch the automatic bid to the playoffs for the Dukes.

But No. 6 Villanova saw its luck change in a more positive direction Saturday on the way to a 24-13 Colonial Athletic Association victory over No. 8-ranked New Hampshire.

There was a 27-yard touchdown pass from UNH's R.J. Toman to Terrance Fox in the second quarter that was wiped out by an illegal formation penalty. The play would have given New Hampshire a 17-14 lead, but instead UNH failed to score.

Garton scampered six yards for a first-quarter touchdown to cap a 13-play, 84 drive that drained six minutes off the clock and hit Matt Appenfelder with a 10-yard pass on the opening drive of the third period to end a 14-play, 71- yard march that sliced away another eight minutes.

"It's been a great ride," said Garton, a sophomore making his first start because of injuries to Robert Irvin (shoulder) and Kyle Olson (knee). "It was a huge win." The victory improved the Quakers to 5-3 overall and 4-1 in the Ivy League, a half-game back of Brown, which hosts Yale on Saturday afternoon.

Not only was it the historic 100th meeting between Penn and its biggest rival, Princeton, but it was a game being shown nationally on ESPNU and a contest where the Quakers needed a victory to keep their Ivy League title hopes alive.

Pretty heady stuff for a sophomore who had been on the field for 25 plays before Friday night, most of it in last week's 34-27 loss to Brown in a first- place showdown at Penn's Franklin Field.

THURSDAY NIGHT'S GAME Howard (1-7,1-6 MEAC) at No. 19 South Carolina State (7-2, 6-0 MEAC), 7:30 p.m.

South Carolina State continues to march towards a possible MEAC title and will face a Howard team that it has lost to only once (2002) in its last six meetings. The Bulldogs have won five straight and are winners of seven of their last eight.

You have an 11 or 12-game schedule for teams to state their cases before 16 squads move on to the postseason.

When the calendar turns the corner on November, you know you are in the stretch run for the regular season. Teams have just three more weekends to prove they belong.

McBride, who is in the fourth year of his original contract signed in December of 2004, is 23-20 overall at WSU.

That includes a 17-12 record in Big Sky Conference regular season games.

No. 2 Appalachian State bombed No. 3 Wofford 70-24 in a first-place encounter in the Southern Conference, No. 5 Northern Iowa pummeled No. 12 Western Illinois 30-6 in a key Missouri Valley Football Conference game and Montana ripped Northern Arizona 45-10 in a Big Sky contest with huge playoff implications.

About the only competitive games of the showdown variety were Brown's 34-27 win over Penn in a battle for first place in the Ivy League, and Colgate's 21-13 decision against No. 21 Lafayette in what amounted to an elimination game for the Patriot League crown.

JMU (8-1) received 91 of 109 first-place votes and 2,707 points, but Appalachian State gained ground with its 70-24 victory over then-No.

3 Wofford, a first-place Southern Conference showdown that was shown nationally on ESPN2.

OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK Armanti Edwards, Appalachian State, 6-0, 184, Quarterback, Junior, Greenwood, S.C.

Edwards passed for 367 yards and five touchdowns and added 14 carries for 73 yards rushing and another score to lead Appalachian State to a 70-24 crushing of Wofford Friday night at home in a first-place showdown in the Southern Conference.

Considering that the site where Franklin Field sits has hosted Penn football games since 1895, I decided I would take an old-fashioned approach to covering the game.

My journey started at about 9:30 a.m. as I took a short trip from my home to the Hatboro train station for an hour-long ride to the Penn campus.