By Jordan Long
The Colorado Mesa University Mavericks football team ended last season at 9-2 overall and 8-1 in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference play (RMAC). Their only loss in the RMAC was when CSU Pueblo beat them 51-20 on November 7th, giving CSU-Pueblo the RMAC conference title. CSU-Pueblo went to the playoffs, winning their first two games until losing to Grand Valley State University 31-7.
Fast forward to this week. CSU-Pueblo self-reported a NCAA rule violations because two of their starters were ineligible. These athletes had re-taken a class and they received NCAA credit twice. According to The Daily Sentinel, the NCAA allows a class to count only once toward academic progress, so neither player passed the required 24 credit hours per year to be eligible for the 2015 season. The RMAC could have forced CSU-Pueblo to vacate the win-loss total for the season but decided to use the Division II rule to reduce their winning percentage by .023 per contest played. Cmumavericks.com stated that this reduced CSU-Pueblo to finishing second in the RMAC with a winning percentage of .793. This gives the 2015 RMAC football title to Colorado Mesa University Mavericks with a conference winning percentage of .889. However, it will not change the win loss record of the ThunderWolves last season.
It doesn’t make sense. CSU-Pueblo played the whole season with players who shouldn’t have been able to participate. It took them a year later to find this out. This should have occurred before the season even started last year so athletes could decide who won the RMAC on the field.
Sure this gives Colorado Mesa University the RMAC title, but what is the point of saying it now? Mesa didn’t win the RMAC on the field. The Mavs weren’t selected to play in the Division II playoff game or even host one playoff game. This announcement isn’t the way they wanted to win the RMAC. Hopefully, in the future teams will win the conference title by what they do on the field and not by NCAA violations.
How do you feel about the fact that Colorado Mesa University won the RMAC title last year, now?
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