Historic changes are coming for the NCAC in the 2024 football season. At the conclusion of the regular season four teams from the Great Lakes region will be invited to participate in the first inaugural Opendorse Bowl Series. However, there is some uncertainty as to how this event would mix with a Wabash schedule that is steeped in tradition.
On January 9, the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) announced through their website that the conference, along with the Heartland Athletic Collegiate Conference, the Ohio Athletic Conference and the Presidents’ Athletic Conference had partnered with Opendorse to participate in a new bowl series beginning in 2024.
Opendorse is a company that specializes in name, image and likeness (NIL) support, helping athletes to monetize their athletic image. The company will be the main sponsor of the bowl series.
The first announced Opendorse Bowl Series will be held on November 23, 2024. The bowl will be a one-day, two-game event held at the Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton, Ohio. The games will be held between the best team from each of the four conferences to not receive a bid to the NCAA DIII Football tournament.
“This bowl game setup is something that’s become more popular at the Division Three level or other conferences have done it,” said Director of Athletics and Campus Wellness Matt Tanney ’05. “The NCAC has considered it before, several years ago, but at that time the idea wasn’t developed enough yet.”
The intriguing possibility that Wabash will appear in the Bowl Series, raises a few questions about how the event might fit into Wabash’s football schedule which traditionally culminates with the Monon Bell Game.
“Wabash is really unique, because we already have a bowl game,” said Tanney. “We play a bowl game every year. It’s called the Monon Bell Game. We’re in the very small percentage of division three programs that have that opportunity. I could see this being a really big deal on some other campuses. We’ll see what happens here. If we find ourselves in a spot where we would play that game, but if we’ve already played the Bell Game and we haven’t qualified for the NCAA playoffs, I just don’t know what that would mean for Wabash. We’ll just have to see if and when that situation presents itself.”
The contest will be voluntary for teams that qualify for the Bowl Series, so Wabash will not be forced to participate if the players and staff do not want to travel to Ohio for a game the week before Thanksgiving. As of now, the plan is that the annual games will be held in Canton every year, meaning that it is unlikely for the game to ever be held in front of a home crowd at Wabash.
Head Football Coach Don Morel expressed concerns about how much the bowl series would mean to the team after they had already played the Bell Game.
“We have won some Bell Games here and have been less excited for the first round of playoffs,” Morel said. “The Bell Game is so much bigger than anything else. That will always be the emphasis in the program.”
It is more than plausible that, with the most important game of the season behind them, the team would not see the bowl game as enough of an accolade to pursue, especially in a sport with a high rate of injury.
On the other hand, it is not difficult to imagine that a class of seniors, facing the end of their careers in a sport they have played for most of their lives, may find the possibility of playing one more game worth the trip to Ohio.
“It sounds a little bit like a participation trophy to me,” said Morel. “It really would depend specifically on where our team is. If we’re coming off a Bell game win, and we end up second in the league and the kids wanted to play another game, I’d be all for it. I would also completely understand if the kids said ‘Hey, I’m good. I don’t need to play another game.’”
“There are very few marquee Division III rivalry games like the one that we have,” said Tanney. “I think it makes sense for the vast majority of schools to entertain these ideas. It’s still a bit of a question mark for us.”