Nader, err, Stig for Coach of the Year

The Division I-AA awards ballot arrived this week. The ballots come with a watch list. The only Great West representative on the watch list for The Eddie Robinson Award, named for the legendary Grambling coach, is North Dakota State coach Craig Bohl. And you can make a pretty convincing argument for him. His transitional team went 10-1 and might have been the best in I-AA. But I’m tempted to place my vote a little bit further south in the Upper Midwest. I’m talking about South Dakota State coach John Stigelmeier. I’m worried that I’d be throwing away my vote. What I’m wrestling with is whether principle matters more.

Here’s my case for Stigelmeier:

He rallied his team from the depths of despair and had it playing for the conference title in the toughest I-AA conference in the country. The Rabbits opened the season with a home loss to a D-III team, a rout at Montana and a collapse at Northern Iowa. And then SDSU rallied to win seven straight. And these weren’t seven easy routs (there was just one, William Penn). The Rabbits staged dramatic comebacks at Cal Poly and at home against UC Davis, and they were within a possession fairly late against a North Dakota State team that was drastically more talented.

Stig got the most out of his team, which was not necessarily physically gifted, but that had great belief that it was never out of a game. Stig said all year that it was in the players, but some of that has to go down to coaching. But he’s not on the watch list, so he’s not going to win. The ballot is due Wednesday, which should give me a little time to think.

Here’s how I voted in my final regular season ballot in the Sports Network’s Top 25: 1. Appalachian St.; 2. NDSU; 3. Montana 4. Youngstown; 5. Umass; 6. James Madison; 7. Furman; 8. Southern Ill.; 9. Tenn-Martin; 10. Eastern Ill.; 11. Illinois St; 12. Hampton; 13. New Hampshire; 14. Portland St.; 15. Northern Iowa; 16. South Dakota St.; 17. Cal Poly; 18. Coastal Carolina; 19. Wofford; 20 Central Ark.; 21 McNeese; 22 Montana St.; 23 San Diego; 24 Towson; 25 Princeton