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Athletic Department still searching to fill schedule

SIU football may soon have three non-conference games left to fill

Less than a week after the SIU football team was knocked out of the playoffs, Athletic Director Paul Kowalczyk is scouring the Midwest to fill three holes in the Salukis' 2004 schedule.

Originally, the schedule had Kansas and Tennessee Tech of the Ohio Valley Conference on the non-conference schedule along with the yearly game versus Southeast Missouri State and one Division II school.

"Ideally we'd be done by now, but that obviously is not the case," Kowalczyk said.

The plans went awry in the month of November, when Kansas accepted the invite to play in the Tangerine Bowl and Tennessee Tech requested to be released from their game against Salukis. Though Tennessee Tech signed a contract to play SIU, Kowalczyk said he will honor their plea.

Kansas ended the regular season 6-6, but the Jayhawks used a Division I-AA win against Jacksonville State to count toward their final record, canceling the SIU contest. Teams in I-A are only allowed to use a win against a I-AA team once in a four-year span toward meeting bowl requirements.

The Golden Eagles request stems from Tennessee State, which joined the OVC a few years back under the condition the school could continue playing against past rivals twice a year. For the Golden Eagles, one of Tennessee State's "classic games" overlaps the game they were scheduled to play with each other. Therefore, Tennessee Tech has to count one of their non-conference games as a conference game to replace the TSU contest. The OVC athletic directors decide which school would be counted, and the Golden Eagles didn't want to allow the opportunity for them to pick SIU.

"I have never heard of anything like that," Kowalczyk said after attempting to clearly explain the situation. "I could apply pressure to force them to fulfill our contract. I could pursue it further when it comes closer to determining our schedule."

Kowalczyk declined to say what schools he is looking at now but did say nothing is too promising at the present time. He tried, though to no avail, to schedule games against schools such as Vanderbilt, Louisiana Tech and Northern Illinois, but all had their schedules finalized. He said he prefers to have the Salukis play one Division I-A game.

"We are trying to stay as close to Midwest as we can," Kowalczyk said. "But the circumference of the circle is expanding."

The worse-case scenario would be very similar to the 2003 schedule, which was watered down by two Division II schools and two from I-AA just to fill out an 11-game schedule.

Games against Division II schools could hurt the Salukis at the end of next season if they are on the bubble for making the I-AA playoffs.