College football begins again today, with Tarleton State hosting McNeese State in what’s effectively Week Zero for the FCS Spring Season (play begins in earnest next weekend, when the MVFC kicks off).
Tarleton State’s a curiosity. Any school climbing the ranks from D-II to D-I is a curiosity, but the Tarleton State Texans have especially piqued interest. They hired Billy Gillispie to coach their men’s basketball team, which is a move you make if you either 1) want attention, 2) haven’t been paying attention, or 3) think you’re going to win enough to justify bad attention. They’re part of the new WAC, which is not going to be as fun as the old WAC in football but still has the name, and so will still get some nostalgic love, like if the Sun Belt went away and came back with a bunch of schools you don’t yet know exist, except the Sun Belt had produced the 1984 national champion.
Adding to the intrigue is that Tarleton State’s part of the Texas A&M system and has the second-largest enrollment in the system (in the 13,000 range), ahead of even Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Prairie View A&M, who have each been Division-I athletic departments for a while now. Stephenville, where the school is located, is close to the Dallas-Fort Worth metro, so there’s recruiting upside. It’s not impossible for a team to transition from D-II to national relevance, even in football, where North Dakota State’s a quirky national power of sorts after making the transition within the last twenty years.
Will Tarleton State become a national powerhouse? Probably not. But they’re noteworthy at the moment, and compared to others currently transitioning into D-I, they’re one of the more promising of the lot.
The game isn’t televised nationally but has been picked up by FOX Sports Southwest. Kickoff’s at 6:00 PM local time (Central).
