TSN says Colonels will be promoted to postseason

The Sports Network, the only national sports news organization to completely cover I-AA football, has predicted Eastern Kentucky to win the Ohio Valley Conference for 2006. Matt Dougherty, TSN's director of I-AA coverage, says a veteran offense is likely to lead the Colenels to the team's first postseason appearance in eight seasons and the team's 34th consecutive winning season.

Dougherty's picks for order-of-finish in the rest of the league, posted Thursday, closely follow what OVC coaches and sports information director predicted in July. He swaps only UT-Martin and Murray State into fifth and sixth place respectively, and puts Tennessee Tech at seventh and Tennessee State at eighth. Coaches and SIDs predicted the Golden Eagles and Tigers would tie for seventh place.

Here's TSN's full predicted order of finish:

1. Eastern Kentucky
2. Eastern Illinois
3. Jacksonville State
4. Samford
5. UT-Martin
6. Murray State
7. Tennessee Tech
8. Tennessee State
9. Southeast Missouri State

It's interesting that the predictions don't exactly match Dougherty's slotting of OVC teams in his top-to-bottom ranking of all 122 I-AA teams back in July. Murray State was the eighth-highest-ranked OVC team then. I guess the Racers' stock is on the rise.

Dougherty's exhaustive, team-by-team analysis is a must-read for OVC fans. He picks EKU quarterback Josh Greco as the league's offensive player of the year. EIU linebacker Clint Sellers is his defensive player of the year.