The Gadsden Times:
… Jacksonville State will play the 2009 season under a one-year, post-season ban by the NCAA because … JSU [failed] to meet standards on the NCAA’s Academic Progress Report for a third straight year and the school’s appeal [was] rejected.
“That penalty is historic,” [football coach Jack] Crowe said. “This team is getting penalized for the history of somebody else. These guys that you’re going to see play for us, they all are going to graduate and they’re all on track.”
Being ineligible for post-season play and for the Ohio Valley Conference Championship left the Gamecocks “playing for pride,” said senior nose tackle Brandt Thomas, an OVC preseason all-conference pick.
… “Obviously your goals have to change when the whole APR thing came out, but the attitude and the mood throughout the whole team is every game is going to be the same,” Thomas said. “We’re going to step on the field with the same intention, the same tenacity. We still have a chance to prove that we’re one of the best teams in the country. We don’t need a magazine or a TV station or somebody to tell us that we are or we’re not.”
… Crowe stressed it’s within each player how he handles the season’s adversity of playing under the ban.
… “It’s sort of like we got over it and went on, which is what grown men do,” Crowe said…