MSAC mandates 7 p.m. kickoffs for prep football
Rick Ryan , Sports Writer
The MSAC likes solidarity.
At its most recent meeting in late July, the Mountain State Athletic Conference mandated that all games between league members kick off at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30.
That contradicts what was widely believed to have transpired during the previous meeting in June, where several schools came away thinking the 7 p.m. kickoff time was entirely optional.
At that time, all but two of the 12 teams in the Class AAA conference opted to switch to 7 p.m. starts, with city of Charleston rivals George Washington and Capital holding the line at the more-traditional 7:30 for their kickoffs.
Following the June meeting, GW athletic director Shawn Wheeler said he and the school’s other administrators felt comfortable staying with 7:30 starts.
“I think the determination of home games [at 7] was a suggestion,” Wheeler said at the time. “I thought if you were going to go ahead and do it, you should mandate it, but it was more ‘we’re encouraging you to.’ So that’s our plan [to stay at 7:30].”
Capital actually elected in June to simply stay with the status quo, at least temporarily, because athletic director Ron Wilson, principal Larry Bailey and other school officials hadn’t had a chance to talk it over. After doing so, they decided to also move home start times to 7 p.m. for all league games.
“I’m not sure of the rationale behind the need or the desire for the change,” Wilson said, “but it is what was decided upon by the MSAC members, and that’s what we’ll do.”
GW fully intended to remain with 7:30 starts until the July meeting, when the MSAC voted to impose a $1,000 fine upon any school that didn’t go along with the now-mandatory start time of 7.
According to recent schedules on the SSAC website, 48 of the state’s 118 football-playing schools start the majority of their home games at 7 p.m. Some areas of the state, especially the Northern and Eastern Panhandles, have done so for many years.
Games at MSAC sites that are not conference contests — like Ashland, Kentucky’s Sept. 2 game at GW and Brooke’s Sept. 16 game at Hurricane — are permitted to kick off at 7:30.
The end result makes for uniform starting times on league games across the MSAC, but doesn’t mandate widespread agreement.
“I don’t like it. I don’t see the gain from it,” said South Charleston principal Mike Arbogast, “but we will do what the majority wants.”
