PFL WEEK FIVE STORY LINES

Jacksonville will put its two-game conference win streak on the line when it travels to Davidson which will play at home for the first time in 2008. San Diego, fresh off a 2,500-mile trek to Campbell, will make a relatively shorter 1,700-mile trip to Drake this weekend. Dayton will become the third PFL team to set foot in Pennsylvania when it meets Northeast Conference foe Duquesne, Drake and Morehead State earlier ventured into the Keystone State and both suffered losses. Morehead State will seek to snap a two-game losing streak when it hosts St. Francis (Pa.), also from the Northeast Conference. Butler will hit the road to meet Division II’s Missouri S&T – formerly Missouri-Rolla. Campbell also is on the road, traveling northwest-ward to meet Carthage (Wis.) . Valparaiso is the lone PFL squad without a scheduled contest in week five.

CONFERENCE QUICK HITS

WEEK FOUR’S SNAP RECAP: It was a quiet week around the league as three teams had scheduled off weeks and Butler saw its game against Hanover cancelled. The week’s lone league contest saw San Diego post a 45-7 victory at Campbell. Sophomore running back Phil Morelli rushed for 151 yards and three touchdowns to score PFL Offensive Player of the Week honors. Campbell quarterback Matt Vollono’s 38-yard touchdown toss was the first at Barker-Lane Stadium. Dayton posted five interceptions – two by PFL Defensive Player of the Week Matt Smyth – in a 31-14 victory against a Robert Morris squad that had not thrown an interception in 2008. Jacksonville led 21-9 entering the fourth quarter but could not hold on as UNC-Pembroke got a 25-yard field goal with 1:14 remaining to pull out a 22-21 victory. Valparaiso had similar troubles with visiting Marian (Ind.), leading 10-0 at the half before falling 13-10.

MARIST UPDATE: Marist, which joins the PFL in 2009, opened a five-game homestand with a 21-14 loss to Wagner, Saturday. The game was tied, 14-14, until Wagner’s Rodney Davis posted a five-yard touchdown run with six seconds remaining broke the tie. Senior running back Obozua Ehikioya rushed for two touchdowns and now has 40 career scores, one shy of the Marist FCS record.

DAYTON NEARS 600th ALL-TIME VICTORY, DRAKE NEARING WIN NO. 550: Dayton and Drake both entered the 2008 campaign nearing milestone victories. Below is a look at each program’s current all-time wins total, according to the NCAA:

DAYTON SHUTOUT STREAK STILL GOING STRONG: Dayton avoided a shutout for the 354th consecutive game, Monday, defeating Central State, 31-12. The Flyers were last shutout by Marshall, 9-0, back on Oct. 16, 1976.

TORERO HOME WIN STREAK HITS 26: San Diego’s home win streak hit 26 games with its victory against Azusa Pacific, Saturday. The home win streak is the longest in all of Division I. Oklahoma has the nation’s second-longest home win streak with 19 straight wins at  Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Wisconsin is next at the FBS level with a 16-game streak while Massachusetts is next at the FCS level with a 15-game home winning streak.

SAN DIEGO PICKED TO WIN PFL: The Pioneer Football League’s coaches tabbed San Diego as the preseason favorite in the PFL Preseason Coaches’ Poll, receiving two of the nine possible first-place votes. However, the coaches believe it will be a close race with the top four teams separated by just five points:

PFL WEB SITE REMODELED: during the offseason, the Pioneer Football League’s Web site underwent a major face lift, courtesy the league’s new web partner, Streamline Technologies, Inc. The league’s home address, pioneer-football.org, remains the same. But that’s about the only thing that didn’t change. The new site includes team pages for each of the league’s members and a new composite schedule section where each day’s complete schedule is available. More changes will come as the league settles into its new home on the world wide web this season.

NCAA RULE CHANGES FOR 2008: There are several rule changes for the 2008 season that will make noticeable effects on the game. Among them are the banning of “horse-collar” tackles, a simplification of chop blocking rules and the elimination of the 5-yard face mask penalty for incidental contact (it will either be a 15-yard penalty or no foul at all). The major rule change involves the play clock which will have both 40 and 25-second settings. Whenever the ball becomes dead, the play clock will reset to 40 seconds and will start immediately. This includes when a runner is down in the field of play or out of bounds, a fumble out of bounds, backward pass out of bounds and after an incomplete pass. After a team has picked up a first down the game clock will stop but the play clock will go to 40 seconds and will start counting down.

DIVISION I FCS, PLEASE: Although some people may accidentally still refer to it as I-AA football, the term that represents the level of Division I football in which the Pioneer Football League competes has been retired. Beginning with the 2006 National Championship game, the term Football Championship Subdivision (or FCS) is to be used. FCS is the only Division I football rank to host a NCAA-sponsored national championship (one of 88 championships the NCAA sponsors). The division formerly known as I-A was changed to Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) and those teams compete for the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) national championship. Teams who play at the FCS level can offer a maximum of 63 scholarships (FBS teams can offer 85) and compete in a 16-team playoff at the end of the season to determine the national champion.