LITTLE ROCK — Ronnie Huckeba had been a head coach for all of two months when he took a trip about 500 miles north of Searcy five years ago.
Huckeba had been a Harding University football assistant coach for more than two decades when his best friend, Randy Tribble, resigned during the middle of the 2007 season. Huckeba was named interim coach, then was given the full-time job a couple of weeks later and guided the Bisons to a 6-4 finish.
After the season, he set out for a guide on how to further his football program.
“You have to find your own niche,” he said.
So he headed north to Maryville, Mo., home of Northwest Missouri State and one of the most accomplished NCAA Division II programs in the country. He spent two days inside the Bearcats’ operations. He sat in on meetings, watched practices, visited with the strength coach and even watched then-Coach Mel Tjeerdsma’s news conference.
What he took away from the trip turned into a rough blueprint of how he’s directed the Bisons.
“Tjeerdsma basically told me, ‘This is how we do it here,’ ” Huckeba said. “And everything you saw just screamed, ‘This is a program.’ ”
So it wasn’t with any disappointment that Huckeba learned Sunday he’d be making the same trip this week.
But the Bisons, 9-1 and ranked No. 12 in Division II, will visit No. 13 Northwest Missouri State (8-2) at noon today, with a chance to see how much progress Huckeba has made in the five seasons since that trip.
“What better test than to go on the road against these guys?” he said.
Harding, from the secondyear Great American Conference, is playing in its first Division II playoff game and its first postseason game of any kind since the 1992 NAIA playoffs.
By contrast, Northwest Missouri State is making its 17th playoff appearance and is hoping to make a run at its fourth national title.
Earlier this week, the St. Joseph (Mo.) News-Press called the Bisons “Super Region 3’s biggest surprise,” and in a weekly picks column, a columnist for D2football.com picked the Bearcats to win by more than three touchdowns.
“They’ve earned that respect,” Harding senior defensive end Josh Aldridge said of the Bearcats. “We haven’t earned that respect yet. That’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to get some respect for Harding and this football program.”
The reasons observers outside of the GAC think that way are obvious.
After switching to a Triple Option offense in 2010, Harding finished 6-4 and then 4-7 last year when it led Division II with 26 lost fumbles.
The Bisons were picked to finish fourth in the nine-team GAC before this season began and didn’t enter the national rankings until the sixth week of the season after starting with five consecutive victories.
Following a 38-10 loss to Henderson State on Oct. 13, Harding won its final four games to complete its best regular season in school history.
The five-victory improvement isn’t a surprise to anyone in Searcy — Huckeba has thought his team had playoff potential for two seasons — mostly because of what the Bisons returned on defense.
With nine senior starters, Harding ranks fifth in Division II in total defense (273.8 yards per game) and sixth in scoring defense (15.5 points per game), pleasing statistics even if the Bearcats have a distinct size advantage — Northwest Missouri State’s offensive linemen average 22 more pounds than Harding’s defensive linemen.
On offense, the Bisons’ running game that ranks fifth in Division II at 322.2 yards per game.
Harding is 6-0 on the road this season and is bringing 15 seniors eager to make even a more defined mark on the program’s history.
“We love going up there and seeing some place you’ve never seen before, playing in a tough atmosphere,” Aldridge said.
“Going up there and playing a perennial power like them, in their place, that’s just something you dream about.”
Today’s game
HARDING AT NORTHWEST MISSOURI STATE
WHEN Noon today WHERE Bearcat Stadium, Maryville, Mo. RECORDS Harding: 9-1; NW Missouri State 8-2 SEEDS Harding: No. 5 in Super Region 3; NW Missouri State: No. 4 in Super Region 4 SERIES First meeting COACHES Harding: Ronnie Huckeba (31-30 in sixth season); Adam Dorrel (19-5 in second season) RADIO KVHU-FM, 95.3, in Searcy INTERNET hardingsports.com
Sports, Pages 19 on 11/17/2012