Dear selectors: Don't wave bye to an NSU-ODU playoff game

Is that a buzz I hear?

Maybe it's a transformer acting up on the utility pole near my house.

Or is it something else?

"People are buzzing over college football in Norfolk," my sports editor assured me Thursday morning.

That sounded like a hint. If my editor is excited about the prospect of Norfolk State and Old Dominion competing in the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs that start Nov. 26, I might want to be, too.

No problem. Newspaper people usually don't buzz - we prefer to mutter and mumble - but enthusiasm for local college football is becoming contagious.

You could make the case that South Hampton Roads - specifically Norfolk - is the center of FCS football right now.

No other metropolitan area or rural burg can boast of two playoff teams, much less a pair of tournament-bound schools located within a Jonathan Plisco punt of one another.

On Sunday morning, players and coaches from Plisco's ODU and from Norfolk State will receive the news about their postseason schedules. Of special interest is whether our local teams will be matched up against one another.

It might happen. It should happen.

Until now, many of us didn't know there was a Selection Sunday for college football. Before this year, South Hampton Roads didn't have much reason to pay attention to how the FCS playoffs operated.

Now ODU football is making its first postseason appearance in only its third year of operation, while Norfolk State, as MEAC champion, is returning to the playoffs after 27 years.

Both teams are 9-2. Both surprised people. Both are creating interest that extends beyond their bedrock fan base.

At least, let's hope that's what is taking place.

Traditionally, Hampton Roads' finest football moments have been piped in long distance - from Blacksburg mostly... Charlottesville occasionally... Washington a long time ago. Sometimes, it's the passion of Pittsburgh Steelers fans living among us that's most remarkable.

This season, Norfolk State and ODU afford us the chance to rally around local football stories. Let's seize the opportunity.

Like politics, all FCS storylines are local. Traditional powers in what used to be called Division I-AA are household names only to their own fan bases.

Montana. North Dakota State. Sam Houston State. Portland State. Georgia Southern. Wofford. Stop me when I get to a school whose football program registers with the average fan.

But none of this would matter if ODU and Norfolk State played each other. Then, as far as fans of each school were concerned, the playoffs would be almost beside the point. The local rivalry would carry the day.

Norfolk State and ODU won't meet Nov. 26, though, if ODU gets its wish. Lobbying hard through the media, Monarchs coach Bobby Wilder contends his team deserves a top-12 seed in the 20-team field and a first-round bye.

"We're three or four plays away from being potentially undefeated and ranked No. 1 or 2 in the country," Wilder said after ODU beat William and Mary on Saturday.

That's probably overstating the case. In a year in which the CAA was a little down, the Monarchs, though ranked as high as ninth this week, haven't beaten another team expected to reach the playoffs.

ODU, which has proffered a financial bid to obtain a home game, wants to avoid playing at Foreman Field two days after Thanksgiving, preferring to start its playoffs in the second round Dec. 3.

But ODU's wishes don't mesh with the generally held belief that this rare and special football season in Norfolk is meant to produce the most entertaining local attraction.

Norfolk State and ODU are both great stories, but if they don't meet in the playoffs, it will be a little bit of a buzzkill.