Speaking of the Southland

Northwestern State assistant Shawn Quinn left the school on Jan. 12 to take a position at Georgia Southern. Quinn followed Demons head coach Bradley Dave Peveto from LSU and coached the defensive line last year. According to an article in the [URL="http://www.thetowntalk.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20101130319"]Alexandria Town Talk[/URL], Quinn has family in Georgia. Georgia Southern hired Jeff Monken this offseason to head a program that has won six Division I football championships. Monken replaced Chris Hatcher.

Speaking of assistants, Sam Houston State head coach Willie Fritz retained assistants Scott Stoker and Ben Beasley. Stoker, the former Northwestern State head coach, joined the staff last year as the defensive coordinator and linebacker coach. Like Stoker, Beasley joined the staff a year ago from NWST and served in the role of safeties coach. Fritz also hired [URL="http://www.gobearkats.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=92955&SPID=11345&DB_OEM_ID=19900&ATCLID=204866115"]Jeff Conway[/URL], previously the associate head coach and wide receivers coach at Central Missouri University to join him in Huntsville. Conway and Fritz worked together at SHSU in the mid-1980s as graduate assistants before reuniting at both Central Missouri and Blinn JC (Texas).

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The amount of football facility upgrades around the conference over the last few years has been staggering. As the new year began, McNeese State got a jump on upgrades of their own by beginning construction of the new [URL="http://www.mcneesesports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=93660&SPID=11448&DB_OEM_ID=22000&ATCLID=204865442"]Jack Doland athletic fieldhouse[/URL]. The facility, when completed will include a new weight room, locker rooms and conference rooms. According to a release put out by McNeese State, an upstairs seating area for football games will also be part of the project.

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The Southland Conference won two statistical national championships as Stephen F. Austin finished the year with the top passing offense and McNeese running back Toddrick Pendland was the top scorer. The Lumberjacks' passing game with Jeremy Moses at the controls, averaged 343.69 yards per game over the course of the season with Pendland's school-record 118 points allowing the running back to average a national-best 10.43 points per contest.

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Professionally speaking, Rhett Bomar finished the 2009 NFL regular season on the active roster of the New York Giants. Bomar, a former signal-caller for Sam Houston State, was added alongside Sha'reff Rashad to take the spots of the injured reserve-bound duo of Brandon Jacobs and Aaron Ross.

Not all Southland players at the professional level had good injury news as former Nicholls State corner and current Baltimore Raven Lardarius Webb tore the ACL in his right knee. Webb suffered the injury during a Dec. 20 game against the Chicago Bears. For the season, Webb finished with 35 tackles (32 solo) with a single sack. Ravens' head coach John Harbaugh on Webb's chances of returning by the start of training camp, "There is a chance because he's young and he's a little bit lighter -- you don't carry as much weight around -- he could be back practicing in training camp."