By Solomon Crenshaw Jr.
For The Birmingham Times
Kenton Evans, Miles College’s quarterback coach, lifted four fingers as he stood in the back of Kirkwood Balton on the school’s campus late Sunday afternoon.
Evans wasn’t signaling that the fourth quarter was about to begin. He was signaling the beginning of something more momentous. As the No. 4 seed, the Golden Bears (9-2), champions of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC), will host the school’s first ever NCAA Division playoff game in its stadium.
On Saturday, Nov. 23, Miles will welcome Carson-Newman University (9-2), of Jefferson City, TN. to Sloan-Alumni Stadium in Fairfield, AL. in the opening round of the Super Region 2
The kickoff time is 1 p.m.
“I just kind of had that feeling that we were going to get that fourth seed based on what we’ve done this season,” Evans said. “We’ve been dominating the past few weeks.”
That dominance was on display over the past two months. The Golden Bears won nine straight games during conference play including Saturday’s 53-25 shellacking of Clark Atlanta for the SIAC title.
Earning a home playoff game is huge, said third-year head coach Sam Shade, a Birmingham native who played at Wenonah High School, the University of Alabama and eight years in the NFL.
“To have it on campus and be able to play that game in front of our student body, our alumni, our fans and people who aren’t even Miles folks in the Birmingham area that are going to come out and watch us, that’s just exciting,” he said. “It’s going to be an electric atmosphere for us on Saturday. Just being able to play it at home just means a lot.”
Miles Athletic Director Fred Watson said hosting a playoff game is “an honor. It’s something that we relish. It’s something we worked for,” he said. “When we first brought Coach Shade in and we were talking, he told me he wanted to do something that had never been done at the college before, and he’s done that. What Coach Shade has done here is absolutely unbelievable.”
Shade is coaching his third season at Miles. Even after his squad finished 1-9 the first year he still didn’t doubt that success was down the road.
“I had a vision when I came here for where I wanted this program to go and how to get that done,” he said. “My coaching staff, I kept reiterating that to them. They understood what the mission was. They understood that it was going to be up and down a little bit. They hung in there and stayed with the process and we were able to get where we are now.”
The Golden Bears opened the 2024 season with two losses and haven’t lost since.
“As a coaching staff, we just went back to basics,” Shade said. “We went back to the fundamentals, the tackling, the blocking, the throwing, the catching. We felt like we had to establish a foundational base for this team.
“The players bought into it and they understood what we were doing,” he said. “The trust level’s been great between the coaches and players, and between players and players.”
Miles College is one of two schools in Alabama hosting a Division II football playoff game on Saturday. West Alabama (9-1) welcomes Lenoir-Rhyne (9-2) at 1 p.m.
“We haven’t been to the playoffs since ’18,” Tigers coach Brett Gilliland said. “Obviously, it’s been a goal of ours every year. It’s exciting. Our guys have worked hard for it.”
