Morehouse and Miles were two of the top teams in the SIAC last season.
That's not expected to change in 2012, as the schools were picked to win their respective divisions in a preseason poll conducted by the league's coaches Tuesday at the conference's media day. The Maroon Tigers were selected by half of the 10 coaches to make it to the conference championship game from the Eastern Division, edging Albany State by one vote.
Morehouse coach Rich Freeman was not surprised with the poll results and was confident of what his team could do this fall.
"It just makes you feel good that your peers feel the same way," he said. "That gives us a lot of confidence going into the season. At the same time, it provides a lot of pressure, pressure that we're not afraid of. We'll go into it headfirst."
Freeman said being the favorite doesn't bother him since they have already played the "darkhorse" role. He was so convinced of his team's success for the coming season that he was one of the five coaches who tabbed the Maroon Tigers as the best in their division.
"That's not arrogance. It's confidence," Freeman said. "We have a lot of confidence in our returning players, such as David Carter, who I think is the best player in the conference. We have a lot of expectations for us, but we're just going to line up and see what happens."
That's the same thing Miles coach Reginald Ruffin said his team will do. Besides, after being picked second in the West last season, Ruffin didn't see a reason to change anything just because they moved up a spot this year.
"I always say you can't harp on that," he said. "You've got to be able to control what you can control, which means you line up and you're ready to play, that you're fundamentally sound and do the little things it takes to win a ballgame. The rest will take care of itself."
At the opposite end of the spectrum, Clark Atlanta coach Daryl McNeill hopes his team can silence doubters and play better than expected — fourth in the East, according to the coaches. That's still one spot higher than McNeill expected them to be pegged in the five-team division, though.
"I was anticipating us actually being last, period, but everybody kind of knows we lost five games by less than a touchdown," he said, "and actually Benedict was more of a Hail Mary at the end, so I think it was justifiable where we were picked."
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