Washington & Jefferson tops PAC preseason poll

LATROBE, Pa. -- Football coaches from around the Presidents Athletic Conference will certainly miss the outstanding competition that Thomas More College has provided over the last dozen years.

However, they will not miss the 300 miles bus ride -- each way -- to Crestview Hills, a suburb of Cincinnati located in northern Kentucky.

Also, they will not miss Thomas More winning so many PAC titles. Since 2008, the Saints had won or shared the conference title in all but two years, 2012 and '17. Thomas More left the PAC, a conference of mostly western Pennsylvania schools, for the NAIA's Mid-South Conference beginning this season.

Its departure leaves a vacuum and Washington & Jefferson -- which won the PAC in 2012 and had a share, and automatic bid into the NCAA D-III playoffs in 2013, '14 and '17 -- seems the most poised to fill it.

"You can't ignore them but we play who we play, W&J coach Mike Sirianni told DKPittsburghSports.com at Saint Vincent College. "They're not here. It doesn't matter to me who we play and we'll play our hardest."

In a preseason poll of media and coaches on Thursday at the conference's media day, W&J was named the overwhelming favorite to repeat. The Presidents received 19 of 30 first-place votes, compared to eight for Case Western Reserve. W&J and Case Western shared the title last season. It's the 10th time since 2000 that the Presidents have been tabbed as the favorites in PAC.

Westminster (2) and Carnegie Mellon (1) also received votes.

"They're a phenomenal program," Geneva coach Geno DeMarco said of TMC's departure. "We had some great games against them. We're going to miss playing against against them as a competitor. It's going to be very interesting to see who moves into that upper tier and we think we with the kids we have returning, the experience and plus, the attitude of what's going on now, we'll be one of those teams."

With the Saints out, the PAC is a 10-team conference, meaning that each school will play a balanced schedule with nine conference games.

PAC PRESEASON POLL