Two ranked teams, #20 Middle Tennessee State and #26 Florida International, join three-time DIAA national finalists Central Florida and 5-1 Georgia Southern in the SIRC final four this weekend.

MTSU put an exclamation point on their SIRC North season with a 36-0 stout of Georgia Southern last weekend, finishing 6-0. Head Coach Jody Hensley said GSU was missing a couple of players, but when pressed, had to acknowledge that his squad was missing a few guys, too. Hensley had to move all-everything No. 8 Josh Pentecost to center to fill in for injuries, and that gave a first start for freshman Andrew Isbell at the back of the scrum. Zavior Thompson was muted from lock to prop to fill in for more injuries, and yet somehow they all worked together to shut out a tough GSU team.

“We have been drilling that defensive organization really hard,” said Hensley. 

MTSU hopes to have the halfback combination of Coty Baker (dislocated patella), and Stephen Wyatt, but Hensley said he will be careful with them.

Jesse Hackworth should be back at prop.

Meanwhile, FIU finished their South season undefeated and boast a nicely unified and experienced team. Co-captain Mateo Velasquez said having the last weekend off was good for players to heal up, and they are looking to be healthy and ready to play.

“We know it’s going to be tough - this is a conference championship weekend,” said Velasquez. “We just need to pull off a good performance. We don’t know anything about the teams we’re playing. So we just need to play our game.”

UCF might have struggled this year, going 3-3 in league play, but they weren’t out of it in those losses. And this is still a team that won two DIAA national championships and made the final last spring. They still have tough players such as James Boozer and Calvin Turner. They still have a lot of size and physicality.

So MTSU might find themselves in a dogfight. And while Florida International is probably favored against Georgia Southern, they’ll find that not an easy game to play, and Sunday, for the final and a place in the national playoffs, will be a test of durability as much as anything else. Certainly we could be seeing a change of the guard is UCF doesn't win.

The weekend’s games will be live streamed by by Gift Egbelu here:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MrCisf9ue_k