The PSAC Championship game is back — at least for now.

The Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference recently released its 2008 and 2009 football schedules, which include the league's first state championship games since 1987.

Following the 1987 season, administrators voted to eliminate the state title game in a bid to qualify more teams for NCAA postseason play.

"We're doing this on a two-year experimental basis," said PSAC Commissioner Steve Murray. "We're never going to know how a state championship game affects us nationally until we actually go through the process."

The PSAC Championship Game will be held Nov. 8, the final Saturday of the regular season, at the home of the PSAC West champion. All eight league games that weekend are crossover games, so final division standings will have been determined.

While the PSAC East champion visits the PSAC West champion, the originally scheduled opponents of those teams will face each other, with the West Division team hosting.

Slippery Rock is scheduled to host East Stroudsburg that Saturday. Bloomsburg is scheduled to travel to Gannon. If the PSAC title game was Bloomsburg at SRU, then East Stroudsburg would travel to Gannon.

The 2009 title game will be hosted by the PSAC East.

"It's a pretty good system because only four teams will have their schedules altered and no extra week is needed to play the championship game,"SRU coach George Mihalik said.

"I'm excited about this. The state title game is a prestigious, showcase event for our conference and it should be played."

Mihalik has fond memories of the state championship game. He was SRU's quarterback when it won the championship game in 1972 and 1973, defeating West Chester 29-27 and 28-14.

SRUalso defeated West Chester, 20-7, in the 1974 conference title game. That was The Rock's last appearance in the event.

Indiana (Pa.) won the last two PSACtitle games, defeating West Chester in 1986 and 1987.

The return of the league championship game comes on the heels of the PSAC's first expansion since the conference's inception in 1951. Mercyhurst and Gannon join the PSAC West this fall while C.W. Post and former West member Shippensburg join the East.

"We decide a league champion in every sport but football,"Murray said. "I always felt there was something missing that way. With our expansion, we started thinking outside the box and this is a good time to bring the game back.

"Naturally, there are some concerns that the loser of our conference title game may get bumped from playoff consideration. If that happens, maybe one of our second-place teams gets in. We'll have to wait and see how that plays out," he added.

In recent years, the PSAC has had three teams gain playoff berths in the Northeast Region. That will likely be reduced to two as the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association will make the Northeast a four-conference region next season.

Mihalik is miffed over the NCAA adding the CTAA to the Northeast Region.

The move puts 43 teams in the Northeast Region, compared to 29 in the Southeast, 30 in the Northwest and 28 in the Southwest.

"This means one of every seven Northeast teams goes to the playoffs, compared to one of every 4.5 or five teams everywhere else,"Mihalik said. "The NCAA is supposed to be all about equality. Well, that's not equal."