Saturday's football game amounts to a playoff payoff for either Slippery Rock University or West Chester.

The winner of the regular season finale, slated for a 1 p.m. kickoff at N. Kerr Thompson Stadium, likely will earn a berth in the NCAA Division IIplayoffs.

"That's how we're treating it," West Chester coach Bill Zwaan said. "Winner of this game keeps playing."

The top six teams in each Division IIregion advance to postseason play. SRU (7-3) enters Saturday's game ranked eighth in the Northeast Region while West Chester (7-3) is ranked ninth.

Three teams ahead of them, No. 4 Merrimack, No. 5 South Connecticut State and No. 7 C.W. Post of the Northeast 10 Conference, are all 7-3 and do not play an 11th game.

"Eight wins is better than seven wins, the way I figure it,"SRUcoach George Mihalik said. "Whoever wins our game should be guaranteed a playoff spot."

The Rock holds a 6-5 lead over West Chester in the all-time series between the teams, but the two haven't met since 1997, when SRU posted a 27-14 victory at N. Kerr Thompson Stadium.

In three consecutive years, 1972 through 1974, SRU defeated West Chester in the state championship game. The PSAC ended the annual state title game in 1988. In the 18 seasons since, nine different PSAC schools have combined to make 41 NCAA playoff appearances.

"I remember the reason why that (state title) game was dropped,"Mihalik said. "It was because the loser of that game may be denied a chance to compete in the national playoffs.

"Now, we've recycled to the point that we're playing in-conference games late in the year that will deny the loser a shot at the playoffs — and we don't even have a state championship game to show for it."

Zwaan agreed.

"I can't believe we play 10 conference opponents," he said. "It's too many. We should be playing out-of-conference opponents to showcase our league at this point in the year, not be eliminating each other."

For The Rock to eliminate West Chester, it must contain a Golden Rams offense that leads the PSAC with 37 points per game. West Chester has scored 196 points — 49 per game — over its last four contests, defeating Millersville (54-27), Kutztown (49-47), East Stroudsburg (49-28) and Mansfield (44-0).

Quarterback Bill Zwaan Jr., the coach's son, has completed 35 of his 41 passes over the past three games.

"That's why he's leading the league in pass efficiency,"Mihalik said.

"He grew up hanging around me, so Bill knows this offense really well,"Coach Zwaan said. "He's been making great decisions. Overall, we're playing our best football right now."

Zwaan has completed 103 of 163 passes for 1,553 yards, 19 touchdowns and only five interceptions. The Golden Rams lead the PSAC with a plus-12 turnover-takeaway margin.

SRU is 12th out of 14 teams with a minus-9.

"We've improved in that area in recent weeks, and we have to keep doing that,"Mihalik said. "We're not going to shut out this offense. We can only hope to contain it."

In Osagie Osunde (1,151 yards in 2004) and Brent Steinmetz (1,188 last year), West Chester has two 1,000-yard running backs. Neither has been healthy the entire season, however, as Osunde has 522 yards and six touchdowns and Steinmetz has 516 yards and 11 TDs.

Osunde is still nursing an injury and is questionable for Saturday.

"We haven't been able to get those two guys on the field at the same time all year," Zwaan said.

The Rock has running back issues of its own. Damarcus Cleckley suffered a sprained ankle last week at Indiana (Pa.) and is listed as doubtful this week. Fellow freshman A.J. Saunders will see more time in the backfield with Slippery Rock High graduate Travis Sarver (614 yards, five TDs).

West Chester's Mike Washington, an all-PSAC performer as a freshman last year, is second in the league this season with 42 catches for 940 yards and 13 touchdowns.

"They also use him on sweeps, reverses. ... He's an all-purpose guy,"Mihalik said. "He's the best receiver we've faced this year. You have to know where he is and account for him on every play."

Rock quarterback Nate Crookshank needs 51 passing yards to reach the 2,000-yard plateau for the season. He needs 240 yards to break Chad Vogt's single-season SRU passing record of 2,188, set in 1995.

Colin Golden leads SRU with 51 catches, and Luke Wetzel leads the squad with 618 receiving yards and eight touchdowns.

West Chester has been to the Division II playoffs the past two seasons, losing to C.W. Post in the first round last year. SRU has not been to the postseason since 1999.

Here are the Northeast Region rankings entering the final week of the regular season. The top six teams enter the Division IIplayoffs:<B>Rank.......Team.......W-L</B>1.......Shepherd.......9-02.......Bloomsburg.......9-13.......Bryant.......7-24.......Merrimack.......7-35.......S. Conn. State.......7-36.......California (Pa.).......8-27.......C.W. Post.......7-38.......Slippery Rock.......7-39.......West Chester.......7-3