CRANBERRY TWP — The Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference has grown accustomed to flexing its football muscle.

Six times in the past nine years, the Northeast Region champion has been a PSAC program. Five different PSAC member schools won those region titles.

Seven PSAC teams have been to the NCAA Division II playoffs within the past two years. Three of Division II's top 10 coaches in winning percentage are from this conference.

Only now, PSAC schools will be flexing their muscle in the faces of their brethren.

"This season begins our 10-game schedules within the conference,"PSAC Commissioner Steve Murray said at the conference's annual pre-season media day recently. "Within seven years, every team in one division will have played each team in the other division four times."

That means teams like Slippery Rock now have to worry about Bloomsburg, West Chester, East Stroudsburg and Millersville on a regular basis, along with annual foes Indiana, Edinboro, California and Shippensburg.

"The good thing about it is our schedule is now taken care of, except for that opening game,"SRU coach George Mihalik said. "The bad thing is we're going to be knocking each other out of playoff contention.

"Our last game of this season is against West Chester. If we're both in position for a playoff berth at that point, the loser probably isn't getting in."

SRU opens its season Aug. 31 with a Thursday night game at NCAA Division I-AAtitle contender Youngstown State. Every other game is against a PSAC opponent, including road trips to Millersville and Kutztown within the season's first four weeks.

The Northeast Region in Division IIconsists of the PSAC, the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference and the Northeast 10. Only six total teams from those three leagues will enter the national playoffs.

The PSAC has 32 first team all-conference players returning to their respective schools this fall.

"What this new schedule gives us is some outstanding early-season matchups,"Murray said.

California and Bloomsburg — selected by coaches to win the PSACWest and East divisions this year — play each other as early as Sept. 9. Bloomsburg travels to three-time defending PSAC West champion Edinboro the following weekend.

California coach John Luckhardt said the West Division is balanced enough, in and of itself.

"This is a great league," he said. "Any one of five teams could win the West. There are five teams that are very experienced and very talented."

Winning the West may be the only way to grab a playoff berth this season.

"That's the way it may be shaping up,"Mihalik said.