The team that wins the Presidents' Athletic Conference football championship this season will be rewarded with much more than just another bauble to put in its trophy case.

For the first time since the league's inception in 1955, the PAC champion will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III playoffs. The league, which began a two-year waiting period when Thomas More joined in 2005, now has the required seven active members needed to qualify for the bid under NCAA rules.

Geneva and Saint Vincent, which is playing football this season after a 45-year hiatus, will play a full schedule of games against PAC teams this season, but their games will not count in the standings because they are provisional members.

Washington and Jefferson, which has carried the PAC banner with 21 league championships and 19 trips to the playoffs since they began in 1984, is the favorite to win the 2007 title in a vote of the league coaches, sports information directors and media who attended the preseason luncheon at Saint Vincent yesterday.

The team picked to finish first in the previous four preseason polls didn't win the championship.

"That's good to know," W&J coach Mike Sirianni said, with a smirk. "I guess that shows what we all know."

W&J was the voter's choice this year because the Presidents return 11 starters -- seven offense, four defense -- from a 10-2 team that lost in the second round of the playoffs. The Presidents were 6-0 in the PAC and received an at-large bid.

"I'm not sure how much the automatic bid will help [the league]." Sirianni said. "The PAC champion has almost always gotten a bid."

The only time the PAC sent two teams to the playoffs was 2005 when Thiel and W&J received at-large invitations.

"The automatic bid will give the conference a little more credibility, but I'm not sure how much," Sirianni said. "In past years, I rooted against our teams in non-conference games, but I'll root for them now because wins will help the entire league's strength of schedule and that could help us get a second team into the playoffs."

Thiel's Jack Leipheimer enthusiastically said the automatic bid will generate more enthusiasm among the players and will give recruiting a boost.

"It's one more thing we can sell a kid about our school and the PAC," he said. "This makes winning the conference even more important and gives us a chance to toughen our non-conference schedule to help us better prepare for the conference."

Not far from Placid Hall where the PAC was meeting, the Steelers were gathering for afternoon workouts.

Kevin Colbert, the director of football operations for the Steelers whose older brother, Bob, is the Saint Vincent coach, gave a pep talk to the PAC coaches and praised Division III as the "purest form of college football."

Division III members cannot offer athletic scholarships and are allowed to provide financial aid based solely on need.

"It can't hurt with Kevin's reputation around here and the fact the Steelers practice here," Bob Colbert said.

"I'm sure Kevin's name will help, but Bob hasn't done anything," said Bob, who spent the past six years as an assistant at Bridgewater College (Va.), with a laugh, "I'm still saying 'y'all. I haven't gotten my yunzes yet. We're playing on Chuck Noll Field. that's really special for us. It's kind of sad, though, we have to educate our players on who Chuck Noll is."

Noll's Steelers won four Super Bowls in the 1970s.

Saint Vincent's opener Sept. 1 is against Gallaudet College at Chuck Noll Field.

"We've been able to spread the word about Saint Vincent football," Bob Colbert said. "We've recruited on the field of dreams. If we build it, they will come.

"How good will we be? I don't know. The majority of our team will be freshmen and sophomores. I think we're at least going to field a competitive team."