Oh, man.  Every time Bant225 posts he lowers the value of my diploma.

ARRRRGHHH. This is always the weekend that eveybody in the NESCAC-- except Amherst and Williams-- feels left out of the biggest party of the year. It's a time of self-assessment for many of us: why wasn't I good enough to be accepted myself, maybe I should have worked harder or simply had better genes, etc. It's The Biggest Little Game ( Party ) and although we're dressed up, we've really got no where to go, do we?  Anyway for many of us in NESACAC   this week is the week that hurts as the curtain of exclusivity is drawn around either Amherst or Williams and the rest of us are left to ponder enviously, what if or why not me?  Ah, so much for our collective self-loathing, my Trin brothers. At least we're in it together!

One solution just might be trying to raise the academic standards of our own schools in order to  enrich our own "rivalries." Me , I look at Trin and don't see much hope for the moment anyway -- as we free-fall in national rankings and maintain our perpetual league academic cellar dweller status. It would be great if Trin could aspire to a higher standard-- Williams and Amherst status would never be even close to attainable ( I'm actually laughing to myself at even the mere mention of it ) but maybe something along the lines of Bates' standing might be possible with a concerted, long-term effort. The Hartford ghetto and the attendent crime will always scare a lot of people away but some things are within our grasp to change, such as raising the academic bar.

As for spicing up the NESCAC and giving more teams something to look forward to, I don't see why an intra-league playoff format couldn't be served up -- in lieu of NCAA participation. It could involve the top four teams and be finished by reading period. The main objection to NCAA playoff participation has generally been that the playoffs could potentially last too long-- a valid point, although one NESCAC teams probably wouldn't have to worry much about given their level of play. League playoffs would address the time concern while giving league schools something extre to look forward to. We probably wouldn't have strong rivals like Amherst and Williams on board for this but other schools might embrace the idea.

Finally, and in that vein, I submit that folks here shouldn't be looking down their noses at club sports --at least not the NESCAC football crowd. NESCAC football is at the far tail end of league varsity sports that can compete on a national level. And at Trin our best sport is a de facto club sport, squash! In the talent pecking order of all NESCAC sports,  football is about as low as you can go, trailing such "major" sports as tennis, wrestling, golf and softball!  In that light, and given the fact that we don't participate in NCAA playoffs, NESCAC  football is essentially a club sport. BTW, I knew of more than a few ultimate frisbee kids who were better athletes --stoned or not-- than some that played on the football team.

Good luck to all teams this weekend. Let's get out and support them!


Aaron: Go to class!!

If we're talking about the best players I think it might be too early.Those reps are forged in the cruible of big games and with two of the ~ three best games of the season still on the horizon I think we should reserve judgment until the smoke clears.

       As always the estimable F.U. has shed light on matters, in this instance reframing Alucard's inspired original post to focus more on MVP consideration ( Sine Qua Non Dude ),  rather than just the query as to who were the most talented offensive and defensive players in the league. I liked Alucard's original question as well so I'd like to riff on that briefly and then move on to who I think might be MVP-worthy. So, first, I submit that Lucey, Kehoe and Leo-- in that order-- are the top players on the offensive side of the ball while Woodring, O'Reilly and possibly Quincy Francis of Wesleyan are looking good on the other side of the ball. ( Christian Allen of Trin probably would have been my preseason defensive MVP but nagging injuries have limited him this fall ).  Among Lucey, Kehoe and Leo, Lucey has yet to stumble while Kehoe was off in the Jeffs loss to Middlebury ( outplayed by Tiger Lyon ) and  Leo was held to a mere ~ 40 yds vs the Ephs. Leo did pick up some all-purpose yds and has been versatile this fall but overall failed to deliver a top performance vs Williams. How Leo and Kehoe perform head to head in Hartford and how Kehoe and Lucey do against each other in Amherst the following week would go a long way to how I would cast my vote for top offensive player. I believe that Kehoe stacks up very well vs Lucey and may be his superior athletically. Kehoe is filthy throwing on the run and earlier this year completed a 35 yd strike on the run left-handed on a big third down conversion. Hannon has been good for Amherst as a reciever  ( and returner ) but has been deficient as a punter so I remove him from all consideration on that basis. I know it doesn't really make sense, just my bias.

      On defense, I'm less sure but I like Woodring of Middlebury with LB, J. O'Reilly of Williams and the aforementioned Francis of Wesleyan also in the running. No guy leads his team in tackles by a wider margin than Woodring and he's turned in big performances consistently. Every team runs away from Carpenter like the plague so he should be mentioned here as well.

       As for Francis, I got into a slap fight over this very topic outside of a Middletown bar concerning his impact this fall. My assailant, a ( the only ) rabid Card fan,  maintained that Francis merely has a lot of plays funnelled his way as part of the Card's defensive game plan and due to this, his efficacy somehow has to be deeply discounted. Who knows, I won't see him play until the final weekend,  if he's still standing. I agree with Fells that the Panther punter/kicker is exceptional but, well, he's a punter/kicker solamente. His leg is sick and he could probably be kicking at BC this fall.

     As I said at the top it's too early for naming a MVP, but Fulmer from Williams leading the league in TD's caught and punting has done a great job, and has probably been indispensable to his team this season-- in addition to the aforementioned troika of Kehoe, Lucey and Leo.
       

     Capt. Partridge could you weigh in on Francis? Sometimes I feel so close to you, Capt. Partridge,  that it almost seems we're in the same room... if not on the same page. BTW, I heard that ~ 5 yrs ago the Hamilton chain gang dressed as The Village People to ridicule their visitors, the Cards. True?

      And , yes, folks, Trinity is still shameful, IMO, in regard to the priorities it has set recently...very, very un-NESCAC.

      You're late for class, Aaron!

   JPU, you're right about me being weak... but how did you know?

   Capt. Partridge,  I meant "jib" .

    I'm weak and tired.

  Trinity has been the main culprit in this race to the bottom of academic standards. In doing so, it has brought shame on itself --yes, great shame indeed, and created the sense around the league that it is cutting corners for the misguided goal of a winning NESCAC football program. All this in a league constrained from NCAA participation ( probably for our own good ), which makes the whole venture a real fool's errand. The shame I feel today is so real, so palpable, and I blame it all on a group of well-intentioned, yet misguided, souls at the college who should be summarily cashiere. Today, the school is the dog's breakfast of the league in terms of academic standing and integrity...and I grieve for what the school has lost in the way it has chosen to win on the field. Hollow, costly victories, indeed, Pat.

     Concerning tips, alucardz, keep in mind that many of those receiving tips are two sport athletes so that a single tip can often double the benefit athletically. Two-sport tip designees are often given preference  by admissions over those who are merely one sport participants. ( Indeed, coaches approaching their tip thresholds from time to time have another coach designate someone they covet in exchange for a similar favor down the road  ). The bottomline is that as more schools realized the fact that a good number of tips were two-sport players, they could cut back the tip number and placate those faculty, students and alums clamoring for their schools to throttle back on the recruiting. Some schools did the right thing, IMO, and trimmed that number....others didn't. The tip system is self-imposed, self-policed and lacking in transparency. I don't like it.

As I've said in the past I feel an AI could help mend the rancorous gulf between the athletic and academic communities. The AI would go a long way to healing this situation, particularly at some of the lower-ranked schools in the NESCAC ( e.g.Trin ). The AI isn't perfect but it is more transparent and it's standards are clear. The biggest upside is the faith and trust it would engendered between the athletic community and the rest of the college, particularly at some of the lower-ranked schools in the league.

      In Trinity's case I feel that sterner measures are warranted, Capt Partridge. Here, I feel a faculty oversight committee should be looking into the football program at Trinity, as well as the conduct of its players, and it's findings carefully considered. Damage has been done, but with some strong measures-- for starters, how about dropping the sport to the club level status its play refects-- this academic/reputation cost center can be cleaned up.  No school should put its reputation at stake for the sake of something as badly played as NESCAC football. Trinity is a case study in the folly of going down that road.

On a lighter note-- and just to show Pat and you all that I'm a regular guy-- I like Amherst's chances against Williams this year. Playing at home is an enormous advantage in that series and that, along with Amherst's balance, should stand them in good stead. The Jeffs need to cut down on penalties, avoid key injuries the week before in Hartford and improve their punting, but all certainly looks very good for a Jeff victory at this point. Very good indeed, Capt Partridge. Amherst plays here vs Trinity in a couple weeks and that game may take its toll on the Jeffs. In other action, Wesleyan may put up its best fight in years vs Trinity in years.

Capt Partridge, I like the cut of your gib. We seem to birds of the same feather. You'd no doubt look fetching with a tee-shirt emblazoned with a Cardinal red "A.I.  Yes!! " Wear it to the Trinity game, my good man!

Regards to all. My time's up.

Sweet Mary, it's good to hear from some of you again!!  Anyway, it's like this: I feel that the football players of present and recent years past at Trinity really have really abused their priviledge to play. As a deeply concerned alum, I'm disgusted with the fact that as a group they rank at or near the bottom of all NESCAC students. These guys are clearly intellectual inferiors and yet they're not merely content with squandering the chance to educate themselves. No, they have to go about the business of drunken, rude, homophobic behavior on campus, pulling fire alarms and threatening fellow students. So after all this collateral damage what's the upside, the glory and acclaim they finally yield the school?  Well, as a group of athletes they are far behind other NESCAC sports in terms of national rankings. Is any NESCAC sport further from the top D3 national ranking than our little league's brand of lame football? Maybe but I'm hard pressed to think of even one. When compare to their their league peers, Trinity football is the lowest of the low, both in and out of the classroom. Heap on the academic baggage and poor attitude/behavior many of these Trinity kids bring to the table and--- again, as a group--- and they are very much worthy of being looked down upon. My point is that Trinity should take some hard measures to insure that the future quality of Trinity football players is of a higher academic, moral and ethical level than it's been in the recent past. How that's achieved is a matter worth discussing, for the Trinity communinty at least. Time to eat.

Go, Mets!! Oh, go, you, Mets!!!

  Frank:
          How about MIT? What could be better than having Williams play MIT in Cambridge at Steinbrenner Stadium?!?

  Bait551:

          Thanks for proving my point about the Neanderthal mentality at Camp TrinTrin. Well done, my boy!

    Sorry, I've been away for a while, good to be back, thanks. Well, Capt. Partridge, I think the only things that true Trinity fans should be voting for is either my aforementioned modest proposal of an AI -- self-imposed, all the better!-- or an end to its football program altogether-- it's worked very well for S'more in terms of campus harmony and, ultimately, even alumni-giving. The Trinity football program is emblematic of the Camp Trin Trin sterotype and has only served to fuel the sorry image. Now that that snake-oil salesman Priore has left town and the left us in a wake of disgrace we need to smarten up, clean up the mess and move in a fresh direction.

QuoteIf the conference is based on "mutual trust", then other conference members should trust Trinity's integrity without imposing some complicated matrix on admissions.

   The ai wouldn't apply to Trinity solely, it would be adopted by all member schools. Ai could be set by each individual school with a floor that meets with league consensus. Mutual trust involved here in assuming that all schools comply with this standard. Schools w/ no Sat's could have ai's tailored to gpa and/or class rank.
    My feeling is the ai would create as much trust between certain groups on campus as it would between the league member schools themselves.

QuoteOf course, that streak made Priore's winning percentage go through the roof.  Does this clown realize that -- even including the record winning streak -- that Dick Farley (man, myth, legend) still had a higher career winning percentage than Priore?  Over decades and decades as opposed to five years?  Do you know enough about sports (or percentages) to know how unlikely/impressive that is?  How much more impressive that is than Priore's streak?

Doesn't that FACT kind of put this whole "Trinity has recruiting advantages" argument to bed?

    Doesn't change a thing or even address the fact that Trinity has lower admissions standards than any other league school,  that it admits kids in greater number than any other league school can and that this is a considerable advantage in recruiting. Ask any coach in the league.   If anything it just points out that Priore wasn't so much a good football coach as he was an opportunist and that Farley was a coach of greater abilities. Priore's streak came during a time of de-emphasis of football at other league schools and I believe the overall level of league play was higher during Farley's tenure than it is today.

   My problem with Priore and the Trinity administration is that many at Trinity felt that the school was bringing in football players who made a mockery of Trinity's educational mission and as a group were invoved in a higher number of on-campus incidents ( altercations, drunkeness,  theft ) than had happened for as long as many could recall.  This came at a time when Trinity's SAT's and selectivity rankings were dropping in relation to other league schools.

     As for a athletic index I see it as a way of legitimizing all NESCAC athletes as well as affording them a heightened sense of self-worth.  The ugly stigma of the dumb-jock on campus that exists  in the minds of many faculty, administration and the student body would be supplanted by the knowledge that athletes are at least achieving a recognized floor of academic standards. THis would go a long way to allaying the tensions between faculty, non-student-athletes and the athletic community on many campuses and between league member schools themselves. Some people say that even if each school were to introduce a.i. it would inevitably result in one school have a lower a.i. than the rest - in the case of the Ivy League model - it would still provide the athletes of NESCAC with an eclipsed threshold of standards that would go a long way to discrediting the dumb-jock stereotype that elements at all league colleges have long subscribed to. In the end it would do a great service to the athletes themselves, promote better understanding and relations between the athletic community and other groups on campus, strengthen trust between schools involved in league play and advance the NESCAC ideal of striving toward academic excellence. Take a look at this from the league mission statement and see if an ai wouldn't greatly support the league's objectives:
   
           "... Its members are committed first and foremost to academic excellence and believe that athletic excellence supports our educational mission.

Each institution is committed to providing a comprehensive athletic program available to the entire student body. All participants in athletic activities are treated equitably.

The Conference is based on mutual trust, and all members are committed to the highest ethical standards in our relationships with each other. It encourages its members to compete with one another and is committed to promoting equitable competition among us. The Conference is committed to establishing common boundaries to keep athletics strong but in proportion to the overall academic mission of the member institutions..."

   I feel that we would be remiss if we didn't call Trinity on their enormous recruiting advantage over fellow members in the league. They have milked this advantage for all they could while laughably claiming that their recent success is the result of hard work. Such a claim is an insult to the other teams who are forced to compete with a higher level of competition in the classroom in addition to their football commitments. Trinity advantage in the admissions department is an affront to the league's mission and Trinity's rock bottom academic ranking is an embarassment to their alums ( me ) and administration alike.

       Ask any coach in the league if Trinity enjoys a huge advantage by being able to accept students with lower academic criteria and you will receive a resounding "hell, yes!" Trinity's win streak is most broadly explained by this advantage and it points up the need for the league to adopt an academic index so that schools can operate with the mutual trust under which this league was formed. What good does it really do  Trinity athletes knowing that their accomplishments are viewed as dubious, at best, and ill-gotten in the minds of their opponents. The previous coach milked this advantage to the hilt while other league schools were de-emphasizing football. This was a guy who wasn't so much a football coach as he was an opportunist who needed such an advantage in order to have success as a coach. In the process, he brought a group of minor hoodlums and buffoons to campus who made a mockery out the notion that they were first and foremost students. Priore and recently past and present Trinity presidents have brought disgrace to Trinity and its alums for blatently exploiting that advantage while the school's academic reputation plummets. When Trinity pushed him out it was as much a vote against his character as anything else.

         As for Trinity's advantage to consistently take lower-ranked students than any other league school, tips aside, most of Trinity's roster would not be acceptable to any other league school. To suggest that Williams or Amherst  somehow has an edge over Trinity when it comes to recruiting is either  dillusional or disingenuous. Williams and  Amherst  rarely recruit  the same students that apply to Trinity because most Trinity kids can not even be considered for admissions to Amherst or Williams. Even if those schools did recruit from the same pool of students ( they don't ) let me explain something plainly, if you have lower admissions standards than your competition you can accept a larger number of kids than your competition can, not less. Again, even tips aside, there are far more talented football players out there available to Trinity with its lower admissions standards than there are that Amherst and Williams can consider as non-tip athetes. Tips make up a very small % of the team and even Amherst and Williams tips would be accepted as regular students at Trinity so Amherst and Williams can't reach too low even for their tips.

          Finally, if Trinity posters are so eager to prove their point that their success comes about because of hard work ( LOL ) then you should have no problem with a measure to adopt an athletic index to prove your point that they can win playing under the same rules as the rest of the league. My feeling is that these posters would flee like mad from a fair fight. For anybody to take pride in any success gained under such an unequitable conditions is simply pathetic. What's next for you jokers, sneaking into Special Olympics events?  If you truly want league parity, an academic index is the place to start.

   I think you might want to include Amherst in the hunt for the title.  They have a good group of kids at the skill positions.  Biggest Little Game will as usual be the most entertaining game of the season. Congrats to Williams knocking off the league renegades and, most of all, their misguided and out of control admissions office. While congrats are usually in order for team amassing such an impressive winning streak as Trinity, I find little commendable in a team whose ill-gotten "achievements" are largely the result of a standards-free admissions office, while their opponents are forced to toe the line to a higher standard. I'm not just talking about tips which all schools have but the number of tips, and more importantly Trinity's lower overall standards which allow them to admit players in greater numbers than any other league school can admit.  The "parity" I hope the league strives for in the future won't be limited simply to the play on the football field but in the form of an athletic index that insures a more level playing field in general. I feel the league can and should aspire to a higher standard academically with such a measure.

On another note, I came across the following article on Ted Rogers who played at Williams in the early 90's. He may not have played much but has any other guy in the league won a Super Bowl ring as a player?

http://www.williams.edu/athletics/news.php?id=9900