As for last week's Whittier game at Citrus -- The Poets have some skill.  The numbers may not show it, but Sausau did well.  He burned APU's corners a few times with some great throws.  The o-line needs help.  They didn't offer Sausau much time and he was under the gun all night.  Tillman is good -- very good at running back.  He didn't have holes but he created opportunities.  He earned all his yards with great cutbacks and speed.  He's going to have a great season.  It's hard to judge the defense against that APU offense.  Whittier won't see another offense like that this year.  The transfers are a definite help.  Whittier is a lock for at least four wins this year, maybe five.  If they get a few breaks along they way, six wins is not out of the question.

On a side note, Whittier's offensive coordinator needs help, or needs to be fired.  He is an embarrassment to the school.  Everyone in the stands could hear his comments from the press box.  Either he's 12 years old or he has some social disorders that need to be addressed by the college's administration. 

I enjoy your banter of trying to pin me to this school or that school, even though I've given you enough hints to have figured it out and yet you miss each time.

And by the way Mr CLU fan, what makes you think that the SCIAC is so thrilled to have the renegade program from Thousand Oaks.  You should be ecstatic you have conference affiliation.

There's an implication in an earlier post that with Oxy, UR and CLU the SCIAC is a good football conference. 

Really?  Since when? 

What's the SCIAC's alltime DIII postseason record?

It's a bad football conference.  A bad athletic conference, period.

Okay, I'll do some research.  And since none of you would offer, I called APU today and asked them to fax me their all-time results. 

Here's what I found out.  Cal Lutheran could not have dropped Azusa Pacific because of Christian Okoye, as someone suggested.  Despite Okoye rushing for nearly 250, Cal Lutheran still won the game by three TDs, and in the years to come they beat APU 5 more times.

La Verne beat Azusa Pacific 47-7 in 1994 and then 51-17 in 1995.  Numbers like those belie the notion about APU scholarship dollars giving them a significant advantage.   I see that APU did beat Redlands, 56-30, in 2000 and hasn't played them since, so perhaps all of you are onto something about Redlands ducking Linfield.

None of you have adequately explained how it does no good for a SCIAC team to play APU.  You just keep repeating the same nonsensical line without any reasoning.  I've offered two valid reasons why they should play:  1) It allows students and faculty/staff to enjoy more local games, and athletics exists first and foremost at DIII for the school.  2) It's fiscally irresponsible, particularly in today's economy, to spend that kind of money on a football game.

And if it's so important to travel today for the sake of recruiting, why weren't SCIAC teams traveling as much 15 years ago.  What culture changed?  Oh yes, the postseason suddenly became important to the SCIAC.  Please, one of you enlightened people spend the time to research what a stellar postseason record the SCIAC has compiled in football since 1982.  Spending all the travel money where 30 parents go along and one recruit gets his dream wish to play in Salem, Oregon, has paid off ever so handsomely for the SCIAC postseason endeavors.

I could care less about APU's schedule challenges.  My focus is more on why SCIAC teams don't play them anymore (oh I forgot, "they don't need to").  When doing my "research" as you demanded, and I received some historical information from APU, I did ask one official as to why they didn't play SCIAC teams any more.  His response was that they would like to but for some reason the SCIAC schools have stopped, and three of them (Whittier, La Verne and Chapman – included in the list), went so far as to cancel signed contracts to get out of games. 

Finally, yes I do have many years of collegiate administrative experience in the SCIAC, more than most of you have been alive.  I know what I speak of, and my request is sincere.  Justify, if you can, why all the small liberal arts colleges in Southern California aren't playing each other in football.

Well after reading several of your responses, I've come to realize I was wrong.

I thought it was Azusa Pacific that ran from the SCIAC teams, but by what is being said on here, it was the SCIAC teams that ran.

I don't buy the argument that those regional games are good for alumni and "parents travel well."  Football, and any collegiate sport, exists first and foremost for the students and faculty/staff in order to create and enhance community on campus, then the parents and alumni matter after that.  It doesn't do the students and faculty/staff any good for a small college to blow a significant amount of $$$ so that 55 guys can travel out of the area to play a football game where there are ample opponents in the area.  That's just poor fiscal responsibility.

I also don't buy the argument from OxyBob that it helps recruiting.  Oxy has one Oregon player on the team, and if I read you right, Oxy has never been to Washington but has 9 appleheads on their team.  Oxy isn't getting the bang for its buck, or your logic is flawed.  Or maybe both.

Finally, since when was the SCIAC so interested in the postseason that it's dropping serious bank to fly all over and play patsies.  What is the SCIAC's collective postseason record in football?  Not good.  Might as well stay in Southern California so the students, faculty/staff and even the president can attend the games.

I've come to the conclusion that SCIAC football coaches have an incestious relationship, and maybe the ADs and presidents are all in on it too.  It's too bad. It only hurts the SCIAC and enhances everyone's opinion in the DIII world that the SCIAC is a poor athletic conference.  To steal a line from someone on here, I don't know why SCIAC schools have football.

I'm confused by Scandi's post about why the SCIAC team don't play APU:

If the SCIAC teams "don't need to" play APU then why do WIAC teams, East Texas Baptist, Whitworth, and Willamette play them all in the past 3 years? 

The SCIAC champ now has an automatic berth into the playoffs, how does playing APU hurt us?  We're not about to get two teams into the playoffs, are we?  WIAC people say there's no way SCIAC would get 2 teams in.

I don't understand the reasoning to spend $15,000 to $20,000 to travel to Washington,  Oregon, Colorado or Texas instead of playing APU locally so students, faculty/staff and parents can watch more of our games.

APU people say that they've always had up to 13 scholarships and SCIAC teams used to play them all the time.  In fact, one APU official told me that a particular SCIAC coach told them that they would always play APU as long as he was at this SCIAC school, and he's still there but not playing APU.

I posed this question to someone from the Northwest Conference as well and their response was that the SCIAC always runs from good competition, that no one in the SCIAC would play them either.

I'm not saying we need to go to the Northwest, but you're having a hard time proving to me why the SCIAC isn't playing APU, if its nothing more than to pad the schedule with easy but expensive wins that none of our fans get to see. 

I just got back from the Azusa Pacific-UW La Crosse game.  Great game that came down to the end, that APU won 13-10.

Can someone tell me why Azusa Pacific doesn't play any SCIAC teams anymore?  I used to go those APU-SCIAC games back in the 1980s and 1990s, but now there aren't any.  Chapman is not even on the schedule, and I remember those early Chapman squads blasting the Cougars. 

Just seems odd to me that APU is playing two DIII teams from Wisconsin and anothter from Texas (East Texas Baptist) but no SCIAC.  Why are they spending all that money to fly all over when La Verne is 10 miles away, the Claremont schools are less than 15 miles away, Whittier and Oxy are probably 20 miles away and Redlands/Cal Lutheran are probably 40 miles?