Again, great disappointment in the Panther football program.  Todd Mooney should never have been dismissed and its been a mess since Coach Mooney has left.  Now we have our 3rd head coach in 5 years since Mooney was forced to step down.  Might be an AD problem causing the problems....

NBC Dateline jumped on the story:  Looks like he was still on the MC team when this happened....

https://nbcnews.to/2zF4qaG

Wow.   Just found an article on CBS Sports website that a Maryville College football player was found guilty of killing his ex-girlfriend who was still in high school and a cheerleader.   Here are the links to the story:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/william-riley-gaul-convicted-football-player-found-guilty-of-killing-emma-walker/

https://www.thedailytimes.com/sports/ex-division-iii-player-found-guilty-of-first-degree-murder/article_0f15c8f6-fe16-5cf9-8634-4f60dd29783a.html

https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/crime/2018/05/04/witness-william-riley-gaul-went-bed-after-girlfriend-shot/579590002/

https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/crime/2018/05/08/william-riley-gaul-murder-trial-closing-arguments-jury-deliberations-cheerleader-emma-walker-death/589414002/

USA South board has been very quite for the last 2 months....   Anyone know when Media Day will take place this summer.   Had a good talk with Coach Pardue last week and is doing a great job putting together the 2018 team.   Looks like several transfers coming in will help us out on the defensive side this season.   Will be hard replacing QB Conner Blair who threw for 2800 yards last season.18   Hope the run game will pick up in '18.  What's is looking like for the rest of the conference.....

Making our first trip to Brevard College this season.   What is the town like in Brevard, North Carolina??

Congrats to the Hawks for winning the USA-South Conference championship with a dominant 38-14 win over Maryville.  Went down to the game with my son, a Maryville grad, and saw an inspired, well-coached Huntingdon really controlling the game from start to finish.  Huntingdon's defense gave up some yards between the 20's, but the play-calling and turnovers in the red zone for the Scots really cost them the game.

Huntingdon really got better as the season progressed.  Their only close conference game was against N.C. Wesleyan in week #4.  The last 5 conference wins were really blowout victories.  On the other hand, except for Maryville's blowout win over Ferrum, the Scots barely beat Methodist, Averett and LaGrange.  All bottom conference teams.  The Scots really didn't get better as the season progressed. 

Sitting in the stands, one of the big conversations among the Scots fans is how Maryville had just fired their V.P. for Admissions/Financial Aid and also fired their Financial Aid Director.  It seems that Maryville was giving out way too much in financial aid to their students.

Back to football, really the 2nd best team in the conference is N.C. Wesleyan.  The Battling Bishops have gotten better as the season developed and have won 4 of the last 5 conference games.

So congrats to Coach Turk and the Hawks.  Hope you find great success in the playoffs.

BTW, LaGrange is 2-6 and according to "Ben Stein Fan" is a much better program.......

Quote from: Ben Stein Fan on October 11, 2015, 09:59:10 PM

Quote from: PantherGuy on October 03, 2015, 07:39:05 AM



Look, I know you dislike Coach Mumme for some perceived slight, but you need to grow up and be honest.  If you can't tell an improvement in the overall program at LaGrange since Coach Mumme took over then you are not paying attention.

LaGrange is 2-4.  Today would be a good day for LaGrange to prove me wrong that he has the program going in the right direction by beating Maryville today.

But he is doing better than his dad at Belhaven.  Belhaven is 1-7 this season.

Quote from: Scots13 on October 25, 2015, 12:58:14 PM

Quote from: jknezek on October 25, 2015, 09:04:00 AM
6-1
6-1
2-4
2-5
1-5
3-4
2-5
1-6

Season records for the USASAC so far this year.

I saw that this morning as well. Terrible.

My post from a couple of weeks ago brought out the point that I have concerns about the low respect the USA-South has nationally and why we are in this position.  When my son played at Maryville in the mid-2000's the conference was very strong and talented with CNU, North Carolina Wesleyan, Shenandoah, Ferrum and Averett all very physical teams.  Methodist won the conference during that time.  Presently, CNU and Shenandoah are gone.  Ferrum, Averett and Methodist are only a shell of what they once were.  Maryville joined the conference and spent several years catching up talent-wise to become a #3/#4 solid program in the conference by the end of the decade.

In my opinion, Maryville has the only significant wins by any conference member during this season with a win over a good 5-2 E&H team and beating Berry who is 6-1.  However, they had an embarrassing 24-7 loss to NCW 24-7 who was 0-4 at the time and just barely beat a 1-5 Averett by only 5 points.  They are no longer receiving any votes in the national poll.   Huntingdon, like Maryville, is 6-1 with its only loss to a 4-4 Birmingham Southern team.  Their non-conference wins are over a 1-7 Belhaven and a 2-5 Louisiana College.

Unfortunately, the rest of the conference teams record speaks for itself.

From what I have seen watching my step-son play at LaGrange and finishing up last year, the talent level in the conference is significantly lower than it was 10 years ago throughout the conference.  I don't know if it's because of admissions changes in their schools, financial aid, etc., but there is a big difference.  Maybe, our conference needs to step out and play some of the northern schools and to improve the image of the USA-South on a national level. We need to go to Ohio and Pennsylvania to play some of these teams.  Our conference needs to take a deep look at ourselves and plot a better future for our conference.

After observing the first 4 weeks of the season played against non-conference opponents, the reality is that the USA-South is not a good conference this season.  Our conference was 8-16 during against non-conference teams with Ferrum, LaGrange, Averett and N.C. Wesleyan compiling 0-3 records.  That's 50% of our conference teams. 

With the exception of Maryville's win against Emory & Henry, most of the conference wins were against low-end teams.  (I know much was made against MC's win against East Tennessee, but Emory & Henry beat ETSU 2 weeks later.  In reality ETSU is a JV team with playing with just freshmen and is not better than a low end D-3 team).

Methodist got crushed by Guilford.  Huntingdon lost to Birmingham-Southern for the first time and their 2 wins are against teams who have not won a game this season.  Greensboro's only win was against Gallaudet.

I was expecting good things this season from LaGrange, but we are 0-3 and were favored in all 3 of their losses.   BTW, Air-Mumme's dad at Belhaven, Hal Mumme is 0-4 which makes the Mumme family 0-7 this season.

Why has this been a continued problem for our conference year after year???

Congrats to LaGrange and Coach Wallace on a fantastic season!!!  Our guys showed toughness throughout the season and you are correct "Ben" it was a great matchup between the Panthers and Centre.

I really enjoyed going to the USA-South Championship game at Maryville the week before.  Always fun going back to East Tennessee. It was particularly touching seeing Coach Wallace's mentor, MC Head Coach Randy Lambert, give Wallace a big hug after the game.  Coach Lambert did a great job getting Coach Wallace ready to become a head coach. 

It was, however, ironic the championship was won at Maryville and especially won in front of MC's athletic director Kandis Schram who went out of her way to make Coach Wallace's stay as an assistant coach very difficult.  Maryville has had alot of success despite Schram being their AD and alot of credit has to go to Randy Lambert who was the AD for 20 years before stepping down just to coach basketball.  But you can see Lambert still drives that athletic department.

I spoke with a friend that has a son who is a sophomore on the team.  Many of the players are very disappointed with the Averett administrators and their lack of urgency.  It seems the whole process has been pushed back due to the head of the search committee, AU's volleyball coach, was gone out of the country with his volleyball team in January.  No phone interviews were done until he returned around January 14th.  Additionally, the AD did not take part of the phone interviews because she was out of town at a convention and didn't meet with the committee until she got back around January 20th.

I guess you see what is truly important at Averett.......

Right now they are conducting on-campus interviews and plan to have a coach by the end of next week.

This board use to have several Averett alums that were strong supporters of the Cougars, but seem to just fade away and not care what has happened at AU. 

If I was an alum, I would be pretty upset about what has been taking place over the past 2 months (10 weeks to be exact) and wonder why is it taking so long to decide who their next head football coach is going to be.  To put it into perspective, Emory & Henry coach was dismissed at the same time as Averett's HC and the new coach was hired by Christmas.  Belhaven's coach stepped down around Dec. 28th and hired Hal Mumme, LaGrange's dad, has their head coach 3 weeks later.  LaGrange's head coach was hired within a week after Mooney was forced to step down.  From Division I thru DIII about 95% of the coaching changes has already been filled.

Most of Averett's coaches have been released except for a first year coach and a couple of GA's.  Our coaches never saw any of Averett's coaches at the Georgia recruiting fairs.  So whoever is going to be the new HC, this year's recruiting is going to be a bust.  If they bring in a new coach by Feb 1, it going to take time to put together a staff and will be too late to make any significant happen on the recruiting trail.

But if you look closer at the athletic administration at Averett, you can see why this is happening.  Almost all the administrators are women and the only male administrator is a Volleyball coach.  I am sure they are way over their head.  Hiring a football coach is much different than hiring the next tennis coach.  Just don't see a strong commitment from Averett and their actions are showing it.

Wondering if anyone from Averett agrees or disagrees.  It only seems that Scots13 and I are the only ones wondering about the Cougars.....

Congrats to LB Andre Carter earning All-American honors for the second straight year. Carter was named to the D3football.com All-American second team.  He was a first team selection to the D3football All-South Region team and was the USA South Defensive Player of the Year for the second straight year.

Carter holds school records for total tackles (292), unassisted tackles (181), assisted tackles (111), tackles for loss (47.5) and yards for loss (174).

He will be greatly missed next fall as will Coach Mooney and defensive coordinator Terry Ursin.

I hope someone at LaGrange will tell new coach Mumme to at least shave and get a haircut.  All you got to do is to take a look at his picture at the LaGrange website and starting wondering if this is the image of a head football coach......

Enjoyed reading the article from blountpressrow.com.   Stefan Cooper is really a talented writer and hit a homerun with this article.  I bet Maryville doesn't put this article on their website so their alums could read it.  It's too complimentary to Ierulli and the previous coach, Phil Wilks.  Without a doubt, Maryville's administration did very little to support their football program and only reacted to help out the new coach when the football alums forced them to make changes.  Most of the money was going to the basketball and volleyball programs during the time my first son attend Maryville.  That figures since the 2 athletic directors during Ierulli's tenure was the men's basketball coach and volleyball coach.

All I know is that my son enjoyed playing for Coach Ierulli and appreciates everything he did to help him start his career after Maryville.  He sent a recommendation letter and called his current employer helping him get his first job after graduation.  A couple of years later, Coach and his wife attend my son's wedding.  You are right, Scots13, he is very loyal to his players even after their playing days are over...

Just to follow up on my earlier post, my step-son played at Maryville from 2008-2011 and played on the JV team his first 2 years.  He played in 3 JV games as a freshman.  During his sophomore year, 2009 Maryville played 2 JV games against University of the Cumberlands.  In Division-3, there is no red-shirting unless it is a medical redshirt.

Without a doubt, LB Dylan Wolfbarger played in those JV games which counts as 1 year of eligibility. My step-son played along side of him during those games. Looking at the MC's media guides, Wolfbarger is listed as a freshman in 2009, a sophomore in 2010, and a junior in 2011.  He was a backup as a sophomore and a starter as a junior. That is 3 years of eligibility.

Then, during the coaching transition at Maryville, Wolfbarger was listed as a junior again in 2012.

Wolfbarger started at LB for Maryville in 2012 and 2013.  That's 5 years.....   The word around MC is that documents were changed to get him an extra year.  It seems that the athletic trainer and AD were involved in this.....

Does the NCAA really cares about Division-3 ethics??  Who knows.  But if this is our representative in the playoffs when a team like Methodist seems to do it the right away.  Then we should be concerned.

I wonder if the USA South commissioner will look into this....   Probably not.....