Quote from: pradierguy on November 12, 2022, 04:38:03 PM

Quote from: hsbsballcoach7 on November 12, 2022, 04:35:40 PM

Quote from: pradierguy on November 12, 2022, 04:22:36 PM
Legitimately shocked Mount didn't call a RB screen on the Hail Mary play. Seems like it's the only play on the call sheet.

Hate to say it, but this staff, this team, and Plunk ain't it. Long for the days of a QB who can sling it.

Dummy question here, but why didn't Mount return the kick? I feel like they easily would've gotten to the 40-45 or more.

Assuming to save time on the clock?

Hilarious the "taking a photo in the endzone" penalty cost the flaming pile. BW gonna BW.

How much did it, though? Mount started that drive at the 26. A fair catch on a kick-off starts them at the 25. Given the way the last play played out, would the extra yard have mattered?

Quote from: pradierguy on November 12, 2022, 04:22:36 PM
Legitimately shocked Mount didn't call a RB screen on the Hail Mary play. Seems like it's the only play on the call sheet.

Hate to say it, but this staff, this team, and Plunk ain't it. Long for the days of a QB who can sling it.

Or worse, that way-too-long-too-develop RB-draw.

Maybe the confidence was shot since the receivers wanted to drop everything easy today. Not the biggest fan of Plunk, but it is hard to be successful when the when you eat about 10 drops, and one turns into a pick.

I am not sure what is going on with this entire iteration of Mount Union (the Dartt/Plunk era so far), but it is definitely looking like #14 is not in the cards until there are significant changes: Personnel, Attitude, Strength and Conditioning. Improvement needs to happen across the board. If this team manages to make a deep run, I would be more willing to attribute it to the entire division being down and someone having to win rather than Mount just being good.

Shame, because I am rooting for Dartt hard.

Quote from: BillyRayJimBob on November 12, 2022, 04:15:57 PM

Quote from: D3fanboy on November 12, 2022, 03:43:13 PM
what a horribly called game offensively for the Raiders.  zero creativity, unbelievably predictable

"Horrible" is far less than descriptive of this team performance.

Absolutely correct. This is ridiculous...

And a tip ball to Wayne Ruby, who has been quiet all day, comes up with the biggest play of his career! And then is literally crushed by his own teammates. I hope he is going to be ok...

Poor Yellow Jackets. They deserved this win.

Quote from: Kira & Jaxon's Dad on January 11, 2022, 11:02:50 AM

Quote from: Pat Coleman on January 11, 2022, 09:41:12 AM

Quote from: Dr. Acula on January 11, 2022, 09:24:08 AM

Quote from: Kira & Jaxon's Dad on January 11, 2022, 07:06:54 AM
I've seen on Twitter that at least two QBs have entered the transfer portal from Mount Union (Todd Simonds-now at Brockport and Zach Herrera-just yesterday).

Cause for concern?

I think I remember another younger QB (Noah Beaudrie) getting some playing time this season, so it might just be a sign of the times with guys wanting to get playing time elsewhere.

Beaudrie was a freshman and did get some time on varsity.  He's a dual threat guy and looked good in his limited action.  I'd like to see him stick around because he looked like someone that could develop into a nice QB.

Mount has had guys transfer out before but I don't remember them doing much at their new schools. Am I forgetting anyone?

They had a QB transfer to Walsh a few years ago also.  Same time as Poorman/Fulford competition.

I guess they've had QBs transfer out in the past. Maybe it is more noticeable now with Twitter and the Transfer Portal.

Dom Davis, I believe. He was the 3rd-stringer in 2016 who played in the Semi-Final. I think Dom transferred before the 2017 season started, and Poorman transferred after.

A QB room with a bunch of guys the same year has to be rough, because once one wins the job, they are hard to unseat, and the heir apparent that is younger than the group (Plunk in this case) is likely to get the development reps at the end of games.

Quote from: D3fanboy on January 05, 2022, 11:45:04 AM

Quote from: Kira & Jaxon's Dad on January 05, 2022, 11:40:27 AM

Quote from: Pat Coleman on January 05, 2022, 11:07:07 AM
That Defiance game is going to be ugly.

Scrimmage vs W&J will be more competitive.

scrimmaging the JV squad would give the Raiders 1's a better test.  Horribly scheduled game that will crush Mount's SOS in '22.  Hopefully UWW or NCC drops a regular season game, or Mount will be on the road for the semis....well, maybe.

If everyone plays the same number of playoff games (thus faces equal chances to be eliminated, however unlikely), holds serve, and Mount Union makes it that far, they travel to UMHB or NCC if that is who they got matched up against. Possibly UWW, too, but that is where SoS would bite them. The only reason Mount hosted last year was because NCC played 1 less playoff game, which apparently mattered more to the NCAA for the sake of hosting because they did not think it was a "tie" anymore.

I just hope the NCAA keeps that same energy when it does not favor Mount or folks are going to be apoplectic. Me included, because that's egg on my face for saying the decision made a small amount of sense.

Quote from: WRMUalum13 on December 11, 2021, 03:58:53 PM

Quote from: HScoach on December 11, 2021, 03:18:19 PM
30 mph winds + Pouring down rain + 17 rushing attempts = loss

Granted we were spoiled for decades by LK's mastermind, but that's not a winning game plan.  And we all knew that mid-week.

Nor is that caliber of QB play.  If Plunk was scared to take a hit against NCC, what would he have looked like against the quality of athlete that UWW or MHB bring.

Oh well, I get to attend the Stagg next week as a casual observer.

The lack of running is kinda wild when you consider both our backs average over 5 yards a carry. This was always a pass first offense though. Again, I think the missing component was the read option from the QB, I think adding that element makes this offense work much better.

Something we all have been saying since the Spring season. This offense was/is not only missing something as far as rhythm, but also missing something to make the defense think about. Hard to run read-option if 98% of the time everyone can just key on the RB.

Quote from: pradierguy on December 11, 2021, 02:58:50 PM
Congrats to NCC. Much deserved win! Rooting for them next week.

Mount's D, IMO, did a good enough job to get a W. The offense, QB play, and coaching were extremely lackluster to me. Obviously a high end, quality opponent can bring out the worst in a team, but they did themselves no favors whatsoever. Really disappointed as a Mount fan/alum.

Side note - NCC's QB gives me serious Kevin Burke vibes. That's a quality football player right there who will be winning ring(s) and other hardware over the next 4 years.

Congratulations to the Cardinals on a well-earned Win! I would have hoped the Raiders would have not played so scared on a couple possessions, but running for almost 300 on a team that would prefer you try and beat them running the ball is just tip-your-cap worthy. Well Done!

Quote from: WRMUalum13 on December 10, 2021, 10:53:57 PM

Quote from: USee on December 10, 2021, 10:05:14 PM
D3.com operates like most press operate, better actually. If you generally  looking for media to sell feel good stuff you haven't looked at mainstream media in a long time. People do what sells. D3 guys do more than that actually. I have been on here since it was just an eastern conference board and I agree with 02, if there is a team with more positive coverage than Mt Union I'd love to see the proof.

The reality is someone threw their rattle out of the crib when D3.Com covered a story that should have been covered, and exactly how they covered it because they didn't like the implications of the coverage.  Everyone outside of Alliance believes that (and probably a fair number inside Alliance). And trust me, I understand both sides as my school was the in the epicenter of some much more serious stuff a few years back and I had some opinions then that I aired to the brass privately, but I was set straight after I got over my emotional attachment.

I have an appreciation for the staff on here, especially beyond Pat, guys like Frank Rossi, Greg Thomas, Keith McMillian, etc. Those guys take their role seriously, do their homework, and provide outstanding coverage of the D3 football world.

Most schools/organizations embrace the media, understand how they work, and use it to their advantage. They are not always your friends, and shouldn't be. But having a strong working relationship definitely has a mutual benefit.

As a Mount Union alum, I think D3fb.com has consistently provided adequate and high quality coverage of my alma mater's football program. Keep up the good work Pat & Co.

I am not an alum, but I concur. I actually appreciate more that they cover the rest of d3 so I can at least try and keep up. I may think their coverage of the Raiders is vanilla unless its about a shortcoming or failure, but it is still high-quality vanilla, and, Pat, I sincerely apologize if I implied anything less. D3 has not missed a beat even without a working relationship from the other party. That takes effort and deserves acknowledgement.

Even if I did not feel that way, this is their work. If I have a problem with it, that is entirely a me problem, and if I could not fix it, me proverbially ending up on the back of a milk carton would be beneath the notice of everyone else here.

Quote from: USee on December 10, 2021, 05:06:37 PM
To be clear, I was saying "opinions" run both ways. I have no doubt D3.com has supported Mt Union consistently over the years and they are just bitter about what they perceived as negative coverage related to one incident and decided to "blackball" the D3.com staff.

They are the only team in the country with that approach. I think it's terribly short-sighted and only hurts their program longer term.

Support? Really? My observation has been that they talk about Mount only when necessary and only seem to put any energy into it when the Raiders lose, come close to it, or want to press to get information on negative stories. Anything positive is spoken in a sense of, "Death, Taxes, Mount Union winning, and a bunch of other things we don't like to talk about but have to acknowledge." It is how D3.com wants (and is entitled) to handle its business, and as long as they not obnoxiously obvious with it, I am actually a fan; it means the expectation is for Mount Union to be successful, and failures to meet that standard are more noteworthy. To be honest, they are really just giving the majority of followers what they want (Who outside of Alliance or not directly benefitting from Mount Union's success wants to see the Raiders do anything positive, damn near ever? Don't worry, I'll wait.). The rest of us can either choose to deal with it or kick rocks. Mount Union simply choose the latter.

I do not think D3.com or Mount Union is hurting for missing the other, though. D3 does not need Mount Union directly: just their fans. If Mount Union needs or has anything to gain through publicity with d3, at all, then they are in much bigger trouble than any of us thinks. I am not sure how the two groups not playing nice would hurt the program in the longer term. If you would share it, I am interested in how you think that is.

Quote from: wally_wabash on December 10, 2021, 03:53:01 PM

Quote from: WRMUalum13 on December 10, 2021, 03:07:39 PM
I wonder if this is the first "quick hits" article where mount was unanimously picked to lose?

I believe QH unanimously picked UMHB to win the 2016 semifinal.

So it was, and only 1 of them even had it as a close game. From the 09Dec2016 blog post:
Keith:   35-17
Ryan:   44-33
Pat:      35-20
Adam:  38-20
Frank:  52-37
Josh:    31-28

With the Raiders down to their 3rd QB that year, this one should have come to me sooner.

If the game we get tomorrow is anything like the game we got in 2016 against these predictions, we are in for a fight.

Quote from: Kira & Jaxon's Dad on December 10, 2021, 12:27:30 PM
The D3 Braintrust are all picking NCC:

Keith:   42-20
Ryan:   31-24
Pat:      41-27
Adam:  31-27
Frank:  37-24
Greg:   38-20

https://d3football.com/notables/2021/12/quick-hits-playoffs-week15

I am surprised Keith picked the widest margin. I figured a couple others would have relished taking the opportunity to credibly pick the Raiders to lose by 3 scores. 4/6 did pick them to eat their worst loss since 2014, at least. To be fair, so did I (on the CCIW board). I might be moved into moving a few points here-and-there depending on what I had for lunch, but I still would pick Mount to use by double-digits (just 10 instead of 14).

I do not recall any previous Quick Hits where Mount has been unanimously picked to lose. If the Raiders manage to make the Braintrust 0-fer on Saturday, they would likely be picked to unanimously lose 2 weeks in a row, which I am comfortable saying has never happened.

Quote from: HAMBO on December 10, 2021, 01:40:07 PM
I like your predictions and hope you are correct. I have the following questions for you:
1.  When was the last time Mt U had 52 points scored against them?
2.  Do you think that the winner of this game will be the eventual champ?
3.  What are your thoughts about Millikin naming Carlton Hall their next head football coach? (we need a little diversification on this board ... lol)

1. 2019: gave up 59 against NCC. Before that? 2013: 59 to Wesley, 40 to NCC, and 52 to UWW in consecutive weeks. The fact they have given up 35 and 29 in consecutive weeks before Saturday is disconcerting to Raider fans.
2. If NCC wins, I think they will be favored. UMU will be an underdog to both.
3. Like with any coach, it will be interesting to see if Hall can bring them up to be consistently competitive with the teams that are the class of the conference. Wheaton and NCC are very high bars, though.

Quote from: WRMUalum13 on December 06, 2021, 10:00:04 AM

To CMUs defense I believe they had near 100% vaccination rate, not sure there's much else they could have reasonably done to avoid Covid.

Then I feel bad for them (we can all agree that COVID can stick it where the sun doesn't shine), and still believe that however the no-contest was resolved should not have upturned the apple-cart the way it did.

Quote from: Next Man Up on December 06, 2021, 02:04:37 AM

Quote from: archgemini24 on December 05, 2021, 11:41:06 PM

Quote from: wally_wabash on December 05, 2021, 08:04:51 PM

Some version of "why does Mount Union always get to host every game in playoffs" comes up multiple times, in multiple places every year.  My answer has always been some version of "because they earned it by going  undefeated and advancing farther than everybody else in the tournament- if teams want to not have to play a quarterfinal or semifinal game in Alliance, then you have to beat them in a tournament and take that privilege away."  North Central did that.  They did the thing that for the last ten years we've understood to be the key to earning home field advantage.  And then this. 

I've got nothing here.  The understanding for 10 years has been to the victor go the the spoils.  North Central were the victors and, today at least, no spoils.  This isn't how this was supposed to work.  I hope we'll understand how we got here.

From the Twitter feed that Frank Rossi posted with the NCAA's rationale, I think our understanding of tiebraker is still accurate and applicable, but the NCAA did not think the teams were in anything near a tie (UMU is 13-0 vs. D3 with 6 RRO wins and NCC is 12-0 vs. D3 with 5 RRO wins and a NC) at this point. Do not get me wrong: I disagree with said rationale and do not think one game (and a likely blowout, at that) should make a difference. If they have implemented tiebreakers and other... messages of the numbers before to make things make intuitive sense, would it have been appropriate to do so here, even if their formula and numbers say Mount should host?

Would we have preferred if they said, "UMU played 13 games and thus had more of a risk to lose and be eliminated by playing an additional playoff game so the formula says they should be awarded the home game because we are not in a tie-break situation, anymore (effectively what they said), but our gut says not to make the undefeated champs travel even if they played less games, so NCC hosts (the add-on part they didn't say, but we hoped they would)."? Or is that stiffing Mount Union even though they played by all the rules (rules that we were just reminded we do not fully know).

Has this ever been a point of contention between two teams in the playoffs before to have a precedent?

NCC played less games only because some members of the team they were supposed to play got Covid. This certainly wasn't NCC's fault. They didn't give Carnegie Mellon Covid. But NCC has to be punished because the other team contracted Covid
Where is either the sense or fairness in that? We always hear the NCAA saying "it's all about the STUDENT-ATHLETES." But how is making the undefeated defending National Champion travel because one of their opponents got Covid and couldn't play, about the student-athletes? Seems like it's really about who the NCAA wants it to be about which in this case is anything but any student-athletes from Naperville.

And of course Mount played by all the rules. And NCC didn't?

If the sticking point is NCC playing one less game, which was evidently termed a "cancellation," due to the other team being unable to play, why not call it a forfeit rather than a cancellation, and award a W to the team that did not forfeit? (which I believe is the usual practice when a game is forfeited).

Lastly, I've read that Mount officials were stunned when they found out they were awarded the game. This doesn't relay the impression that they had been actively lobbying for the game because they believed they had irrefutable reasons why they deserved the game. Seems that right there the question of hosting should have been settled. Sorry, but this whole thing just doesn't make sense.

I agree, and think we were all shocked to find out Mount was hosting! So I have said it in plain English: North Central should be hosting. I DMed you with why I think this happened (the expanded version of what I originally posted), but I (all of us?) would rather have heard the rationale leading to the Cardinals hosting than the Raiders. At this point, we have had almost two years to deal with how COVID works and spreads, so not making the game because of it (especially knowing what we do now about how much that game matters) should have been a forfeit, or whatever gets a Win assigned to North Central.

I apologize any of my post came across as a knock on the Cardinals. They ALSO did everything the NCAA asked them to do, as well as did what we all have asked other teams to do when establishing what we understand as the tiebreakers - win/make the Stagg Bowl and go undefeated the following year.

Like K&J's Dad said, Mount Union probably put in a token request to host, because every team is going to go through that motion. I highly doubt they were expecting to hear a "yes."

All that said: the Cardinals have been there before and won. They can do it again, and probably will: my (unfortunate to me) prediction is 35-21 Cardinals.

Quote from: wally_wabash on December 05, 2021, 08:04:51 PM

Some version of "why does Mount Union always get to host every game in playoffs" comes up multiple times, in multiple places every year.  My answer has always been some version of "because they earned it by going  undefeated and advancing farther than everybody else in the tournament- if teams want to not have to play a quarterfinal or semifinal game in Alliance, then you have to beat them in a tournament and take that privilege away."  North Central did that.  They did the thing that for the last ten years we've understood to be the key to earning home field advantage.  And then this. 

I've got nothing here.  The understanding for 10 years has been to the victor go the the spoils.  North Central were the victors and, today at least, no spoils.  This isn't how this was supposed to work.  I hope we'll understand how we got here.

From the Twitter feed that Frank Rossi posted with the NCAA's rationale, I think our understanding of tiebraker is still accurate and applicable, but the NCAA did not think the teams were in anything near a tie (UMU is 13-0 vs. D3 with 6 RRO wins and NCC is 12-0 vs. D3 with 5 RRO wins and a NC) at this point. Do not get me wrong: I disagree with said rationale and do not think one game (and a likely blowout, at that) should make a difference. If they have implemented tiebreakers and other... messages of the numbers before to make things make intuitive sense, would it have been appropriate to do so here, even if their formula and numbers say Mount should host?

Would we have preferred if they said, "UMU played 13 games and thus had more of a risk to lose and be eliminated by playing an additional playoff game so the formula says they should be awarded the home game because we are not in a tie-break situation, anymore (effectively what they said), but our gut says not to make the undefeated champs travel even if they played less games, so NCC hosts (the add-on part they didn't say, but we hoped they would)."? Or is that stiffing Mount Union even though they played by all the rules (rules that we were just reminded we do not fully know).

Has this ever been a point of contention between two teams in the playoffs before to have a precedent?