Quote from: Dr. Acula on February 10, 2025, 01:17:21 PMWhile I agree it's a strong hire, thinking the Pios may have upgraded is a bit of a stretch to me at this point.  His predecessor was hired away because he had built the program up and won games.  Maybe Kaufman will continue to elevate the program.  I just don't want to discount what Waddle did there.  There's a reason stuff like that has only happened a couple times in the past 30 years.

Fully agree. Kaufman has a great resume, but Waddle did the heavy lifting of building the program. Hopefully he can build on that success, but it's a lot easier to take over an 8-3 team than a 1-10 team.

Great hire. Reality of today's world is that your first recruiting pitch is your current roster.

Hopkins and WR Jay Melchiori both in the portal. Prevailing opinion is that they may be Valpo bound to join Coach Waddle. But if there's any chance of keeping them, Kaufman should be reaching out ASAP.

There have amazingly been maybe 5-7 Marietta commits to a program without a head coach (hats off to the interim, Tom Hinkle). But Kaufman needs to be hitting the trail today! A lot of ground to make up.

Quote from: D3fanboy on November 08, 2024, 12:38:52 PMMarietta has a fan?

Tell me you've never been to a Marietta sporting event without telling me you've never been to a Marietta sporting event. 

I expect a tight game tomorrow. I think Marietta has the better defense and Mount has the better offense. If I was putting money down, Mount probably wins by 7-10. But like someone else said, a range of outcomes wouldn't surprise me.

With NPI, am I wrong in thinking that Mount (or anyone) has little incentive to schedule challenging teams going forward? It just doesn't seem to be worth the risk.

Under the new selection process, your goal is really just to finish 9-1 or 10-0. The marginal benefit of a "good" vs. "middling" vs. "poor" non-conference opponent seems to be minimal.

Per Logan Hansen's projections, Marietta would be a #7 national seed with winning out. That includes a non-conference win over a likely 3-7 St. John Fisher team. To me, this confirms that - at least in a stronger league like the OAC - your non-conference opponent doesn't need to pack much punch.

Quote from: Onward on, John Carroll on July 15, 2024, 08:57:03 PMI have to challenge the insinuation that JCU is dodging competition. As they did last year, the Streaks are opening the season with Wisconsin Whitewater. If JCU was trying to protect 9-1 and an at-large playoff berth, that would not be the way to do it.

Worth mentioning that the Wisconsin Whitewater series was put in place before the introduction of NPI as the selection criteria. With SOS significantly deemphasized, I'd expect their future schedules to not be seeking opponents of that caliber.

Quote from: Dr. Acula on July 17, 2024, 11:31:09 AMIf my memory of the video JCU put out was correct, the move was based more on aligning with schools they viewed as a better fit academically and to consistently draw students from a wider geographic area in the future.  JCU probably already consistently draws from the largest geographic area of the OAC schools due to the parochial pipeline so they must have ambitions to extend that even wider.

Having worked in academia for decades, the last thing you'd ever want to take at face value is a university press release. Sure, that is the "official" reason. However, if you don't believe football is a significant factor, I've got some oceanfront property in University Heights for you.

Strong chance to go to the football playoffs every year + Improved academic peers = Win/Win

Quote from: pradierguy on February 21, 2024, 04:58:50 PMWould love for a Mount/JCU/WIAC/CCIW agreement for a rotating powerhouse matchup slate. Far fetched, I am sure.

How about a Mount/Linfield Home & Home?

Ferrum it is! 

In all seriousness, it will be interesting to see the non-conference scheduling strategies moving forward around the OAC.

With the current NCAA SOS calculations, you are better off playing top teams from bad leagues than actually playing powerhouse schools. JCU would have been in the playoffs last year if they had scheduled (and beaten) someone like Hanover or Rose-Hulman as opposed to taking Whitewater to the brink.

Quote from: Raider 68 on February 20, 2024, 08:41:30 PMAs many have read about JCU moving to the NCAC in 2025, I am wondering who could join the OAC going forward if any school.

If they are going to stay in Ohio, the only viable option would be Mount St. Joseph. Would place another school in the SW corner of Ohio. They have been very competitive in football recently, good in several other sports too (volleyball, women's hoops).

Quote from: bleedpurple on December 17, 2023, 08:19:57 PMI actually think the term "offer" does apply. It's D-III, so obviously it's not an athletic scholarship. But would not a guaranteed roster spot still be an "offer"?  Maybe it's not for UHMB because of the number of student athletes the team carries. But at UW-W where our number has been limited to around 107, a guaranteed roster spot for a freshman actually does carry some (non-monetary) value.

Interesting discussion. You see this on Twitter sometimes where random fans or D2 supporters get oddly upset about the word "offer" for D3.

To me, it's extremely silly to think that the term "offer" doesn't apply. If you know anything about D3 recruiting, coaches work their absolute rear ends off to land kids. And, if you're not being recruited, you're not going to be playing intercollegiate athletics.

The thought of someone just randomly showing up on campus to try out is not how it works in 99.9% of cases. Maybe it was that way in the 1970s. But nowadays, kids are recruited by certain schools, offered a roster spot and you commit from there. D3 isn't all that different from D1 or D2 in that respect, just that there isn't an athletic scholarship attached.

Also, it's worth noting, many of the D2 and FCS commits that you see have no scholarship or very minimal money attached. D2 only allows 36 scholarships to be divided among the 100+ athletes. Many guys are getting nothing or "peanuts".

Quote from: The Third Division on February 20, 2024, 09:59:20 AMNow Mount Union will never lose the OAC!!!

The power vacuum will be filled by someone, it's just a question of who. Mount isn't just going to beat everyone by 50 and waltz into the playoffs. Each season, there will likely be a few schools capable of competing.

There was a lot of "buzzword bingo" in the official release from JCU. No doubt, the academic profile of the NCAC played a role. However, certainly not every school in the NCAC would be considered academically elite. The overall profiles of Hiram, Wittenberg and OWU are very similar to the OAC. JCU is currently much closer to them than the Denison, Kenyon, Oberlin tier.

As much as some might argue against it, you can't tell me that football didn't play a significant element in this decision. JCU, at its core, is a football school. They are most notable for their numerous alumni in the NFL. Their new AD is a football alumni who has spent his career as a D1 college football coach. Moving to the NCAC clearly allows for easier access to the playoffs in football, allowing them the best shot at a national title.

Add in the academic angle, and it was an easy sell to the university administration.

I feel as though almost any OAC school would have considered this opportunity, given the chance at easier access to the postseason and getting to associate yourself with top-shelf academic schools.

FYI - Mount Union will open next season with Ferrum: https://ferrumpanthers.com/sports/football/schedule/2024

They were 3-7 this season and 1-9 the season before.

Close shaves today for Mount Union and JCU. Marietta was also down at halftime before pulling away from Wilmington. The cliche about "no easy nights in the OAC" certainly seems to hold true this season.

Berg is probably the most consistent team right now, at least in conference play. Two big wins over Marietta and @Otterbein to their credit.

Still waiting to get a great read at where JCU stands at the moment. Besides a quality PSU-Harrisburg squad, there's not much on that schedule to date. Will be curious if Wilmington can push them next weekend. Quakers have some athletes!

I feel like some underrated how important Mansfield was to Mount last season. He took them from a very good team to an elite one. Poole also helped to stretch the defense and take the attention off of Parker. Mount will still be top 4 in the OAC, but I feel like between Marietta, Heidelberg and them - there may not be that much separation. Capital and Otterbein will have something to say about that too.

This is the total athletics spending by school, per the EADA reports. While some schools may spend disproportionally more on football (like Mount, I would imagine), this is probably a better overall comparison. Some schools have much higher "not allocated" expenses compared to others, much of which probably goes towards football in one manner or another. For example, some schools may lump all travel into "not allocated", while others break it down by sport.

Ohio Northern - $5,278,248
Baldwin Wallace - $4,659,646
John Carroll - $3,956,466
Mount Union - $3,853,504
Marietta - $3,545,882
Muskingum - $3,284,053
Otterbein - $2,992,563
Capital - $2,792,461
Heidelberg - $2,138,483
Wilmington - $2,017,584

Two things that are somewhat surprising from the list - how much more ONU spends compared to anyone else, and how low Heidelberg is despite having success in most major sports.