On the positive side, I did hear that Amherst has buses procured for the trip to Midd. So at least they have that going for them.

Middlebury is a three hour drive from Amherst and the game starts at 2:00pm.  I don't think hotel rooms are required, just a 9:00am departure time.  But buses are important.  Hopefully they can figure that one out.

I concur with NESCACFball24/7's point, that NESCAC practice restrictions could be a shock to many recruits, especially from states outside NE like FL/GA/TX.  Over the summer FL high school players, for example, have mandatory practice, lifts, and film five days a week.  They also typically play weekly, coach-supervised 7v7 against other programs.  Spring football is six weeks and typically includes a live, officiated game against another program.  A college program that is limited to 12 weeks annually (three weeks pre-season, nine-game season) represents roughly 40% of what these kids are accustomed to.  This is to say nothing about the lack of playoff opportunity at the end of the regular season, which is the ultimate focus for virtually every high school program in the country.  I understand it's partially the unique culture of the NESCAC, but many of these 17 year-old recruits have already learned the virtue of year-round commitment in the pursuit of a team goal.  And this virtue does not seem incompatible with the educational missions of NESCAC schools.

Another issue raised recently is the delay of the beginning the pre-read date.  I do think this could have a negative impact on NESCAC programs, particularly if other D-III programs such as Johns Hopkins, U Chicago, Wash U, Carnegie Mellon, MIT, etc. can offer a recruit a "highly likely" indication months before the NESCACs can.  As a practical matter, if a recruit has an "highly likely" from, say, JHU over the summer and can't get an equivalent indication from Williams or Amherst until mid/late September, all JHU needs to do is make the offer exploding at the end of August.  I assume 10 out of 10 kids would take that bird-in-hand and enjoy getting to work on their ED application months earlier and before their regular season begins.  Seems like a policy to reduce the summer workload for admission officers to the detriment of getting kids with other options (presumably the ones we want) to apply to NESCAC schools.