Any ideas of what O linemen and D linemen will make the all NESCAC team? I know forth from Williams and Perry from Middlebury are guaranteed selections.

How about the frisky kitties taking down middlebury. I can't wait to hear what the NESCAC legend has to say about this after magically appearing on the boards last week.

Quote from: Nescacman on October 01, 2024, 07:26:20 PM

Quote from: Trin9-0 on October 01, 2024, 04:49:13 PM

Quote from: The Third Division on September 29, 2024, 01:03:25 PMI don't follow the NESCAC very much but I have to ask this one question. If bates is a team which beat a team which beat a team which were conference co-champions, is it indicative of this being the most random conference in d3 football?

In my opinion it's quite the opposite; I think the NESCAC is wildly predictable (at least over the last 20+ years). Trinity has been pretty much a lock to either win it all or finish in second place, which they've done for 18 of the last 21 seasons (winning the NESCAC championships 11 times and finishing as runner-up 7 times); all while winning 86% of their games over that span.

A second tier of Amherst, Williams, and Middlebury have all taken turns as the most likely challenger. Amherst has 6 titles and 3 runner-up finishes. Williams and Middlebury have won five championships apiece and claim 5 and 3 second place finishes respectively. Their win percentages are 72% for Amherst, 64% for Williams, and 70% for Middlebury.

Wesleyan has recently risen to contender status, but a 57% win percentage with one co-title and a pair of runner-up finishes puts them closer to Colby who has the same hardware but a win percentage of only 43%. The high mark for Tufts is a lone second place finish and a 46% win percentage. Then there's Bates, Bowdoin, and Hamilton who are the clear bottom third with win percentages of 26%, 25% and 23% respectively and just six winning records between the three programs since at least 2000.

Sure, there are the occasional shocking upsets like the Bates win in Middletown on Saturday (more on that in a moment) but overall the league is very predictable on an annual basis and has been for decades.


The Bates win over the Cards is truly a shocking upset (even by recent Wes standards). Sure, as many posters have noted, Wesleyan always seems to lose a head-scratcher. Indeed, unless the frisky kitties go on a run, it's likely to be Wesleyan's fourth loss in the past 6 seasons to a team who finishes with a losing record.

2024 - Loss 24-13 to Bates who is currently 1-2.
2023 - Lost 20-13 at Colby who finished 3-6.
2022 - Lost 28-26 at Bowdoin who finished 3-6.
2018 - Loss 33-29 to Hamilton who finished 3-5.

However, Bates was riding an 11 game losing streak and hadn't scored more than a touchdown in their any of their past six contests. Not to mention the game being in Middletown, where the Cards have played well in recent memory, and the fact that Wes had already disposed of Midd and Tufts. Add in that it was a double digit margin of victory for the Bobcats and I'm left just as dumbfounded as the computer model which predicted Wesleyan would win 40-0.

Great post Hs9-o and congratulations on the success of the Hartford State Football Program, really amazing. No doubt something that you all should be very proud of. We're sure many of our fellow Boardsters are very envious of the Bantam's success. We also appreciate how humble the Hartford State universe is. Obviously, this success should not at all be surprising to NESCAC fans given Hartford State's almost exclusive focus on their football program compared to other sports.

The Directors Cup is awarded annually to the top collegiate athletic programs by division and has been awarded since 1995. The "Cup" has been awarded for 27 years (no awards in 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 due to COVID). In those 27 years, Hartford State's highest finish was 34th and in the last 10 years, they have perpetually finished near the bottom of the NESCAC Directors Cup standings and finished dead last in the league as recently as 2021-2022.

Meanwhile, 3 NESCAC schools have won the Directors Cup nationally: Williams an amazing 22 times, Middlebury once, and Tufts once. In last year's national rankings Willams was 2nd, Tufts was 4th, and Middlebury was 6th. The NESCAC has historically been one of, if not the top-rated overall D3 athletic conference in the country, based on these rankings which are an excellent proxy for overall program wide athletic success.

How have our beloved Cards done in the Directors Cup? 42nd last year and they have finished ahead of the Bantams each of the last 7 years. They have finished in the top 50 nationally in the last 6 rankings finishing as high as 14th in 2018-2019. They did finish last in 2014-2015 but that was during a period of transition at Wesleyan.

Let's keep things in perspective. We're sure if other schools in the conference were devoting as many institutional resources towards football as HS, they might have similar success.

Excuses