Quote from: cardinal773 on July 25, 2024, 05:47:08 AMProbably more intriguing is NC QUADRUPLING its coaching staff! 

Scroll to the bottom of the roster and see for yourself. https://northcentralcardinals.com/sports/football/roster/2024

[Insert I'm dying emoji here]

Quote from: cardinal773 on July 25, 2024, 05:47:08 AM

Quote from: robertgoulet on July 05, 2024, 02:01:48 PMLooking at NCC's incoming class and there's one that really stands out:

Trey Madsen - All American WR and Aurora University's career leader in receptions, yards and TDs. Should help ease the pain of losing Hardy.

Probably more intriguing is NC QUADRUPLING its coaching staff! 

Scroll to the bottom of the roster and see for yourself. https://northcentralcardinals.com/sports/football/roster/2024

Wow. 15 coaches for a D3 football program is insane. No one does win at all costs better than NCC. 

NCC: ~160 players in camp, 15 coaches.

Union: ~108 players in camp, 10 coaches.

About 11:1 for both.  Looks like Union's got it figured out.


I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that a good number of the coaches for both teams are of the part time variety.

The college certainly realizes the value of a competitive athletics program -- D3 athletes pay tuition ya know.  That said, there are a lot of homegrown coaches who like sticking around (Greg will post a link to an article about that here very soon!).  Besides, who wouldn't want to be part of all this?

Quote from: cardinal773 on August 10, 2024, 09:44:58 PMNCC: ~160 players in camp, 15 coaches.

Union: ~108 players in camp, 10 coaches.

About 11:1 for both.  Looks like Union's got it figured out.


I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that a good number of the coaches for both teams are of the part time variety.

The college certainly realizes the value of a competitive athletics program -- D3 athletes pay tuition ya know.  That said, there are a lot of homegrown coaches who like sticking around (Greg will post a link to an article about that here very soon!).  Besides, who wouldn't want to be part of all this?

You don't need to defend it to me. That was a legit compliment.  NCC goes all out and it shows.  In today's small college environment, if you have a program so good you can bring in 75 tuition-paying kids every year (most of whom will never see the field), you are way ahead of the game. 

Quote from: cardinal773 on August 10, 2024, 09:44:58 PMNCC: ~160 players in camp, 15 coaches.

Union: ~108 players in camp, 10 coaches.

About 11:1 for both.  Looks like Union's got it figured out.


I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that a good number of the coaches for both teams are of the part time variety.

The college certainly realizes the value of a competitive athletics program -- D3 athletes pay tuition ya know.  That said, there are a lot of homegrown coaches who like sticking around (Greg will post a link to an article about that here very soon!).  Besides, who wouldn't want to be part of all this?

Yep!  Joe Sager featured this, er, feature of NCC's staff in a 2023 playoff piece.  More about blood in the bricks here.

Carroll 2024 Preview

https://gopios.com/news/2024/8/13/2024-football-season-preview.aspx

Lost a lot of production on offense from last year. Starting QB and top 3 receivers.
#1 question who is the starting QB? They have 2 transfers at QB that joined the team, one from NCC and one from Roosevelt.
Defensively they have a lot of starters returning.
Non conference game vs UW-Stout on 9/5.

Mount Union's football website has 2025 (Sept. 6 in Ohio) and 2026 (Sept. 5 in Illinois) games listed vs. Wheaton. Very excited about these season-opening matchups.

Quote from: wheels81 on July 18, 2024, 12:36:50 PM

Quote from: markerickson on June 25, 2024, 11:46:09 AMWhat is interesting?  Out-of-state white kids from private schools is typical.

Nice pot calling kettle :-)

Mark is a North Park alumnus, and North Park isn't exactly a haven for out-of-state white kids from private schools.

F'rinstance, there are 119 players on North Park's 2024 roster. A grand total of four of them are out-of-state white kids from private schools. Two of them are the Eck brothers (starting QB Matt and younger brother Tommy) from South Bend St. Joseph; one is veteran DB Cole Woodward from Sellersburg, IN, who crossed the Ohio River every day to attend high school in Louisville at St. Xavier; and the fourth is freshman OL Jerek Yepez from Clearwater Central Catholic in the Tampa-St. Pete metro area (are we going to get into the weeds on this one and debate whether a kid with an Hispanic surname who, given his hometown, obviously has Cuban ancestry, is white or not?).

So ... that's four players out of 119, by a generous reading. This is hardly a case of the pot calling the kettle black. As Mark and Goulet alluded, Wheaton's 2024 edition of the school's football program is replete with out-of-state white kids from private schools, just as it always is. Nothing wrong with that at all. North Park's roster is loaded with out-of-state kids as well, some of whom are white and many of whom are not, but nearly all of them attended public high schools.

As an aside (and I'm sure that Mark will agree with me), the funny thing about this argument is that he himself was an out-of-state white kid from a private school who attended North Park.

Quote from: Crusader92 on July 23, 2024, 08:31:05 PMAt risk of violating the board's ridged standards for what counts as interesting , this is really something for this D3 school from a neighboring conference:

https://footballscoop.com/news/video-division-iii-program-finishes-one-of-the-largest-indoor-facilities-in-college-football

That's an impressive facility, but there's a lot more there than just a football practice field. Sonnentag is going to replace UWEC's venerable and historic basketball gym, Zorn Arena, and there's a fitness center there that looks huge and state-of-the-art. Plus, as the markings on the turf indicate, the football Blugolds are going to have to share their nice new indoor practice field with the school's two soccer teams and two lacrosse teams.

Quote from: cardinal773 on August 10, 2024, 09:44:58 PMNCC: ~160 players in camp, 15 coaches.

Union: ~108 players in camp, 10 coaches.

About 11:1 for both.  Looks like Union's got it figured out.


I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that a good number of the coaches for both teams are of the part time variety.

The college certainly realizes the value of a competitive athletics program -- D3 athletes pay tuition ya know.  That said, there are a lot of homegrown coaches who like sticking around (Greg will post a link to an article about that here very soon!).  Besides, who wouldn't want to be part of all this?

Sorry, no links from me. But I'll just add that, given the need for a large coaching staff in this sport and the fiscally-frugal necessity in D3 that most football assistant coaches be part-timers willing to put in the hours doing something they love that isn't their main source of income, alumni coaches are a sign of a healthy program. With nine of the program's 15 coaches being NCC alumni, North Central is probably as good of a showcase of that maxim as is any current D3 football coaching staff. Even the NCC staff's full-timers (including the guy in charge of it all) are Cardinals alumni.

I'd just like to add that four of the part-timers on the North Park coaching staff are alumni. That's a modest number compared to NCC's, of course, but it's unprecedented for NPU. But, as I said, it's a sign of a healthy program. North Park football has reached the point now where former Vikings want to stick around the program and help Kyle Rooker build more success.

Does anyone know how the 2024 NCC O-line is shaping up?  I feel like Jerod Thornton is going to be almost impossible to replace. Fortier was really good too.

Any word on some of the new kids on campus?

Quote from: cardinal773 on August 17, 2024, 06:17:51 PMDoes anyone know how the 2024 NCC O-line is shaping up?  I feel like Jerod Thornton is going to be almost impossible to replace. Fortier was really good too.

Any word on some of the new kids on campus?

The Cardinals return two all-american offensive lineman and they prioritize the position in recruiting every year. This is a luxury most teams just don't have and what sets NCC apart. Something tells me they will be just fine. 

Preseason poll just dropped.

No real surprise that NCC was picked to win the league, though I am curious who besides Brad Spencer had Wheaton atop their ballot.

Preseason poll is out:

https://cciw.org/news/2024/8/19/north-central-earns-top-spot-in-preseason-cciw-football-poll.aspx

Absolutely no surprises, as a mostly static league is reflected in a mostly static rehash of the 2023 preseason poll. The only teams that are more than one slot removed from where they were predicted to finish in last August's poll are North Park, which jumped from a last-place tie to 7th based upon its fifth-place finish last season, and Illinois Wesleyan, which dropped from a fourth-place tie to 6th in light of the seventh-place tie in which it found itself at season's end last November.

The top four is identical to last year's preseason top four (NCC, Wheaton, Wash U, Augie), and that's in spite of the fact that Augie finished a game ahead of Wash U last season.