Quote from: GusD on December 09, 2024, 12:41:28 AM

Quote from: CarollFan on December 07, 2024, 04:03:27 PMI don't know anything about Springfield but they sure looked one dimensional (running) on offense this week.

In their game vs Cortland Sat, Springfield ran 75 plays. FOUR of them were passing plays. FOUR! Never heard of anything like that. 
Sacre bleu!

I mean, this is Springfield and what Springfield does, and has always done.

Would be interesting to be in the NCC practices this week. Being the same age as Coach Spencer, we are at the tail end of the generation where you would run into the triple option in jr tackle/high school a couple of times/season. I can't believe he saw it as a player at NCC (and if he did he certainly wasn't scheming to defend it, as he was a WR). They may have to call in a favor to an old-head for scheming this week!

Gonna have to dig up some old film of Augustina... and a film projector to watch it.

Quote from: New Tradition on December 09, 2024, 08:49:07 AMAll the old Augie alumni are smiling ear to ear.

Ah.  Just saw this.  You beat me to it!

Quick observations from NCC's win over Hope...

Jerred Durian returned to start at center after missing last week's game and Jack Rummell returned to start at WR for the first time since Elmhurst.

On defense, another week with an injury to a safety.  Will Vernon started but left in the first quarter with what appeared to be a concussion or possible head injury. That makes 4 of the top 5 safeties out for the remainder of the game (Rutherford, Williams, Vernon, Green).  Freshman Ethan Enriquez stepped in and played with Orr also mixing in like we have seen the past few weeks.  If Vernon cannot play this week, i could see Orr playing safety the majority of the game based on Springfield's offense, with Nuccio bumping out to OLB/Nickel.

As far as Springfield's defense playing press man as someone mentioned, I am not sure if that is how they always play or chose to do that once they saw how immobile Boyes was with the injury.  Will have to go back and watch their game against UMass-Dartmouth to see.  I did go back and see that Boyes got hurt on the last drive of the Endicott game, and thus explains why Cortland went with the Wildcat on their last 2 offensive plays of that game. 

I do really like that ESPN+ has every game available to watch on demand.

I guess if there is one type of team you'd want to play when you have secondary injuries it's a team that doesn't throw.

Was wondering the same about the press man. A dangerous way to play when there's a mobile QB working out of a spread. Lots of DBs with their backs to the ball.

Quote from: GusD on December 09, 2024, 12:41:28 AM

Quote from: CarollFan on December 07, 2024, 04:03:27 PMI don't know anything about Springfield but they sure looked one dimensional (running) on offense this week.

In their game vs Cortland Sat, Springfield ran 75 plays. FOUR of them were passing plays. FOUR! Never heard of anything like that. 
Sacre bleu!

Their stat line is the absolute inverse of SJU. The Johnnies had 4 carries by a RB (and actually averaged 4.5 ypc) before totally going all in on Syverson. He had an amazing stat line, especially when you consider they literally just threw on every down and the D knew exactly what was coming. Also finished his career on a sick TD pass in a crazy tight window to tie the game in the final minutes.

QBR    Comp    Att    Int     %        Yards    TD      
201.4    37        46       0       80.4    466      5       

In the razon thin race for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Team AA QB, I think the final performance for Syverson probably bumps him ahead of Boyes in my book (53%, 2 TD's, 2 INT's), but if Lehnen keeps balling I think 1st Team is likely locked up.

This matchup between Springfield and NCC's rush D will be fascinating. History tells us being that one dimensional isn't a recipe for knocking off a traditional power. The key Saturday was Springfield got ahead early, and so could keep grinding away. That's hard to stick with if NCC gets more than a 1 score lead at any point. My money is on that nasty front 7 of NCC, but I can't wait to watch it unfold!

Quote from: robertgoulet on December 09, 2024, 09:12:41 AMWould be interesting to be in the NCC practices this week. Being the same age as Coach Spencer, we are at the tail end of the generation where you would run into the triple option in jr tackle/high school a couple of times/season. I can't believe he saw it as a player at NCC (and if he did he certainly wasn't scheming to defend it, as he was a WR). They may have to call in a favor to an old-head for scheming this week!

It would be interesting to see how NC would prepare for Springfield.  I would love to see them practice.

First of all, they are dealing with what is now an unusual scheme. 

Second of all, it is the time of year where you can't afford to spend a lot of time on contact, especially with the depth situation mentioned above.

Springfield runs a lot of non option plays also according to their highlights.  A lot of success on rocket and jet sweeps.

I have a feeling North Central will be able to come up with a plan.

It will be interesting from a pure football strategy standpoint to see Springfield play such a very strong NCC team. Of course NCC should be very confident, but having watched Springfield over the last 10 years, this team is especially strong and powerful . The offense is full of guys that can crush you in the weight room with their leg strength...all of them have a substantial physical base to maximize power at the point of contact. NCC will most likely figure out how to win the game but it will be a brutal physical struggle every play. Cortland's QB was injured for last Saturday and would have kept Cortland in the game but the Cortland Defense was not strong enough to stop these players in the Option offense this year. We are very familiar with Springfield on the east side of D3, and all you have to do is get a 2 score lead which I think NCC should be able to do. But if you make turnovers , or you can't stop the train, it will be a very long day. Don't be overconfident , this Springfield group will draw strength from that. Good luck, but I will be rooting for Springfield to pull off the upset. Mostly I'm looking for a competitive game at the end of a day of four intriguing D3 football matchups.

Quote from: New Tradition on December 09, 2024, 08:49:07 AM

Quote from: GusD on December 09, 2024, 12:41:28 AM

Quote from: CarollFan on December 07, 2024, 04:03:27 PMI don't know anything about Springfield but they sure looked one dimensional (running) on offense this week.

In their game vs Cortland Sat, Springfield ran 75 plays. FOUR of them were passing plays. FOUR! Never heard of anything like that. 
Sacre bleu!

All the old Augie alumni are smiling ear to ear.

... as are the not-so-old North Park alumni. NPU was exclusively employing the triple option as recently as 2012.

Single-digit passing attempts were common occurrences for the Park in games played during the Pethtel era. For example, in 2011 the Vikings attempted only two passes against Benedictine, only three each against Aurora and Wash U, and only four against Carthage.

GusD's only been registered here since this past summer, so he's clearly a newbie on a board heavily trafficked by old heads like us. And, in his defense, D3 triple option teams have been very, very thin on the ground out here in the midwest since Y2K. I don't even know if there are any of them left since Ripon abandoned it in 2020. Maybe Pat knows if there are any run-only dinosaurs remaining out here in the tall corn.

Quote from: Pat Coleman on December 09, 2024, 09:10:30 AMI mean, this is Springfield and what Springfield does, and has always done.

I wouldn't expect CCIW football fans to know the particulars regarding teams from Massachusetts. Goulet did identify the Pride as a triple option team, but he's a North Central fan who obviously researches potential later-rounds opponents of the Cardinals.

Admittedly, North Central fans did not have reason to follow the playoffs when Springfield made its deepest run, but Springfield did win a playoff game as recently as 2022.

Here's a little more on Springfield from Greg's column at the end of October:
https://d3football.com/columns/around-the-nation/2024/springfield-running-away-from-opponents

Quote from: Cardinal773 on December 09, 2024, 09:27:19 AMGonna have to dig up some old film of Augustina... and a film projector to watch it.

My guess is that it wouldn't help you if you were trying to understand what Springfield does. I've never watched the Pride play, but they are a triple option team. Augustana under Bob Reade ran the wing-T rather than any of the modern triple option variations such as the wishbone, veer, I formation, or flexbone.

Quote from: robertgoulet on December 09, 2024, 09:12:41 AMWould be interesting to be in the NCC practices this week. Being the same age as Coach Spencer, we are at the tail end of the generation where you would run into the triple option in jr tackle/high school a couple of times/season.

I suspect that that depends upon where you attend high school. If you're way out in the country, where high schools are small and the student body is thus far less likely to have a sufficient number of big boys to properly staff a standard-issue offensive line, the triple option -- in which quick feet rather than gargantuan size is the primary quality preferred in offensive linemen -- has long been commonplace.

I'll admit that perhaps that's changed in the past dozen years, especially given the fact that King Corn Syrup has made obesity rampant in younger Millennials and in Gen Z. Today's big-boned fat kid trying and failing to climb the rope in eighth-grade gym class is tomorrow's 260-pound sophomore who is conditioned enough to thrive as an offensive tackle on the high school football team. But the entire reason why Scott Pethtel thought that he could build a successful program in that unlikeliest of locations, the North Side of Chicago, was because there were so many rural midwestern high school football teams that used the triple option -- football teams that were thus overlooked for the most part by college coaches who weren't interested in looking at kids from schools that never threw a pass if they could help it -- that he would have a vast recruiting footprint almost all to himself. It was a Moneyball solution to a Moneyball problem, even though Scott told me that he'd never read Moneyball or seen the movie, and to this day I still think that it was a think-outside-the-box stroke of genius on his part. The problem was that his staff just couldn't recruit well enough to allow North Park to flip the script in CCIW games, particularly on the defensive side of the ball (as one of his defensive assistants admitted to me, NPU had to use linebackers as safeties and safeties as cornerbacks). Ripon employed the same recruiting philosophy, as the Red Hawks featured a lot of small-town kids as well as kids from small private schools across the country when Ripon ran the triple option.

(The irony is that, despite the fact that the use of the triple option was supposed to bring in farmboy studs, the two most successful offensive players NPU had during the Pethtel era were Tyler Krebs from Cary-Grove and Matt Hassan from Glenbard West.)

Quote from: Pat Coleman on December 09, 2024, 02:41:04 PMAdmittedly, North Central fans did not have reason to follow the playoffs when Springfield made its deepest run, but Springfield did win a playoff game as recently as 2022.

Here's a little more on Springfield from Greg's column at the end of October:
https://d3football.com/columns/around-the-nation/2024/springfield-running-away-from-opponents

Are you trying to say that there was D3 football prior to the great and powerful Luke Lehnen?

Quote from: D3fanboy on December 09, 2024, 03:56:03 PM

Quote from: Pat Coleman on December 09, 2024, 02:41:04 PMAdmittedly, North Central fans did not have reason to follow the playoffs when Springfield made its deepest run, but Springfield did win a playoff game as recently as 2022.

Here's a little more on Springfield from Greg's column at the end of October:
https://d3football.com/columns/around-the-nation/2024/springfield-running-away-from-opponents

Are you trying to say that there was D3 football prior to the great and powerful Luke Lehnen?

And Broc Rutter. And even before Spencer Stanek.