FB: Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference

[Eyeinthesky]

LC 30, CUW 13


After a scoreless 3rd Quarter LC FB Adam Miller punches the ball in for a 17 pt lead in the 4qt.   About 7 minutes left of the game!

[Eyeinthesky]

Lakeland 30, CUW 16.

4 minutes left

[boneman12]

44-27  CUC

[Eyeinthesky]

Final:

LC vs. CUW

30 to 16


All important final week of the season.

Will there be an outright champ or co-champs?

[WLCALUM83]

Final:  Benedictine 16, WLC 14  Ouch!

[baseman201]

One more game for CUC at BU, going to be a tough win.

CUC should have have a 3,000 yard passer, 1,000 yard rusher and a 1,000 yard receiver after next week.

awesome

[Look It Up]

Next week's game against BU will actually be at CUC. Still will be a tough one.

Regarding the 1,000 yard rusher, Copeland needs 118 (I believe) to reach that. But how about what he did today, setting the single-game, season and career rushing records ALL IN ONE GAME?! When's the last time a college runner did that?

[baseman201]

Ohhh, for Copeland I was looking at the gain column, not the "net".  He has gained 970, but when you add in losses, it's 882.

Either way, from what we have seen this year I think he can reach 1,000.

Good luck to CUC,

Anyone know what is the biggest turnaround for a team? 

CUC was 3-7 last year and now 8-1 and possible playoff appearance (with a win against BU), just wondering.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Ohhh, for Copeland I was looking at the gain column, not the "net".  He has gained 970, but when you add in losses, it's 882.

Either way, from what we have seen this year I think he can reach 1,000.

Good luck to CUC,

Anyone know what is the biggest turnaround for a team? 

CUC was 3-7 last year and now 8-1 and possible playoff appearance (with a win against BU), just wondering.

LaGrange started their program in 2006.  They went 0-10 in both 2006 and 2007.  In 2008 they went 9-1 in the regular season.

I don't guarantee that is the greatest ever turnaround, but it would be pretty hard to beat!

[baseman201]

Wow, that's probably the best you can do right?

Going winless and then making the playoffs?

Also, the NAC website really needs to change their football headline, really doesn't apply anymore.

[OldMan-IBFC5146]

Another saturday of unexpected football in the NAC.  I was looking at the stats for CUC/AU and CUC was up 28-6 after the 1st!  It got close though.  It looks like I was way way way off with my prediction for CUW as well.  That offense up in Mequon seems to be doing nothing.  A huge win for BU over WLC keeps them in the hunt and makes their game against CUC even bigger.  Being an old IBFC guy I can remember when these two teams would compete in the annual Toliet Bowl year after year, so what a great job by both programs on turning it around.  I know I should wait to make my predictions but this week has so many compelling issues to discus.
1.  Can CUC hold on to the lead in the NAC for their first playoff birth ever?
2.  Can BU's smashmouth style of football keep the CUC offense off the field long enough?
3.  Will LC take care of business against AU? (What is interesting about this senario is that if LC loses to AU, CUC loses to BU, and CUW takes down RC you will have 4 teams with 4-2 records in conference.  Talk about a mess)
It will be an interesting weekend for sure.
Just in case you were curious, if senario 3 (see above) does happen these would be the losses each team would have:
CUC:  WLC, BU
LC:  CUC, AU
BU:   LC, CUW
CUW:  CUC, LC
How you figure that tie-breaker out is beyond my pay grade.

WEEK10 PREDICTIONS
CUW over RC- CUW controls the game start to finish as expected.  45-0
WLC over MBBC- WLC crushes  MBBC and finishes a nice season with a big win. 52-6
LC over AU- LC keeps building on its big win against CUW nad takes it to a struggling AU team. 35-14
BU over CUC-Call me a pessimist, but I just wont believe it until it happens for CUC.  I think that BU will control the clock and the ball and come away with a close one. 27-24

Good luck to everyone on this final week of the season.

[hickory_cornhusker]

Another saturday of unexpected football in the NAC.  I was looking at the stats for CUC/AU and CUC was up 28-6 after the 1st!  It got close though.  It looks like I was way way way off with my prediction for CUW as well.  That offense up in Mequon seems to be doing nothing.  A huge win for BU over WLC keeps them in the hunt and makes their game against CUC even bigger.  Being an old IBFC guy I can remember when these two teams would compete in the annual Toliet Bowl year after year, so what a great job by both programs on turning it around.  I know I should wait to make my predictions but this week has so many compelling issues to discus.
1.  Can CUC hold on to the lead in the NAC for their first playoff birth ever?
2.  Can BU's smashmouth style of football keep the CUC offense off the field long enough?
3.  Will LC take care of business against AU? (What is interesting about this senario is that if LC loses to AU, CUC loses to BU, and CUW takes down RC you will have 4 teams with 4-2 records in conference.  Talk about a mess)
It will be an interesting weekend for sure.
Just in case you were curious, if senario 3 (see above) does happen these would be the losses each team would have:
CUC:  WLC, BU
LC:  CUC, AU
BU:   LC, CUW
CUW:  CUC, LC
How you figure that tie-breaker out is beyond my pay grade.

WEEK10 PREDICTIONS
CUW over RC- CUW controls the game start to finish as expected.  45-0
WLC over MBBC- WLC crushes  MBBC and finishes a nice season with a big win. 52-6
LC over AU- LC keeps building on its big win against CUW nad takes it to a struggling AU team. 35-14
BU over CUC-Call me a pessimist, but I just wont believe it until it happens for CUC.  I think that BU will control the clock and the ball and come away with a close one. 27-24

Good luck to everyone on this final week of the season.

I don't know what the conference tiebreakers are but for your nightmare scenario this what I would think would happen:

First you would be looking to eliminate anyone you can to try to get down to one team or even two teams (head-to-head). That being said here are the records amongst themselves:

CUC 2-1
LC 2-1
AC 1-2
CUW 1-2

That gives you two teams left with CUC and LC. Since CUC won the hth match-up CUC would get the bid. As I said I have no clue if this is really what they would do.

[old 40]

Congrats to CUC for the big win. Also LC must be better than most think. I hope to see the AU Sparty's play them this week. AU destroyed LC last year. It was the best game I saw AU play all year.

Great job by BU  to beat a very good WLC team. It must of been a great game. BU can be dangerous because of their stout defense. They will have to play a very special game to beat CUC.

Nice to see that the NAC is getting some parity. I look for Rockford to recruit lights out the next couple of years and get back in the run. MBBC has more players this year than last and when I saw them at the AU game they played hard, just not enough athletes, but are improved as a team.

If CUC wins I wonder where they will go. Maybe to Trine or IWU. Any thoughts.

Good luck to all the league Seniors who play their last regular seson games this week. The AU Senior ceremony was very good this past week.

[dizzle52]

After watching the CUC/AU game on Saturday, I would have say that CUC is about 100% improved from last year.....on offense.....their defense is pretty bad.....I think their offense will carry them to the NAC championship but I think everyone knows they will get smoked by any team they play in the first round....I think they have had a good year and its nice to see teams getting better so the conference doesn't look like crap (compared to other conferences - i.e. CCIW), but is CUC a true national playoff team or are they just good enough to win the NAC in a down year for the conference?

[RFMichigan]

After watching the CUC/AU game on Saturday, I would have say that CUC is about 100% improved from last year.....on offense.....their defense is pretty bad.....I think their offense will carry them to the NAC championship but I think everyone knows they will get smoked by any team they play in the first round....I think they have had a good year and its nice to see teams getting better so the conference doesn't look like crap (compared to other conferences - i.e. CCIW), but is CUC a true national playoff team or are they just good enough to win the NAC in a down year for the conference?

First of all, I am looking forward to this weekend's games, especially CUC-Benedictine and Aurora-Lakeland. These are going to be hotly contested games because, frankly, there's a lot a stake.

As far as CUC getting smoked in a possible first round game (which Benedictine and Lakeland might make completely academic), well, let's face it - none of the current NAC teams have exactly fared very well in their first round playoff games  in the last 10 years. Other than a couple of fairly close Aurora losses, there's nothing closer than four touchdown deficits.

2008 - (3) Monmouth - 42         8 - Aurora - 13
2007 - (2) Bethel - 28             (7) CUW - 0
2006 - (6) North Central - 35   (3) CUW - 6
2005 - (3) Augustana - 49       (7) Lakeland - 22
2004 - Wooster - 41                  Aurora - 34
2003 - UW-LaCross - 52            CUW - 13
2000 - Wittenburg - 31              Aurora - 20

Will a NAC team do better this year? Realistically - probably not. But whoever makes it in to the playoffs will be a "national playoff team". They just won't be a national playoff contender. In addition, I would guess that the #1 seasonal goal of most NAC coaches would be met - win the conference and make the playoffs. (After looking at the participating playoff teams for the last 10 years, just making the playoffs is a huge goal for about 80% of the dIII teams in the nation.)

As far as the conference looking like crap, the first place to start making it look better is winning non-conference games. It's tough when you're scheduling traditionally tough competition as many NAC teams do. CUW's non-conference schedule, for example, looks brutal (Hats off the them!), whereas CUC's 2009 non-conference doesn't look all that difficult right now.  But when they scheduled Olivet two years ago Olivet was defending MIAA champ. And the CCIW, in my opinion, has a completely different set of factors making them the excellent set of conference schools that they are. But we aren't the CCIW. (A topic for a different time.)

I know that whichever coach gets their team into the playoffs will say, "We're not just satisfied being here. We're here to win".  But the school, the players, the fans, and the coaches for whomever is the conference representative will be pretty excited to be playing an 11th game no matter how bad an underdog they may be.

If CUC does make the playoffs, (and as a long-suffering CURF fan I certainly hope they do) the players aren't going to say 10 years from now, "We made the playoffs, but our defense was so bad and the conference was so weak that year that we really didn't deserve to make it." (They might, however, say, "We made the playoffs, and dang was Whitewater good!")

Good health to everybody this weekend, and seniors who are playing your last game of organized football - God's richest blessings to you.