FB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[smedindy]

Desertraider -

The Hiram web site has the 2013 Media Guide. At the very end of it they have the historical records.

http://www.hiramterriers.com/sports/fball/2013-14/files/2013FootballGuide.pdf

Wally already stated in 1987 they went to the playoffs.

[wally_wabash]

I really hope that the Terriers do not look past Allegheny. I do not think they will though, as each win is equally cherished, trust me. And historically, although the box score may not show it, Hiram plays well against Allegheny and is typically able to stifle their run game. With a more explosive offense this year, and God willing, a healthy quarterback, the Terriers should fare just fine!

We alumni may not be helping the cause, however. We already have a group of us from the '80s glory days planning a tailgate at Wooster!!

Quite the contrary!  You are helping the cause.  This is awesome...getting that kind of alumni enthusiasm and support is huge.  Maybe I'm overstating things here, but I have to believe that recruiting student-athletes gets at least a little bit easier when coaches and players can legitimately say "look at that crowd...Hiram football matters."  Getting alumni and students together for road tailgates and road games is awesome.  If you guys can get a noticeable crowd for games like the Wooster game, I think it only serves to validate to those players and coaches the progress that they are making.  Go tailgate.  Be loud.  Keep that momentum going. 

[smedindy]

It's a very positive thing for old alums to gather and cheer on the new team.

We had an affinity reunion for the 72-76 teams at CWU and the current players drank in some of their stories.

[HCAlum86]

I see Hiram is 2 and 0 for the first time since 2008! However, the last time they started 2 and 0 they lost the next 7 before beating Oberlin. The also started 2001 at 2-0 and finished 1-7. Before that your guess is as good as mine - but I know it wasn't very successful. D3football.com has records going back to 1999 - Hiram's website only has archives back to....2011. I know when I was at Hiram (yes I am an alum - so I will bash if I choose) they had a 5-5 year (maybe it was 4-6) but that was like 1995 or 1996. But it was sandwiched between an 0-10 and 1-9 if memory is still in tact.

Regardless - congrats on the 2-0 start but I would like to echo ExTarten "Hiram isn't good enough to start reading their press clippings just yet". That is a great point.

I can assure you, this is a much different situation. With an offense putting up 30+ a game and a defense which has given them four STELLAR quarters of football, this team is much more real. Just have to get that defense some continuity through a complete game!

In 08, they beat a Gallaudet team that was struggling in a major way and a Kenyon team that I believe took a 9 game losing streak into that game. These Terriers have beat two opponents that should finish anywhere between 4-6, 6-4 this year.

Valid point, however!

[HCAlum86]

Quite the contrary!  You are helping the cause.  This is awesome...getting that kind of alumni enthusiasm and support is huge.  Maybe I'm overstating things here, but I have to believe that recruiting student-athletes gets at least a little bit easier when coaches and players can legitimately say "look at that crowd...Hiram football matters."  Getting alumni and students together for road tailgates and road games is awesome.  If you guys can get a noticeable crowd for games like the Wooster game, I think it only serves to validate to those players and coaches the progress that they are making.  Go tailgate.  Be loud.  Keep that momentum going.

Really hoping we get the W, this week. Already purchased a new Hiram flag and (to the wife's dismay) finally put in the purchase for the Hiram Seal canopy tent. On top of a few bottles of the savory stuff.

[ADL70]

Hiram Walker no doubt!

[Desertraider]

I see Hiram is 2 and 0 for the first time since 2008! However, the last time they started 2 and 0 they lost the next 7 before beating Oberlin. The also started 2001 at 2-0 and finished 1-7. Before that your guess is as good as mine - but I know it wasn't very successful. D3football.com has records going back to 1999 - Hiram's website only has archives back to....2011. I know when I was at Hiram (yes I am an alum - so I will bash if I choose) they had a 5-5 year (maybe it was 4-6) but that was like 1995 or 1996. But it was sandwiched between an 0-10 and 1-9 if memory is still in tact.

Regardless - congrats on the 2-0 start but I would like to echo ExTarten "Hiram isn't good enough to start reading their press clippings just yet". That is a great point.

I can assure you, this is a much different situation. With an offense putting up 30+ a game and a defense which has given them four STELLAR quarters of football, this team is much more real. Just have to get that defense some continuity through a complete game!

In 08, they beat a Gallaudet team that was struggling in a major way and a Kenyon team that I believe took a 9 game losing streak into that game. These Terriers have beat two opponents that should finish anywhere between 4-6, 6-4 this year.

Valid point, however!

Look I would love to be wrong about Hiram (I think....I really hate being wrong as it conflicts with my god complex) but I see Hiram as the Browns without the "hope" aspect. While the Browns have hope every year (or at least some years) and get gashed with: The Drive, the fumble, Red Right 88...etc. Hiram enters every year with no hope and just gets gashed with years 19xx-2014. I teach at Mount and when I say I went to Hiram I hear the laughter from football players, or the "They recruited me but I didn't even know they had a team". Would love to hear someone say "hey they have a pretty good team" - but I am not holding my breath. Like the Browns: they have to string together a few good seasons before I become a believer.

[ExTartanPlayer]

Desertraider:

I'm pretty sure that the Mount players' reaction to your alma mater is a rather flawed metric. Mount's been winning the majority of their league games (and some of their playoff games) by 50 points for a decade - they can just laugh at most ANY program in Ohio, even some that have had "moderate" success, like Ohio Wesleyan or Denison.

Hiram is a laughingstock to Mount, sure, and a 4-6 season won't change that, but you're grading them entirely on the wrong curve. Nobody's expecting a national championship at Hiram. Heck, no one is expecting a LEAGUE championship. Programs are built in stages. Going from 0-2 wins per year to .500 is that first step. When the inevitably get smoked by Wittenberg later this year, are you to be that crotchety guy who thinks "SAME OLD HIRAM" or are you going to celebrate the fact that they are winning some games and playing more competitive ball?

They just beat Denison, a program thats generally hovered around the middle of the league. Mount would beat Denison in their sleep, but Hiram had not beaten Denison since joining the NCAC. Denison went 7-3 last year. This isn't like beating an 0-10 Kenyon or an Oberlin team down to 30 guys on the roster. Denison is a legitimately "decent" team. Remember when Heidelberg sucked for a couple years straight? They didn't become a league challenger overnight. The first step was going 4-6 and winning a couple of games against the mid level teams in the league. Hiram needs to do that. Beating the league's bad teams and one or two of the "okay" ones would absolutely represent progress.

Normally, I'm all for putting down the enthusiasm of fans that come from the woodwork when a bad team has one good season and they start talking about league titles (have seen this more often in HS Football, when a team has a good class of seniors and starts off 3-0 all the parents think they're going to win the state championships). Nobody's doing that here. We just want to see Hiram winning some games.

While I know this is a football message board, another overarching point, the Mount players (anyone) shouldn't judge one's alma mater based on the state of it's football program. People choose a college for a variety of reasons. I know this isn't your perspective, but it's dumb when someone makes a connection between a school's football or basketball program and ANYTHING else associated with that school.

I say all of this as a player that opened against Hram for three seasons and used to think LOLHIRAM.

[Desertraider]

Extartan- Not sure how you got to "national championship" or "league championship" as part of my grading curve. All I said was that they need to string together a few good seasons.  I Didn't say they need to beat Witt, or Wooster, or Mount, or UWW - just a few good seasons. That doesn't mean 7-3 or 8-2 for a few years - at Hiram 5-5 for 3 years would make them virtually world beaters. I am not comparing them to Mount and I don't blame the Mount guys (or anyone) for laughing at Hiram. I don't see that as a flawed metric - I see it as an earned reaction. In addition no one is judgeing Hiram as an institution based on the state of the football team - not sure how you got there either. But when talking to football players about football - the state of my alma is fair ground for picking apart. The reaction is simply "not sure they even had or team" or something similar and that is all that I stated. Now then when they play Witt, and get smoked (and they will) my reaction will depend on how they got smoked. Was it over 2 minutes in, before the end of first quarter, or does Hiram actually compete for at least a period. Ya wanna call that crochety - so be it. But I see it as I paid over $100K to go there for 4 years so I earned the right to be critical of the lack of quality on the football field for the past 20 years. I want to see Hiram win some games just like everyone else. All I said was "I am not holding my breath".

[wabco]

Awful quiet about Bash vs. Denison.  What would you do?  Hope and change?  Trick plays? 

At Red Squad game this week.  Heard Estrada (Freshman from AZ) is the real deal ... scored 4 TDs.  Would not be surprised to see the beginnings of a 3 back RB rotation at varsity games.  Two killer RB power horses and one killer RB fast and slippery. 

It will be interesting to see the line gel for these RBs.  That, plus confident and developing QB (running and passing) along with improving WRs and the D E F E N C E.  Should be a show Saturday.

[wally_wabash]

Awful quiet about Bash vs. Denison.  What would you do?  Hope and change?  Trick plays? 

I don't know how much there is to break down here.  Denison is coming off an 8 turnover game against Hiram.  Wabash has had an extra week to get ready for this one.  I think if you're Wabash you spy Sklenar with AJ or Ethan Buresh and then dare the Big Red to try and move the ball any other way.  They'll be challenged. 

On offense, I think you'll see more of what Wabash has been doing for a few years now.  Lots of run, a couple of shots in the passing game.  It'll be consistent and methodical and it will protect possession of the ball above all else.  Now, I would kind of like to see Wabash do some more throwing early in the game.  Last year Wabash got ahead by so much so quickly most of the time that there wasn't really an opportunity to throw much without being rude.  This time around, I'd like to see Wabash get Putko maybe 15 throws in the first half and then lean on people with the run game.   I'm not counting on this though- I don't think ER is going to get away from the formula that has been so successful. 

[ExTartanPlayer]

Now, I would kind of like to see Wabash do some more throwing early in the game.  Last year Wabash got ahead by so much so quickly most of the time that there wasn't really an opportunity to throw much without being rude.  This time around, I'd like to see Wabash get Putko maybe 15 throws in the first half and then lean on people with the run game.

I may have relayed this anecdote before, but in junior high, I remember a game where my team (undefeated at the time) was playing a badly outmatched opponent but spent most of the first half throwing the ball (rather ineffectively, too), and only led 12-0 at halftime against a team we should have beaten by 50.  We did win the game like 28-0, but I remember being very dissatisfied afterwards, wondering why we kept passing against a team we could have beaten with ten straight fullback dive plays.

What my then-14-year-old brain did not get was that our coach knew we were going to beat this lesser opponent, and he was taking the opportunity to work on our passing game in a live-game situation in case we needed it somewhere down the line against a better opponent (or, in the bigger picture, to develop our QB as an eventual starter for the varsity team a few years hence).

I've always kept that in mind since.  You don't want to screw around too much (especially not with an opponent that's even remotely dangerous), but you should keep in mind the "season long" development of your football team, even if you have to drill into the players that they should be focused only on that week's opponent.  If you think you'll need that passing game somewhere down the line, working on it in a few games where it won't make or break the outcome is a good idea.

[firstdown]

Wally

Hopefully we will get to see Estrada run the ball some on Saturday as well.  It will be nice to have him in the mix with Holmes and Zurek.  Shamir Johnson also did well in the scrimmage with Wheaton at running back.  Not only does Estrada present some unique problems for opposing defenses, but to the extent that he and Johnson can help carry the load, it will keep Homes and Zurek fresher for the long run.

I expect Denison to put a good fight on Saturday and despite last week's results, will be ready. The Little Giants must be focused on their "one game at a time mode", and I expect a good effort on Saturday. 

[HCAlum86]

Desert raider : the Denison Big Red certainly knew Hiram had a team leaving Henry Field Saturday night. And that is all that matters. The groups of kids before this team, great kidsa, some of which I got to know personally, worked their a-- off to change the culture, and it did not always reflect accordingly in the win column. All you can do is take it one week at a time.

And by the way, since few D3 athletes go pro, (save CS3 and PG) I'd rather a recruit with a level head that wants his employer to see a Degree from Hiram College, or any other NCAC or former UAA institution for that matter.

[ohiofan1954]

decision, decisions. I thought I only had two games to choose from on Saturday. I was having a hard time deciding between Ashland-Ohio Dominican or Mt. Union at Muskingum. I forgot that Wabash will be at Denison.