FB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[USee]

Parity at that scale ain't never happening in D3.

I will take the other side of "never".

[Dr. Acula]

If you lose two games in the first ten, against anybody, you're not gonna play for or win the national championship. It's irrelevant. The reward for playing a challenging team in the regular season far outweighs the risk.

Agreed.  If the objective isn't just to make the playoffs as often as possible, but to get to Salem then this is absolutely true IMO.  If you're truly striving for a title then you need to play teams in that upper echelon as often as possible I'd think.

As an aside, I would be a fan of teams finding a good OOC rival and sticking with it.  I wish Mount would do this although I'm not sure who it'd be.  W&J would be fun perhaps.  For Wabash I think it'd be a cool OOC rivalry if they played Franklin week 1 each year for example.  I don't know about other schools, but Mount can never seem to keep anyone around for longer than a home-and-home though. 

[wally_wabash]

If you lose two games in the first ten, against anybody, you're not gonna play for or win the national championship. It's irrelevant. The reward for playing a challenging team in the regular season far outweighs the risk.

Agreed.  If the objective isn't just to make the playoffs as often as possible, but to get to Salem then this is absolutely true IMO.  If you're truly striving for a title then you need to play teams in that upper echelon as often as possible I'd think.

As an aside, I would be a fan of teams finding a good OOC rival and sticking with it.  I wish Mount would do this although I'm not sure who it'd be.  W&J would be fun perhaps.  For Wabash I think it'd be a cool OOC rivalry if they played Franklin week 1 each year for example.  I don't know about other schools, but Mount can never seem to keep anyone around for longer than a home-and-home though.

This may be.  But there is NO evidence that this strategy helps teams get to Salem or be in the upper echelon (wherever you want to draw that line).  Buffalo State played and beat Whitewater in 2012.  Playoff appearances for the Bengals since that monumental win (and I'm counting this as monumental even if that was the season where Whitewater was off for whatever reason): 0.  They've never even played in the tournament.  They beat the champs and all they got out of it was fleeting adoration from the D3 community and a splashy cover photo/headline combo in Week 3 of 2012.  And then it was all gone.  Beat Whitewater in December though- now you've (probably) earned something meaningful, like a trip to Salem or the ultimate celebration at Salem Stadium.   

[Pat Coleman]

If you lose two games in the first ten, against anybody, you're not gonna play for or win the national championship. It's irrelevant. The reward for playing a challenging team in the regular season far outweighs the risk.

Agreed.  If the objective isn't just to make the playoffs as often as possible, but to get to Salem then this is absolutely true IMO.  If you're truly striving for a title then you need to play teams in that upper echelon as often as possible I'd think.

As an aside, I would be a fan of teams finding a good OOC rival and sticking with it.  I wish Mount would do this although I'm not sure who it'd be.  W&J would be fun perhaps.  For Wabash I think it'd be a cool OOC rivalry if they played Franklin week 1 each year for example.  I don't know about other schools, but Mount can never seem to keep anyone around for longer than a home-and-home though.

Well, and honestly, there's nobody Mount Union has played non-conference since UW-Oshkosh who would be worth keeping around.

[bashbrother]

I would also throw out the question:   Has Franklin playing Mount and UWW recently raised the Grizzly program?   Or are they still the good to a little better than good.... Franklin program and just have a few more regular season losses to show for it. 

[BashDad]

I would also throw out the question:   Has Franklin playing Mount and UWW recently raised the Grizzly program?

Yes.

[USee]

I would also throw out the question:   Has Franklin playing Mount and UWW recently raised the Grizzly program?   

No

[wally_wabash]

As an aside, I would be a fan of teams finding a good OOC rival and sticking with it.  I wish Mount would do this although I'm not sure who it'd be.  W&J would be fun perhaps.  For Wabash I think it'd be a cool OOC rivalry if they played Franklin week 1 each year for example.  I don't know about other schools, but Mount can never seem to keep anyone around for longer than a home-and-home though.

Games with Franklin ARE fun, but I wouldn't want Wabash doing it every single year.  There are strategic reasons to mix that non-league game up a bit and go play a school in Chicagoland or down in St. Louis or up in Michigan (Buresh bros anybody?).  Indianapolis is obviously a big, hairy small college recruiting goulash, but it's nice to get visibility in other important areas as well.  I wouldn't mind seeing Wabash settle in to a rotation of northern-CCIW, Franklin, MIAA (Hope and Albion are two teams in the MIAA that Wabash has good football history with), and then something that's more of a novelty series like we saw with the Gentlemen's Classic.  I'm really starting to play fantasy AD here a bit too much here I think. 

[ExTartanPlayer]

I would also throw out the question:   Has Franklin playing Mount and UWW recently raised the Grizzly program?

Yes.

Are we really sure about this?

Franklin split with Wabash in 2006-07.  You might argue that Wabash is better today than they were in 2006-07, but I'm not sure that's true (8-2 / 11-2 in those two seasons vs. 9-1 / 10-2 the last two seasons).  In 2007, Franklin lost close to North Central in round 1 of the playoffs; in 2008 they won two playoff games and lost competitively to Wheaton in the quarterfinals.  Admittedly, they took a step back in 2009, but still, they were already pretty dang good.

They met UWW in 2010 playoffs, then 2011-12 opened with UWW (and actually played UWW twice in 2011, then UMHB in 2012 playoffs), then 2013-14 opened with Mount Union (met UWW in 2013 playoffs, lost to Wabash in 2014).  That's an awful lot of elbow-rubbing with the division's elite.

Now let's look at the Franklin program today.  Really...are we sure they're demonstrably better than that 2006-2008 run?  They're definitely better than they were in the early 2000's, and maybe you could argue this is what has spurred the program to remain at this high level instead of falling back to the pack.  I can kind of see that argument.  But they already ran roughshod over the HCAC in four of the five seasons from 2006-2010 before they ever played a Purple Power.

[USee]

And they are 0-2 vs IWU the last two years, who isn't a top tier playoff team.

[bashbrother]

Isn't a large part of the whole strategy of "Playing Up" to improve your program all about giving your coaching staff the visibility/experience of seeing what it is going to take to close the gap?  (getting bigger / faster,  team construction)  The experience individual players/teams get from playing in these games is lost, little by little, with graduation every year. 

As fans,  we love measuring stick games/ the possibility of doing something amazing, 'Seeing how far away we are"  but I think the coaching staff realizing what type of player(s) they need to start to recruit and their need to establish better team depth are the primary goals of playing these games.   All of which is easier said than done and thus,  not a given that "playing up" will improve your program.

[wally_wabash]

Isn't a large part of the whole strategy of "Playing Up" to improve your program all about giving your coaching staff the visibility/experience of seeing what it is going to take to close the gap?  (getting bigger / faster,  team construction)  The experience individual players/teams get from playing in these games is lost, little by little, with graduation every year. 

As far as coaching staffs go and getting personal exposure to the top level programs in the "Wabash should play Wesley or Oshkosh" context...a HUGE part of Coach Raeburn's appeal is that he has that exposure.  He was part of it.  He was in it for many, many years.  Family ties aside,  playing and coaching for Mount Union is a big part of what make him one of the top guys in D3.  Erik Raeburn's Wabash teams don't have to schedule Wesley or Mount Union to get a taste.  Wabash skipped that step when they hired him. 

As fans,  we love measuring stick games/ the possibility of doing something amazing, 'Seeing how far away we are"  but I think the coaching staff realizing what type of player(s) they need to start to recruit and their need to establish better team depth are the primary goals of playing these games.   All of which is easier said than done and thus,  not a given that "playing up" will improve your program.

I don't disagree at all about the measuring stick games.  In the tournament, you can play 2-3 of those games in a row.  If you take one in September, and lose, you may well have cost yourself that opportunity for the games at the back end of the season when the stakes are at their highest.   I'm not saying that there isn't a great deal of positives from playing games against other top teams in the division.  I am saying that I'm not convinced that those positives outweigh the risk. 

[BashDad]

And they are 0-2 vs IWU the last two years, who isn't a top tier playoff team.

Whatever, guys. You're looking at this with a peculiar rigidity. Franklin shouldn't be the standard bearer for the legitimacy of playing strong OOC games. They're Franklin. Franklin sucks.

If my team plays UWW the first week of the season and loses and then loses again in the regular season, I may mourn a good team that gets left at home in week 12, but that team ain't winning a National Championship. If my team wins, though, or loses close -- guess what? They spend an entire effing season thinking they're the best of the best and those are the teams that win championships. Teams who aren't guessing at their relative strength in comparison to top tier D3 football.

I can't stand this argument.

[BashDad]

I am saying that I'm not convinced that those positives outweigh the risk.

What risk??? Of staying home in a year you lost twice?

UUUUGGGGGHHHHHH.....

[sigma one]

I'm thinking that Wabash opens with a Michigan team in 2016.  And there's nothing wrong with that.