FB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[Desertraider]

NCAA Division III stats through last weekend's game for Wabash:
Rushing Defense - 1
Total Defense -      3
Scoring Defense -  3

This is not meant to imply that Wabash does not have a stellar defense, cause I believe they do.  But it should provide some level of objectivity based on the relative strength of offenses faced that have helped lead to the national rankings.  For instance would Wabash be ranked #1 in rushing defense if they faced stronger rushing teams? (best rushing team they faced is ranked 123rd, with 5 teams in the bottom 25% percentile)

Team	Total Offense Rank	Scoring Rank	Rushing Rank
Hampden-Sydney	#70	#92	#124
Allegheny		#241
Wittenberg	#66	#44	#162
Hiram	#182	#201	#194
Oberlin	#201	#191	#200
Kenyon	#151	#155	#123
Wooster	#180	#181	#201
OWU	#194	#148	#206
Denison	#167	#138	#190

Just for sake of comparison Mounts rush D is #2:
Bethany (#74)
Musky (#153)
Wilmington (#216)
Marrietta (#100)
Capital (#5)
BW (#54)
Berg (#73)
ONU (#81)
Otterbein (#204)

[wabashcpa]

Wanted to see where Wabash ranked in rushing for basis of comparison - they are 20th.

Washington & Lee #1 with nearly 444 yds/gm rushing!  That is a lot of ground work.

[USee]

NCAA Division III stats through last weekend's game for Wabash:
Rushing Defense - 1
Total Defense -      3
Scoring Defense -  3

This is not meant to imply that Wabash does not have a stellar defense, cause I believe they do.  But it should provide some level of objectivity based on the relative strength of offenses faced that have helped lead to the national rankings.  For instance would Wabash be ranked #1 in rushing defense if they faced stronger rushing teams? (best rushing team they faced is ranked 123rd, with 5 teams in the bottom 25% percentile)

Team	Total Offense Rank	Scoring Rank	Rushing Rank
Hampden-Sydney	#70	#92	#124
Allegheny		#241
Wittenberg	#66	#44	#162
Hiram	#182	#201	#194
Oberlin	#201	#191	#200
Kenyon	#151	#155	#123
Wooster	#180	#181	#201
OWU	#194	#148	#206
Denison	#167	#138	#190

Just for sake of comparison Mounts rush D is #2:
Bethany (#74)
Musky (#153)
Wilmington (#216)
Marrietta (#100)
Capital (#5)
BW (#54)
Berg (#73)
ONU (#81)
Otterbein (#204)

That's a big difference.  Doesn't tell us much and I agree Wabash has a great D. 

[smedindy]

Wanted to see where Wabash ranked in rushing for basis of comparison - they are 20th.

Washington & Lee #1 with nearly 444 yds/gm rushing!  That is a lot of ground work.

Well, they are a whopping 32-62 for 629 yards and two TDs passing!

[jknezek]

Wanted to see where Wabash ranked in rushing for basis of comparison - they are 20th.

Washington & Lee #1 with nearly 444 yds/gm rushing!  That is a lot of ground work.

Well, they are a whopping 32-62 for 629 yards and two TDs passing!

You rack up a lot of yards running a spread and triple option if you are going to win games. W&L aims for the 400 rushing yards and 50 to 75 passing yards per game. When they pull off 400 or more yards rushing they are 24 for 26 in the last 5 years. When they don't they are about .500.

[wabashcpa]

Wanted to see where Wabash ranked in rushing for basis of comparison - they are 20th.

Washington & Lee #1 with nearly 444 yds/gm rushing!  That is a lot of ground work.

Well, they are a whopping 32-62 for 629 yards and two TDs passing!

You rack up a lot of yards running a spread and triple option if you are going to win games. W&L aims for the 400 rushing yards and 50 to 75 passing yards per game. When they pull off 400 or more yards rushing they are 24 for 26 in the last 5 years. When they don't they are about .500.

Figured it was a wishbone-type offense.  Don't care if it's single-wing, if you can run that well, you can follow the Woody Hayes theory of passing.  Three things can happen, and two aren't good!

[wabashcpa]

Oh, and the fake extra point from St. Thomas vs Carleton was something to behold.

http://deadspin.com/this-trick-play-was-a-terrible-idea-and-it-worked-perfe-1741493241

[jknezek]

Wanted to see where Wabash ranked in rushing for basis of comparison - they are 20th.

Washington & Lee #1 with nearly 444 yds/gm rushing!  That is a lot of ground work.

Well, they are a whopping 32-62 for 629 yards and two TDs passing!

Funny. Those two TDs passing came this week. Before that W&L went a year and two calendar weeks without throwing for a TD. 11+ games I believe. This weekend the Generals played the back up QB the whole game as the starter picked up a knock last week. He's got a much better arm but doesn't run the option as well. That's where the two passing TDs came from.

When W&L rotates the QBs it's a bit like "Remember the Titans". One QB isn't real accurate over arm and the other struggles to hit the pitch, or at least to get the timing right. Fortunately both can run like a bat out of he!! against ODAC defenses.

[Desertraider]

Oh, and the fake extra point from St. Thomas vs Carleton was something to behold.

http://deadspin.com/this-trick-play-was-a-terrible-idea-and-it-worked-perfe-1741493241

I saw that - pretty funny actually. I have no problem going for 2 like that early. But the Tommies were later up 51-3, scored and went for 2 again. For somewhere, Gregg Easterhack is taking notice. I thought the later 2 point conversions were cheap.

[wally_wabash]

Oh, and the fake extra point from St. Thomas vs Carleton was something to behold.

http://deadspin.com/this-trick-play-was-a-terrible-idea-and-it-worked-perfe-1741493241

Clown shoes.  I know the score of the game at this time wasn't out of hand, so whatever.  But what serious playoff opponent is going to spend one iota of time practicing to defend that?  None.  Want to throw jump balls behind your back for two?  Most teams would welcome that.  But again, whatever- the score was still close then.  Drop kicking extra points up 70 though?  That's not defensible, and I'm generally a guy that sides with teams doing their thing for as long as they want to do it.  But there's a point there where you're actively embarrassing an opponent.  That kind of stuff will come back on the Tommies...football karma is real. 

[Mr. Ypsi]

Oh, and the fake extra point from St. Thomas vs Carleton was something to behold.

http://deadspin.com/this-trick-play-was-a-terrible-idea-and-it-worked-perfe-1741493241

I saw that - pretty funny actually. I have no problem going for 2 like that early. But the Tommies were later up 51-3, scored and went for 2 again. For somewhere, Gregg Easterhack is taking notice. I thought the later 2 point conversions were cheap.

Nah, Easterhack only has it in for Mount.  He knows less than NOTHING about d3.

[wabashcpa]

Even though the score was only 6-3 at the time, you could still argue that play was tantamount to a taunt, knowing that Carleton isn't within three time zones of them talent-wise.  I don't know the history between those teams/coaches, so whatever.  I just know if I am Carleton's coach I am probably not loving that play, and as Wally said, if I am a future opponent I sure as heck am not wasting more than a minute of time preparing for it.  Show the clip and be done with it.

[BashBacker#16]

2189

(52,536 Hours....   3,152,160 Minutes  )

That will be how many glorious straight days the Monon Bell will have been ringing in Crawfordsville by game time on Saturday.

Here are a few things to give you a little perspective on just how long that has been:

1.  Current Depauw Seniors were Freshman in High School the last time DPU won a Bell Game
2.  George Bush handed the keys to the White House over in 2009.
3.  Avatar was the largest movie of the year.
4.  Walter Cronkite and Michael Jackson were still with us.
5.  Apple launched the I-Phone 3G
6.  Facebook killed Myspace
7.  Twitter went mainstream
8.  a gallon of gas cost an average of $2.14 nationwide
9. The Los Angelas Lakers won the NBA Title
10. The New York Yankees won the World Series
11.  The Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl
12. 2009 marked the 1 year anniversary of the end of ZIMA (Could this be why DPU stopped winning?)

.....  You get my point..... It has been a long a%$ time...

A little ironic that the 2009 Monon Bell Game was held on Nov. 14th.....

Here is to the next 365 days...

Ding... Ding!

TOO GOOD NOT TO POST HERE TOO.................................

WAF

[wabndy]

Even though the score was only 6-3 at the time, you could still argue that play was tantamount to a taunt, knowing that Carleton isn't within three time zones of them talent-wise.  I don't know the history between those teams/coaches, so whatever.  I just know if I am Carleton's coach I am probably not loving that play, and as Wally said, if I am a future opponent I sure as heck am not wasting more than a minute of time preparing for it.  Show the clip and be done with it.

Its the kind of play you should only plan to run while holding a red white and blue ball with sweet georgia brown playing in the background. 

[wally_wabash]

Stay with me on this...I promise this all ties together. 

In 2014, Wabash played Wittenberg and had what I believed then and still believe now to be the better team.  Not to say that Wittenberg was bad in 2014 (they were quite good), but I thought Wabash was better.  Wabash had the better of the play for the most part, but had trouble finishing drives off with points.  And despite holding Witt's explosive offense to somewhere right around 200 yards, Wabash lost the game.  Why?  2-14 on third downs.  11-29 passing.  One punt blocked.  One fumble returned for a TD.   21-15 final score.

In 2014, DePauw played Wittenberg.  DePauw lost this game despite outgaining that same explosive Witt offense by almost 100 yards.  In a 34-17 game that was tied 17-17 at the half, DePauw fumbled six times, losing five of them.  Without getting too crazy with the advanced stats here, fumbles are basically a 50/50 proposition.  Losing 5/6 fumbles is, quite frankly, unlucky.  Of course you shouldn't fumble six times, but losing five of them is unlucky.  2014 DePauw was a lot closer to 2014 Wittenberg than we probably gave them credit for. 

In 2015, DePauw played Wittenberg.  The turnover situation flipped around and DePauw conquered Wittenberg 35-30 for their first really important win in the NCAC.  Now, 2015 Wittenberg is not 2014 Wittenberg, but the game was significant.  DePauw had cleaned up their game enough to win in this spot.  And for the remainder of 2015, DePauw has been very efficient with their offense, they have been reasonably sound defensively.  There is not a question now that DePauw is a pretty good Division III team.   

Ok, now I've told you all of that to get to this point.  There are some differences here and there, but I view 2015 DePauw as roughly the same quality of team as 2014 Wittenberg.  They were close last year, they're more or less there this year.  From 2011-2014 I don't think DePauw was good enough to win, even if Wabash had an off day.  The gap was just that large.  That isn't the case now.  Now DePauw has a team of sufficient quality to win this game if Wabash isn't great.  I think DePauw has to be clean.  Turnovers will be a non-starter for the Tigers.  They can't count on 400 yards of offense.  They can't count on 38 points. But if they are clean with their offense, they have a shot.  That shot is going to require some things though.  I believe it's going require things like 2-14 on third downs from Wabash.  I think it's going to require a game out of Connor Rice that looks like 11-29.  And, most importantly, I think it's going to require DePauw to find a touchdown out of their defense or special teams.  And of those things- third down efficiency, quarterback efficiency, and non-offensive points, I think DePauw needs at least two of those three things to happen. 

DePauw's improvement has been a good story in 2015.  But I think we've kind of ignored Wabash here.  I think Wabash has also improved.  The Wabash defense is as good as ever.  Over the last month we've really seen Wabash's offense grow and improve from a unit that is pound pound pound short pass pound pound pound into a pretty multi-dimensional unit that can hit you aerially short, intermediate, and deep.  The addition of Oliver Page and Ryan Thomas have been a major boon to Wabash's offense and I think makes them a bit more difficult to defense.  So Wabash hasn't exactly been standing still while DePauw has grown- Wabash has grown and evolved quite a bit here in 2015 as well. 

Ultimately, and this might sound odd, but I think DePauw's best chance to win this game disappeared when Marko Adams made a field goal to beat Denison.  That kick and that win, put all the chips in play here in this game.  Lose to Denison, and Wabash comes into this week having already secured a game in Week 12.  But there is no security here.  The only way we know Wabash plays next week is by going through DePauw this week, and that's a worst case scenario for the Tigers.  I've mentioned a couple of times this season that I believe Wabash has kind of unhitched itself from the rest of the NCAC (seemed apparent after the Witt demolition) and I think we're going to get a focused Little Giant team this week intent on getting that one more game that they deserve.  I'm liking Wabash by a wide margin here on Saturday.  Feels like something similar to last week in the 38-7 range. 

WAF.