FB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[formerd3db]

Attended one EMU game in my life, some Cub Scout outing. After attending games at the Big House, I didn't realize that these teams were supposed to be in the same classification.

They won't be if the NCAA ever decides to enforce their minimum attendance rule.

Attended one EMU game in my life, some Cub Scout outing. After attending games at the Big House, I didn't realize that these teams were supposed to be in the same classification.

Pat:

I know what you mean.  Mr. Ypsi and I (and others) have had some good discussions about this over on our MIAA board in the past few years.  One of my former Hope teammates had one of his sons offered a full ride to Eastern Michigan.  He and his dad went to one of the games near the end of the recruiting and there were only about 1,000 people in the stadium attending the game.  He said to his father at that moment..."dad, Hope College gets more people attending their games than here and this is DI.  He eventually turned down the full ride offer and ended up playing for Hope for his four years, being one of the top linemen for us and all-MIAA. 

There have been several times where Hope and some of the other MIAA schools (despite our league being less in tier ratings compared to other DIII conferences-which BTW, wasn't like that 2-3 decades ago, unfortunately) where attendance has outdrawn Western Michigan and EMU for a few games "here and there".  Of course, that has been when Hope has had better years.  Heck, even DII Grand Valley State draws anywhere from 11,000+ to 16,000 for home games, although having those on Saturday night the past few years has really helped that.

I remember back in 1987 when Eastern Michigan (Head Coach at that time was Jim Harkema, former All-MIAA QB for Kalamazoo College, former Grand Valley State Coach) won the MAC and the then California Bowl.  The MAC schools, particularly Central Michigan, all wanted to kick Eastern out of the league.  Central Michigan was especially mean-spirited about it.  Eastern kicked all their arses that year and it was a fitting finish.  But...that was long ago and the times have changed as you/we well know.  Anyway, I do hope that Creighton can turn it around. 

[Mr. Ypsi]

Attended one EMU game in my life, some Cub Scout outing. After attending games at the Big House, I didn't realize that these teams were supposed to be in the same classification.

They won't be if the NCAA ever decides to enforce their minimum attendance rule.

Attended one EMU game in my life, some Cub Scout outing. After attending games at the Big House, I didn't realize that these teams were supposed to be in the same classification.

Pat:

I know what you mean.  Mr. Ypsi and I (and others) have had some good discussions about this over on our MIAA board in the past few years.  One of my former Hope teammates had one of his sons offered a full ride to Eastern Michigan.  He and his dad went to one of the games near the end of the recruiting and there were only about 1,000 people in the stadium attending the game.  He said to his father at that moment..."dad, Hope College gets more people attending their games than here and this is DI.  He eventually turned down the full ride offer and ended up playing for Hope for his four years, being one of the top linemen for us and all-MIAA. 

There have been several times where Hope and some of the other MIAA schools (despite our league being less in tier ratings compared to other DIII conferences-which BTW, wasn't like that 2-3 decades ago, unfortunately) where attendance has outdrawn Western Michigan and EMU for a few games "here and there".  Of course, that has been when Hope has had better years.  Heck, even DII Grand Valley State draws anywhere from 11,000+ to 16,000 for home games, although having those on Saturday night the past few years has really helped that.

I remember back in 1987 when Eastern Michigan (Head Coach at that time was Jim Harkema, former All-MIAA QB for Kalamazoo College, former Grand Valley State Coach) won the MAC and the then California Bowl.  The MAC schools, particularly Central Michigan, all wanted to kick Eastern out of the league.  Central Michigan was especially mean-spirited about it.  Eastern kicked all their arses that year and it was a fitting finish.  But...that was long ago and the times have changed as you/we well know.  Anyway, I do hope that Creighton can turn it around.

Yeah, and U Cal immediately 'stole' coach Harkema (just like they 'stole' Ben Braun about the same time ).  I'm not even sure I want Coach Creighton to succeed too much - he'd just get 'stolen'!  But getting up to respectable would be nice.

I haven't been to a Creighton-coached game yet, but for a couple of decades (with the interruption of the Charlie Batch days) they were both horrid AND boring - a rather kiss-of-death combination.   While still horrid, I hear they are no longer boring - I'll probably make a game next year.

(NCAC fans, sorry to hijack your board for a while, but it is a former Wabash coach, and this is where the posts I responded to were.  You may now resume your usual programming - and good luck to both Wabash and Albion; I wish you could BOTH win!) 

[wally_wabash]

Anybody got stabs at the end of season awards?  I'll go for it. 

OPOY - Mason Zurek, Wabash
DPOY - Tyler McCullen, Wabash
COY - Erik Raeburn, Wabash

I really don't see a close second in these three categories.  The one with intrigue, however

NewbOY - Canaan Gebele, Denison

Offense generally dominates this award, otherwise I think you'd want to look at Evan Hansen (LB, Wabash) pretty seriously.  Probably haven't mentioned this enough this year, but Evan has been starting from game 1, as a freshman, on THIS defense.  Yeah.   The other possible option here is Andy Hunt who had a nice year, but not as nice as Gebele, IMO. 

[sigma one]

I was just earlier today thinking of the awards--and arrived at the same names for players of the year and coach of the year.  Also, when considering the Newcomer, I thought of Gebele, Hansen, and Hunt.  I think Gebele will get it.  Hansen would be a nice choice if there were offensive and defensive awards, but he has not been as visible at Gebele.  Hunt will get his awards over the next few years, and perhaps even has an outside chance this year.  But again, Gebele was so visible, and so productive.

[sigma one]

A thought on the NCAC all-conference team make up.  Traditionally, the NCAC chooses two running backs, two wide receivers, three linebackers, and four defensive backs.  The team looks like a "regular" (if old-fashioned) FB team.  In one sense it is admirable that the NCAC holds the line on expanding the team.  Many other conferences have gone either to a slightly expanded team (see the CCIW this year) or to a way too generous (in my view) approach (see the HCAC for many years). The way the game is played today I hope that some day (it won't be this year) the conference would consider keeping the two RBs, adding a third WR, adding either a fourth LB or a fifth DB, or both. 
     I am not criticizing the NCAC, just thinking about the way football is and will continue to be played as the game evolves.

[wally_wabash]

A thought on the NCAC all-conference team make up.  Traditionally, the NCAC chooses two running backs, two wide receivers, three linebackers, and four defensive backs.  The team looks like a "regular" (if old-fashioned) FB team.  In one sense it is admirable that the NCAC holds the line on expanding the team.  Many other conferences have gone either to a slightly expanded team (see the CCIW this year) or to a way too generous (in my view) approach (see the HCAC for many years). The way the game is played today I hope that some day (it won't be this year) the conference would consider keeping the two RBs, adding a third WR, adding either a fourth LB or a fifth DB, or both. 
     I am not criticizing the NCAC, just thinking about the way football is and will continue to be played as the game evolves.

I may think some more about the entire all-conference team, but I am interested in seeing if Wabash will land both 1st team RBs again this year.  My hunch is that this will not happen, which is a shame because Shamir has been the 2nd best back in the league, I think.  There's not one other team in this league that isn't better if Shamir Johnson is their starting RB. 

[sigma one]

I'd be surprised if DPU's Kirchoff is not the other RB.  But I also think you are right about Shamir Johnson.   It's interesting that Zurek and Johnson are both out of Andrean h.s., one year apart.

[DPU3619]

I watched some Albion highlights today. It became pretty apparent pretty quick that they're a Noel Mazzone offense. Mazzone is the OC at UCLA right now. His stuff became pretty big at Arizona State during the Osweiler years. There's been a big push to market his system to HS & small college teams the past few years. For a significant chunk of your team's budget, they'll walk you thru the ins & outs of the offense and how to install it. It appears Albion is on board. You can check some of that out here.

If you're interested in more resources and tons of cutups of Mazzone stuff, here's a great resource. There's about a 30 minute video in the first article about his #1 concept, shallow cross:



It's good against just about every defense you can throw at it. Can't really play press if the outside dudes can run. Can't play Cover 2 or 4. Cover 3 is kind of your best bet, but you can get in deep doo doo against any 2x2 formation from 1 high safety. #4verts

Tough to tell from highlights, but if Albion is as Mazzone as they look, you'll see Shallow Cross about 20 times on Saturday.

[DadofBashWarrior..]

Nice article on Creighton...

http://www.easternecho.com/article/2015/11/chris-creighton-feature

Article has a mistake of saying that Drake is D2...that is incorrect

[DadofBashWarrior..]

I watched some Albion highlights today. It became pretty apparent pretty quick that they're a Noel Mazzone offense. Mazzone is the OC at UCLA right now. His stuff became pretty big at Arizona State during the Osweiler years. There's been a big push to market his system to HS & small college teams the past few years. For a significant chunk of your team's budget, they'll walk you thru the ins & outs of the offense and how to install it. It appears Albion is on board. You can check some of that out here.

If you're interested in more resources and tons of cutups of Mazzone stuff, here's a great resource. There's about a 30 minute video in the first article about his #1 concept, shallow cross:



It's good against just about every defense you can throw at it. Can't really play press if the outside dudes can run. Can't play Cover 2 or 4. Cover 3 is kind of your best bet, but you can get in deep doo doo against any 2x2 formation from 1 high safety. #4verts

Tough to tell from highlights, but if Albion is as Mazzone as they look, you'll see Shallow Cross about 20 times on Saturday.

The year that St John's won the national championship in...like 2003 maybe...They lived on this play...watched them beat Bethel for the conference championship with it...when run correctly very hard to stop

[wally_wabash]

Good stuff, Pal.  Really appreciate the coach's POV there. 



In the middle of their total meltdown against Trine that I was able to watch before Albion blocked their game archive, Albion's broadcast guys mentioned more than once that "now is a good time for something deep off of play action".  If this is a big part of what they do, I'll be interested to see if they give it a try.  Play action bombing is/was a big part of DePauw's offense and they didn't even try it against Wabash. 

[bashbrother]

Wabash's plan to slow down their passing game.




Anyone seen any game notes for this week's game?    Are there going to be any?

[wabashsid]

The game notes are coming. Waiting on the All-Conference announcement Friday before I post them... 

[Schwami]

Latest weather forecast for Crawfordsville from the National Weather Service:

Friday Night
A chance of rain and snow after 1am. Cloudy, with a low around 34. East southeast wind 6 to 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%.

Saturday
Rain and snow, becoming all snow after 4pm. High near 39. Southeast wind 7 to 14 mph becoming west in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 18 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New precipitation amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible.

Saturday Night
Partly cloudy, with a low around 19. Blustery.

[DPU3619]

In the middle of their total meltdown against Trine that I was able to watch before Albion blocked their game archive, Albion's broadcast guys mentioned more than once that "now is a good time for something deep off of play action".  If this is a big part of what they do, I'll be interested to see if they give it a try.  Play action bombing is/was a big part of DePauw's offense and they didn't even try it against Wabash.

Two issues with playaction against the Wabash defense: 1) You have to protect it long enough, which when you show run action and that front 6 starts flying upfield, is gonna be a pretty tough task. 2) While Austin Brown (the SS) is Wabash's leading tackler, Cmehil (the FS) is the 12th leading tackler. You aren't gonna run by him anyway. He's not a run player. After watching the game Saturday, I see why that got shelved for DePauw. It's a huge part of DePauw's offense. They didn't call it once.

I think the game plan to beat Wabash is to try to be as efficient as possible in the quick passing game. If you can complete 55%+ (which DePauw could have done if Hunt wasn't throwing it over everybody's head in the first half) and run it at 4 per carry (which DePauw did do) you've got a chance to stay ahead of the chains. 2nd & 3rd and long is where turnovers live, and that's going to bury Albion if it happens.

I think Albion probably scores more Saturday than anybody has scored on Wabash to this point, which isn't that hard. They need 19 to do it. But, as I told wally the other day, Zurek may run for more this week than he did last week. Albion's D is not good. To quote Nick Saban, people run through them like **** through a tin horn. Wabash has to shorten the game. Run the ball. Limit Albion's possessions. Keep them in the area of 9-10 possessions instead of 14-15. DePauw had 10 possessions last week, which isn't enough to win against that defense.

One final thought on shallow cross - not sure how many different ways Albion runs it, because you've got a few options. Some of them can really screw you. We run it from trips and it's one of our best passing plays. 


This is typically called the "drive" concept, but you can see it's very similar. It's a similar read for the QB. I actually think it's easier because you don't have to read defenders (or find your receivers) going in opposite directions. Also, you're forcing the D to play you in their normal trips look. You really can't vary what you do defensively to trips very much. You've got to cover them with at least 3 in way or another and still play at least 5 1/2 in the box if the O is in 1 back. The read for the QB in that drawing is the M right thru to the SS. Easy read. He never has to look opposite if he doesn't want it. A Cover 2 safety is in big trouble there. Either has to sink with the post or sit on the 12 yard dig. He can't be right. A cover 4 safety isn't ever coming up on the dig anyway. So the dig is almost always good. Our QB completed 75% of his passes to the dig for 16 yards PER ATTEMPT in 2014, which is insane. We were so good at it that people just ran a backer right to the dig when we were in trips this year. Totally vacated the #2 slant/hitch area and ran that playside backer to 12 yards and sat him down.

It can cause you big problems defensively. Especially when you don't see a lot of it. Shallow cross & its variants was a big thing like 5 years ago, mostly because of how good Az St was at it. Like most things, it's kind of gone away except for the teams that really commit to it. Now everybody is on power read & run/pass option stuff.

I'm excited to watch this thing Saturday. Really excited to see what BJ Hammer has planned for them. Weather will probably be an issue. Wet, cold footballs are no fun to throw. And it'll be windy as heck. Zurek coming', y'all.