FB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[BoBo]

bashbrother, congratulations on winning the 2009 D3football.com pick'Em Contest...I hope they reward you accordingly. +k 

[bashbrother]

Thanks Bobo!  Did they announce it yet? 

Congrats to your Warhawks for bringing the trophy back to Whitewater.

[Li'l Giant]

A bit late but congratulations to Eddie Vallery for being named national Defensive Player of the Year. What an incredible honor.

[bashbrother]

A bit late but congratulations to Eddie Vallery for being named national Defensive Player of the Year. What an incredible honor.

I second that.   What a great year for Wittenberg as well.    Expect to see them ranked in the Top 10 preseason next year.  They have a ton of starters returning and if Huffman has a medical year from '08 and returns..... they could be scary good.

[Pat Coleman]

A bit late but congratulations to Eddie Vallery for being named national Defensive Player of the Year. What an incredible honor.

It's not that late -- less than 24 hours old.

Bashbrother, no, haven't officially announced it yet. Just got back to Minneapolis.

[bashbrother]

Pat -

Great job by you and your team in Salem.   

[DePauw05]

http://www.post-trib.com/sports/1949873,fbc-valpo-1221.article

[BashDad]

You've got to be kidding....

[zed07]

Assuming the reporter knows what he's talking about (invalid assumption...), what would be possible motivating factors in such a move?  Money?  Promise to go to scholarship football eventually (which I've always wondered was part of Creighton's move)?  Stepping stone?  Any thoughts?

[smedindy]

I can see Drake. It's in a respected mid-major for most sports (the MVC). And the cupboard wasn't bare, they had 68 wins in the 10 seasons before Creighton came on board.

Valpo? 40 wins the in the past 10 seasons. Two winning records in the 2000's. The last one 2003.

I really doubt Drake or Valpo go scholarship, especially with schools like Hofstra and Northeastern dropping football entirely.

[DPU3619]

I think that's the next logical step for a D3 coach who wants to get to a bigtime job.  I don't think a Top 25 D3 coach could realistically find a respectable enough FCS school to do much in a short enough period to keep climbing the ladder.  You've got to prove you can build at that level, and then maybe go an FCS or even a non-BCS FBS team.  Obviously Valpo may not be the ideal situation to try to continue up the ladder, but I won't bat an eye at a D3 coach going to ANY job in Division 1, aside from say Kehres or Leipold.

Honestly, there are lots of reasons I can see him taking the job.  I'm not taking shots here, but maybe he just doesn't like it.  It's a unique environment.  You guys say it yourself - being a Wabash man isn't for everybody.  If you show up with these ideas of what you expect being the head football coach at a very presitgious all-male school to be, and it's not quite what you signed up for, you just might get the itch to take off.  I had heard some rumblings near the end there that Creighton didn't get along too well with some of the Wabash higher-ups.  Maybe it wasn't just a Creighton thing.  Who knows? 

I did raise an eyebrow when I got a couple calls about it this morning, though.  "Wabash College - the new D-1 non-scholarship pipeline!" Really rolls off the tongue...

[bashbrother]

The higher up that CC didn't care for much is gone.   The administration that is in place now, I hear, is extremely athletics friendly.

Lets hope, at the end of the day, there is not much to this.   We have recruiting to do and fishwrap stories like this don't help much.

[BashBacker#16]

Gross. 

I can only hope that whatever it is, the leaders at Wabash will do whatever they can to prevent this.  I cannot believe it has even gotten this far.  I get the fact that winning coaches will be sought after but going from Wabash to Valpo??  It makes no sense to me.

Brutal for recruiting too...and many other reasons...........

[DPU3619]

The higher up that CC didn't care for much is gone.   The administration that is in place now, I hear, is extremely athletics friendly.

Fair enough, then.  That's not it.  Like I said, could be a whole host of things.

[Bash-Dad #84]

http://www.post-trib.com/sports/1949873,fbc-valpo-1221.article

I'll respond to this after the light headedness and naussea subside.