FB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[fantastic50]

Well, the NCAC has its 10th member again. A hint, it begins with the letter "D" and ends with the letter "W".

Now, you may be a little skeptical of this claim since I don't have a link or anything to point people to, but that's because it won't be officially announced until next week. But as sure as I was the funniest guy on tv during the 1990s, this is a done deal. Lets just say the chances of teams like Wooster and Allegheny winning the conference just got a little slimmer.

I was hoping that the NCAC would bring in some of the similar schools farther west (in Iowa, etc.), and go to 16, with two divisions (two separate conferences for AQ purposes), but apparently that didn't work out.  I think that replacing Earlham with D____w is a great trade for the conference.

[seinfeld]

My head hurts from all this coy non-spelling.

How do you know this, Seinfeld?

I'm being funny with the name because the official announcement isn't coming to next week, but as we know in today's day and age, you can't keep a secret very long. The Monon Bell game will no longer be a non-conference game in a couple of years. How do I know? The same way one knows anything, I suppose. As sure as 1+1=2 this is a reality.

[BashDad]

Well, provided your info is legit-- this is huge.

Outside of the rivalry and it's added heft within a conference race, this could mean that in 2012 Bash would play Witt, Wooster, Depauw [ED: Allegheny-- they've earned being included here, I suppose] PLUS load up with three non-UAA teams. Seems that schedule could potentially be really great, or at least a vast improvement on the current one.

Franklin, Trine, IWU, Wheaton, ONU, and Cap would be my first round of open-date investigation...

Here's to the NCAC not screwing this up.

[BashDad]

Add Thomas Moore to my list above...

[BashDad]

The Sporting News
1. Wisc-Whitewater
2. Mount Union
3. Linfield
4. St. John's (Minn.)
5. Wesley
6. Mary Hardin-Baylor
7. Delaware Valley
8. Wittenberg
9. Central
10. St. Thomas
11. Ohio Northern
12. Thomas More
13. W&J
14. North Central
15. Johns Hopkins
16. Monmouth (Ill.)
17. Hardin-Simmons
18. Coe
19. Trinity (Texas)
20. Trine
21. Wisc-Stout
22. Hampden-Sydney
23. Wabash
24. Case Western Reserve
25. Franklin & Marshall

[BashDad]

From Wes Anderson, on the SCAC board:

"Everything I've heard from DePauw's side is the exact opposite.  The last information I got was that the NCAC didn't want DePauw.  There were a boatload of schools interested in that North Coast spot and DePauw wasn't even on the radar to get it.  DePauw was very interested, but the administration was painting the picture that the feeling was not mutual."

[DagarmanSpartan]

Case is ranked in someone's pre-season Top 25?

Geesh.

I would have never guessed that we'd be ranked given the rebuilding job that we have ahead of us.

Just losing Dan Whalen is probably enough, in and of itself, to drop us down a notch or two, not to mention all of the other top players we lose.

[bashbrother]

Reputation and past seasons performance is a big factor with some of these media's choice.   Sure, they do their research, just not nearly as much as they do in coming up with rankings for the other NCAA divisions.

Thus, the only poll that consistently gives us the best idea is the one on this site.    

As many have stated before, Depauw joining the NCAC makes so much sense on so many levels that I really hope it happens.

[seinfeld]

OK, one last comment on DePauw and then I'll let it go for now (at least as it pertains to the validity of them joining the NCAC), because:

1) It will become official this coming Wednesday so we'll know then
2) I can't prove definitively on this site now anyway

I'll just say this. My information isn't based on second-hand info or what one person told me. It is based on actually viewing, with my own two eyes (not using the blurry glasses in my Seinfeld bio photo), an announcement of this agreement, which just went down yesterday. So unless high level people in the NCAC are involved in some sort of large scale hoax, this is 100% a done deal.

So now the conversation, at least as it relates to football, should switch to what this means for overall conference strength and the chances of making the playoffs, and what it means for the schedule. Ideally, I would like to go with what the OAC does, and have everyone play each other, leaving one non-conference game. But at the very least they need to get up to eight conference games.

[DPU3619]

Like I said on the SCAC board, I certainly believe you and I think it's absolutely terrific.  I think it makes tons of sense for more reasons than the last game every fall.  That being said, for the life of me, I cannot figure out why they float that story if they turn right around and sign on the dotted line.  Maybe they were lying.  Maybe somebody had a change of heart.  Maybe DePauw sweetened the deal.  Impossible to say, I suppose.

[bashbrother]

If it is true and Depauw does join the NCAC in the next couple of years, the NCAC has a strong new member.  

It will raise the quality of the conference athletically on a national level.  In Football, It won't bring us in the league of OAC, CCIW WIAC etc., but it takes us in the right direction. 

I realize it is still officially a rumor at this point, but for fun, let's think about some the interesting dynamics.

1.  Both teams will play 70%+ of their games against like opponents?  How will this affect preparation for the Bell Game?  

2.  The Bell Game could now become also the Conference Championship game.

3.  How does the recent development of the intense rivalry with Witt change if any?

4.  Looking at the map of the United States, how much money does Depauw save in sports travel in the first 5 years of being in the NCAC?

5.  Ringing the bell with a NCAC Championship trophy at Chapel on Saturday night would be pretty sweet.


We'll see if it happens.

[wabco]

Wes

This is probably a very uninformed question but how does one sweeten the deal?  I thought it was some sort of group President's/AD's compatability test ... with one or two screwball administrators being able to somehow blackball the deal for whatever reasons personal to their school / them all the while covering this with multisyllabic high sounding phrases.  Would DePauw ... or for that matter any other school have to pay or do something other than desire/ask to be in and agree to abide by the rules?

I cannot believe DePauw (and this really hurts to say this) should somehow be unacceptable in its own right.  That leaves the analysisto "in the competition with other (if there are other good candidates who want to join) as to best fit".  We have all kicked this around and the Dannies - at least to my reading of benefits to the league - fit pretty darn well.  It adds strength to schedule; anchors the west end of the conference adding some travel saving for (at least) Wabash; really saves funds for DePauw in travel expenses,  would give Witt yet another Indiana school with whom to lose ... a joke; has compatable recruiting, finance, and academic standings; and the like.

Sure hope Seinfeld is correct.  on those occassions (and this has happened a goodly number of times) where conference championship, playoffs, and beating DePauw are all rolled into one ... GREAT !  And on those occassions when the first two items in the prior sentence are not a part ... it is still GREAT !

[DPU3619]

I suppose that if DePauw wanted the NCAC as bad as they claimed, they'd be willing to do just about anything. Maybe a NCAC President doesn't want DePauw in and, let's just say, that the DePauw cabinet would be willing to help persuade that President to change his vote. Do a little greasing of the wheels, so to say. I wouldn't put it past that group, would you? After all, they're willing to lie to fire football coaches.

That's purely speculation on my part, but I do think something must have changed. As far as I had understood, DePauw had closed the book on this situation after being turned away and was staying in the SCAC. Like I said, there's no real way to know if DePauw made that up, the situation changed, or something else entirely.

EDIT: To address your other point, I think one of the main reasons DePauw would not be wanted is what they did to the conference that THEY created (mostly) when they left for the SCAC. I understand a lot of those Presidents were honked off and it's probably given DePauw a bad reputation around this area ever since. More speculation from me there, but what DePauw & RHIT did in the late 90's wasn't a very good idea. Even though most of the people responsible for that disaster are gone, I could understand why deciding to add DePauw wouldn't be as cut and dried as it seems.

[wab64]

      Wes: Do you think if this goes down we can convince Pat and the d3.com folks to let you write the weekly blurb on the North Region? Your Southern column was always comprehensive, astute and a pleasure to read. Maybe some hatchets need to be buried,but I, for one, would love to see you back. Just don't sign up the Bear as an assistant.
      An interesting perspective you provide on the demise of the Indiana Collegate-could it be that DePauw always fancied itself as a Southern sort of school-magnolias and all that-a University of the South wannabe? In the Civil War, 4 students of Wabash became Union generals; only 1 from DePauw (Asbury) and he was a Confederate general. Then there was the great Wabash-DePauw flap when DePauw wouldn't get on the field with a black player from Wabash, and it took Major General Lew Wallace and the Methodist bishop of Indiana to get them out of the locker room. Hoo-boy! The following year, DePauw refused to schedule the game.

[DPU3619]

I appreciate the sentiment, but I don't know the first doggoned thing about the North. I have not much more than a basic knowledge of the NCAC and next to nothing about anybody else other than Mount Union is really good. Not quite qualified, I don't think.