FB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[ncc58]

Bashdad,

No one who follows the CCIW or NCC said anything about triple TD favorites.  I put the line at NCC -12, which I think is about right. Hazzbeen called It -20.5 and you'll notice he is a Bethel fan from the MIAC.

Your comments about Wes remind me of 2008 when Pete Ittersagen was the best special teams player in the universe (and he is in the NFL). He absolutely dominated the post season winning games @Wabash, and @Franklin. we played @Mt Union and they kicked to him every time. Their superior speed on special teams negated the obvious advantage. NCC has an outspoken policy of not playing starters on special teams and they have still ranked at the top of the conference in most categories. I agree with you that they will likely kick to Wes. This will be an interesting story line to follow Saturday.

The best point you make is the road vs home stat. I completely agree this is the wildcard. Most teams don't play as well on the road as they do at home. If there is another Redlands type game out there for NCC it will be on the road at a place like Wabash.

This is the part that worries me the most about this game. NCC's coverage units have been  spotty in the games that I have seen this year. The returners seemed to always be just 1 man away from breaking one.

That was very apparent in the Wheaton game.  2 kickoffs were returned to the 50 and as you said were one man away from a return for TD.  <sigh>... not that it would have mattered.   

As shown in the stats that Mugsy has provided, NCC has punted 37 times. Only 13 have been returned for a total of 36 yards.

It only takes 1 return to change a game. Ask Devin "Any Time" Hester. I am not saying Wes Chamblee is Devin Hester, but he is darn good. And, I am guessing if it required special attention 2 years ago, it requires special attention this week.

Chamblee has 4 punt returns for TDs. North Central has 3. Let's just say that both teams need to pay attention to their punt coverage teams this week.

Wabash has 7 defensive touchdowns; North Central has 7. Both teams better protect the ball.

[smedindy]

One of those punt returns by NC was a blocked punt. Two of Wabash's five were blocked punt returns.

Chamblee's average return is 22.3 though. That's with teams avoiding him.

[robertgoulet]

I see that there will be a video feed available for the game. Any of you guys watched a game using this feed? How is the quality? I was going to make my way down there, I don't know if I will be able to now.

[Duster72]

Lots of good banter on this game.  I think the factor that the stats do not illustrate is that Wabash played basically the first half of several games.  You really cannot look at things like total number of punts and consider it a meaningful statistic.  When your team is up by 21-30 points in the first half of games you get a lot of garbage time statistics.  I doubt NCC was afforded that luxury in the CCIW.

The other thing not really being discussed is that this looked like a very average Wabash team through 7 weeks.  An average Wabash team is better than most, but let's be honest, through 7 weeks this team didn't look like it would compete with some of the past Wabash playoff teams.  Since the Gator game, however, they've been great, and most of the mistakes that plagued them early in the season have been eliminated.  This season has been ER's best - the team has grown by leaps and bounds.  So, to our NCC friends, I don't think that looking at the tale of the tape is going to tell you the story of Wabash's season and who you face this week.  This team is light years better than they were even a month ago. 

Let's hope that injuries don't rear their ugly head and Wabash can put the team they have built on the field - that's my #1 concern.

[USee]

One of those punt returns by NC was a blocked punt. Two of Wabash's five were blocked punt returns.

Chamblee's average return is 22.3 though. That's with teams avoiding him.

Teams avoiding him isn't part of the 22.3 calculation. The average is calculated on actual returns, not avoided returns.

[USee]

Lots of good banter on this game.  I think the factor that the stats do not illustrate is that Wabash played basically the first half of several games.  You really cannot look at things like total number of punts and consider it a meaningful statistic.  When your team is up by 21-30 points in the first half of games you get a lot of garbage time statistics.  I doubt NCC was afforded that luxury in the CCIW.

You doubt what? I am not sure what your point is. If you want to do the analysis the stats and game stories are readily available. You can't assert what statistics are meaningful and what aren't by saying "I doubt it".

[robertgoulet]

One of those punt returns by NC was a blocked punt. Two of Wabash's five were blocked punt returns.

Chamblee's average return is 22.3 though. That's with teams avoiding him.

Teams avoiding him isn't part of the 22.3 calculation. The average is calculated on actual returns, not avoided returns.

Yes, but you could also say by teams avoiding him they're giving Wabash better field position, which is like a good return. 

[WABCOL86]

USee:

What he was saying about the punt return average is that he did 22.3 with teams trying to not punt to him.

The second point was simple, that NCC didn't have as much garbage time.  So stats can be misleading.

[Always.A.Titan]

Lots of good banter on this game.  I think the factor that the stats do not illustrate is that Wabash played basically the first half of several games.  You really cannot look at things like total number of punts and consider it a meaningful statistic.  When your team is up by 21-30 points in the first half of games you get a lot of garbage time statistics.  I doubt NCC was afforded that luxury in the CCIW.

You doubt what? I am not sure what your point is. If you want to do the analysis the stats and game stories are readily available. You can't assert what statistics are meaningful and what aren't by saying "I doubt it".

NCC won their CCIW games by an average of just over 31 points. I am not sure how everything worked out for playing time, but there was a bunch of garbage time available in a good portion of the games they played this season including the first round of the playoffs. As much as it pains me to say it, NCC romped through their season this year with the exception of their hiccup in week 1. As is the case with every game, the score doesn't always capture the essence of each game, but it is fairly easy to see that NCC hasn't put up a clunker since early September and appears to be clicking on all cylinders at this point.

I am sure that many of the teams in the playoffs run into this when comparing stats, but at this point, most of the teams that are leftover played many games that weren't very competitive.

[robertgoulet]

USee:

What he was saying about the punt return average is that he did 22.3 with teams trying to not punt to him.

The second point was simple, that NCC didn't have as much garbage time.  So stats can be misleading.

I will dig into these a little later (barring actually having work to do today), but here are the scores for NCC's games thus far...it would seem to me there was a fair amount of garbage time:

@ Redlands (#14) -         29-35
Bethel (TN) (#13, NAIA) - 70-26
Olivet -                         86-14
@ Carthage -                  24-0
Augustana -                    24-3
@ Millikin -                     61-14
@ IWU (#16) -                  24-0
Elmhurst -                       51-10
Wheaton (#18) -               33-7
North Park -                      35-0
Dubuque -                       59-13

[robertgoulet]

USee:

What he was saying about the punt return average is that he did 22.3 with teams trying to not punt to him.

The second point was simple, that NCC didn't have as much garbage time.  So stats can be misleading.

I will dig into these a little later (barring actually having work to do today), but here are the scores for NCC's games thus far...it would seem to me there was a fair amount of garbage time:

@ Redlands (#14) -         29-35
Bethel (TN) (#13, NAIA) - 70-26
Olivet -                         86-14
@ Carthage -                  24-0
Augustana -                    24-3
@ Millikin -                     61-14
@ IWU (#16) -                  24-0
Elmhurst -                       51-10
Wheaton (#18) -               33-7
North Park -                      35-0
Dubuque -                       59-13

Games that were over early:
Bethel -                        49-10 @ half
Olivet -                         45-0 @ half
Millikin -                        40-7 in 3rd
Elmhurst -                     30-3 after 3
North Park -                  35-0 early 3
Dubuque -                     38-13 end of 3

Plenty of garbage time, it seems to me. The point being....well, nothing. As stated earlier, stats can be cherry picked to make something look better or worse than it actually is, but the truth is stats are really the best thing we have right now to use as predictors (since unfortunately there is no NCAA D3 Football '12 for PS3 or Xbox).

Glad I took an hour out of my day to do that. 

[USee]

One of those punt returns by NC was a blocked punt. Two of Wabash's five were blocked punt returns.

Chamblee's average return is 22.3 though. That's with teams avoiding him.

Teams avoiding him isn't part of the 22.3 calculation. The average is calculated on actual returns, not avoided returns.

Yes, but you could also say by teams avoiding him they're giving Wabash better field position, which is like a good return. 

True, but that's a different point. 22.3 is his average return. His numbers aren't any better or worse based on people avoiding him.

On the garbage time, I think that is a very difficult thing to quantify. Every playoff team has their share of garbage time with big wins. If you dig into the time played I am pretty confident in saying NCC's starters played on average less than most teams starters. They rotate EVERYBODY on defense and many on offense. The point is, against NCC, you aren't trying to stop 1,2,3 or even 4 guys. You are competing against a system where they have close to 200 players on the roster and 1 in every 10 is an all conference/all american type player. They play all these guys so they have great players at every position with game experience and are great in many positions 2 and 3 deep (see the 3 qb's and 6 defensive linemen). That's what NCC has built....sound familiar?

[wabashsid]

Wabash uses the same company out of Indianapolis that the NCAA uses to produce the streams for the non-televised national championship events (Webstream Productions/Hometown Television). They use a five-camera system with two high shots, two field-level shots, embedded clock, and multiple replays. You can go to their web site (http://hometownsportsindiana.blogspot.com/ to view other games (including the four Wabash games broadcast early this season) to see examples of their product.

[robertgoulet]

Wabash uses the same company out of Indianapolis that the NCAA uses to produce the streams for the non-televised national championship events (Webstream Productions/Hometown Television). They use a five-camera system with two high shots, two field-level shots, embedded clock, and multiple replays. You can go to their web site (http://hometownsportsindiana.blogspot.com/ to view other games (including the four Wabash games broadcast early this season) to see examples of their product.

Thanks for the knowledge. I am hoping they don't use Real Player (NCTV does) as I would then be able to stream it on my TV through my PS3!

[BashDad]

The other thing not really being discussed is that this looked like a very average Wabash team through 7 weeks.  An average Wabash team is better than most, but let's be honest, through 7 weeks this team didn't look like it would compete with some of the past Wabash playoff teams.

This is precisely the point with a weak schedule. You just don't know what the hell to make of a team making their way through one without a loss. You know what changed? We played a good team. We waited for eight weeks and then we finally played a good team. A team that is, for sure, competitive with the top half of the CCIW. That first half against Witt totally morphed the perception of this group's ceiling. As did the Bell game. As did last week. It's not that Bash proved that they were great. It's that they did what great teams do to mediocre and good teams. Which, you know, they kind of did the whole season. We grumbled about finishing against Oberlin or Belton's indecisiveness in 45-7 games, but you know what? That was more about acquainting ourselves with a Wabash team that's strikingly different than those we're used to. We saw a struggling offense and wanted to scream fire (or "running back"!). We were all irrationally bracing for the impact of a loss that never came. It took a while to see that the offense was just... different. And this team's identity wasn't, actually, asking them to do much. Or to throw 30-40 times a game. Over the course of the remaining weeks, Belton got more decisive, killed Witt in the first 30 minutes, and then REALLY hasn't been asked to do anything for two weeks. So. I don't know. Here we are.

NCC wins every argument right now that centers around statistics. They just do. There's too much in their favor. But I'm not ready to concede that our strengths, even if statistically suspect with the SOS numbers, are somehow tossed to the bin of irrelevance. NCC is going to see a really good defense on Saturday. Count on that. And if they want to punt to Chamblee, then we need to get them in punting situations--and a lot of them--because that dude is going to make them pay eventually. Our offense is the question mark, it's the one component of the team that, outside of the final drive against Gheny or the first half against Witt, hasn't really proven much of anything.  But we've got Wes over there, we've got as good a run game as we've had in years, we've got Jon Horn and, maybe most importantly, we've got Josh Hoeg. His early game schemes have been killer. We've scored 123 of our 378 points in the first quarter. 226 of 378 in the first half. He's been our best player on offense. And his might be the only matchup on that side of the ball where I feel like we have an advantage. He'll figure something out.

Finally, and I've been sitting on this because its pretty transparent, but man... go back and look through the posts from 2005 before the Capital game. Just go look at those posts http://www.d3boards.com/index.php?topic=4077.msg418491#msg418491. We've been here before. We've had these arguments. We've had to defend against the same accusations. And here's what happened. We were 6 yards away from winning. Six yards. We dropped some balls, we fumbled on the goal line, we over-threw several touchdowns and we were still six yards away.

And USEE, look what you said! Look!

on wabash: ...no one really knows how good they are (including them)because their conference is down this year and isn't a strong top to bottom conference anyway.

Agreed, my friend.

When you've finished there, go look at 2009 before IWU. You'll find these kinds of posts:

The reason I believe Illinois Wesleyan is the only North Bracket team that could push Whitewater is because of their battles in the very physically tough CCIW will have partially prepared them for the strength of Whitewater at the line of scrimmage.  Whereas the rest of the north will be shocked by the size and speed that UWW brings at the point of attack.

The strength of UWW up front is amazing.   Which is what won them the '07 Stagg over Mount and made the other Stagg's very competitive.  Whitewater has won the battle in the trenches every year against Mount, but not always won at the skill positions.   

Other than getting lucky, to beat either Mount or Whitewater you have to be able to hold serve up front and let your superior skill people make up the difference.  And I just don't see how Witt, Wabash, Case, etc is going to be prepared in the trenches to face Whitewater after playing in the conferences they do.    IWU has the advantage of already playing some very physically strong teams in conference that the others didn't.

That game was a double-OT game, right? I mean here we are, back again, having the same arguments. NCC is better than those teams, I know that. But what's to say our version isn't similarly improved? We just don't know. We'll find out on Saturday.