FB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[smedindy]

I was hoping Wabash would play case in the UAA schedule at some point. Alas - have fun in the PAC!

[wally_wabash]

Was James ever implicated in the SMU fiasco during his playing days?

I think if you played at SMU in the early 80s, you're implicated.  That's just how Southwest Conference football operated.  Strangely, the ESPN Films project "Pony Excess" doesn't really pry at Craig James to find out what he took.  Curious. 

[wally_wabash]

Some good Wabash love in ATN this week...nice read. 

[aueagle]

CWRU has the "football only" rule for the PAC.....
My "Grassy Knoll" theory is....The get back into
the NCAC with the full compliment of teams...
It will seem like the old days...In the beginning.

[Desertraider]

I have been watching ESPN2 all day and the ticker at the bottom for NCAAF has the Div.1 FCS semi-finals with times - but nothing on the game tonight. Thanks for nothing ESPN. Even if you are not a fan of either team make it a D3 football event. Remember that one day your team will be in the Stagg and you will want networks to cover it - lets give them some ratings so that can happen. If you don't watch the game thats fine - just turn it on. Maybe if the ratings are decent ESPN will stop moving the game to friday (a TV dead zone!) or moving to a smaller ESPN network so they can show some damn Poker tournament! Even if you not a fan of the teams playing - we are all fans of DIII football!

[smedindy]

CWRU has the "football only" rule for the PAC.....
My "Grassy Knoll" theory is....The get back into
the NCAC with the full compliment of teams...
It will seem like the old days...In the beginning.

I don't think that would work. Right now the NCAC has a perfect number on the male sports side. And it would mean unbalanced scheduling on football with 11 members because I am sure they'd want to preserve at least one non-conference game.

[ADL70]

It's pretty clear that the UAA football teams are commited to continuing to play each other even as they find homes in two different conferences, which have been willing to accomodate that desire.

It would be interesting to know what forces drove the decision for the NCAC to go round-robin.

After having lived with the NCAC since 2008, nothing permanent emerged and the UAA has had to find marriages of convenience (geographically for Chicago and WUStL and academically for CWRU and CMU).

CWRU continued its relationship with many NCAC teams and it is sad to see those lost.  I lose "home" games for me when CWRU played in central Ohio.

[smedindy]

It only makes sense to crown a conference champion using a complete round-robin. It's ideal, and a lot of scheduling headaches are removed.

[wally_wabash]

It only makes sense to crown a conference champion using a complete round-robin. It's ideal, and a lot of scheduling headaches are removed.

Agree, but I'm not convinced that the full round robin is here to stay.  As things sit currently (and have sat for a decade now), there exists a fairly large competitve gap between the 2-3 teams at the bottom of the league standings and the 2-3 teams at the top of the league standings.  Some of these matchups are extremely undesireable...undesireable enough that in 2003 Kenyon quit the league to avoid them.  We'll see after two or four years of this round robin if the league isn't better off with a 7-game league schedule. 

[smedindy]

However, I feel that a true champ is crowned only when everyone plays everyone.

Otherwise, you could have that wacky scenario where a team could avoid Wabash and / or Witt and come out with the conference title.

[DPU3619]

Was James ever implicated in the SMU fiasco during his playing days?

I think if you played at SMU in the early 80s, you're implicated.  That's just how Southwest Conference football operated.  Strangely, the ESPN Films project "Pony Excess" doesn't really pry at Craig James to find out what he took.  Curious.

Which, in my opinion, is the gateway to much larger discussion about what ESPN is doing (or sometimes not doing, in the Bernie Fine case) to steer the landscape in the way that benefits them most.

[wally_wabash]

However, I feel that a true champ is crowned only when everyone plays everyone.

Otherwise, you could have that wacky scenario where a team could avoid Wabash and / or Witt and come out with the conference title.

I don't think we've seen a case where the seven (or six) game schedule failed to figure out who the best team in the league was.  Prudent scheduling ensures that the main challengers for the league championship are playing one another...the cream always rises to the top.  My point was just that it isn't inconceivable that one of the league's bottom dwellers, who have been largely spared games against Wabash and Witt, may not be particularly enthusiastic about having to play those games every year.  We've seen it happen before. I don't want to see Kenyon or Hiram pick up their ball and walk out again...I'd rather we have a 7-game league schedule and keep those guys around. 

[smedindy]

It almost happened, though Wally - in 2005. Kenyon went 6-1 in the league, with their only loss to OWU. Had Wabash tripped against Witt or Gheny that year, or had Kenyon beaten OWU, then it would have been a tie and I don't recall exactly what the tiebreakers were back then.

So while it didn't happen, for several weeks it looked as if it was plausible that it could happen.

[wally_wabash]

I know it almost happened.  Almost.  But it didn't because Kenyon wasn't able to run the table against their watered down schedule and Wabash was able to go 7-0.  The cream always rises. 

You do love you some ifs and almosts and could haves. 

But let's play it out.  Let's say Kenyon DID go 7-0 and let's say that the league tiebreakers said that Kenyon was to be awarded the league's bid to the tournament.  So we've got undefeated co-champions, Kenyon gets to establish some kind of recent championship history and use it to recruit better players, and Wabash is still 10-0 and still gets to go the playoffs and still gets to be a #1 seed.  Only good things happen.  Kenyon gets better, the league gets two teams in the field, and Wabash is still awesome.  It's not nearly the nightmare scenario we might have thought it would be.

[smedindy]

But even with the 6-1 conference record, it didn't help Kenyon, so I can't see a playoff bid doing much more for them.

I tend to deal with the theoretical and abstract at times because I want to try to avoid problems down the road. And a contracted conference schedule could lead to an issue where the best the NCAC has to offer is sitting home and a team that lucked into a playoff bid that's clearly inferior.

Better to plan for the theoretical than be dumbfounded when the implausible happens. And a full round-robin conference schedule is the way to address that issue. I surmise that Kenyon and Hiram are in favor of it? I can't imagine the NCAC enacting something without at least tacit support from them. I don't see Wilmington shying away from the OAC round-robin.