FB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[SaintsFAN]

Speaking of Marian, did you see that trophy last night?  I couldn't tell if they had just won a college championship or the Bud Bowl.

LOL -- +K

Wes -- I was surprised to see kids from Cathedral, Chatard and Roncalli on the roster at Marian University.  Wonder how many more will go there with a National Title in hand.. One would think that a kid would want to play at Wabash or Franklin (but not Hanover) before Marion. 

[wally_wabash]

Speaking of Marian, did you see that trophy last night?  I couldn't tell if they had just won a college championship or the Bud Bowl.

LOL -- +K

Wes -- I was surprised to see kids from Cathedral, Chatard and Roncalli on the roster at Marian University.  Wonder how many more will go there with a National Title in hand.. One would think that a kid would want to play at Wabash or Franklin (but not Hanover) before Marion.

Makes sense that Marian would have pretty strong pull with the Catholic schools in Indy, doesn't it?

[DPU3619]

It does make sense that they have good pull, but it's also basically a commuter school for a lot of those kids.  It's on West 38th Street.  10 minutes from Cathedral.  20 minutes from Chatard or Roncalli.  Cardinal Ritter is right there, too.  Ritter is starting to become a 2A power in this state.  Marian's HC, Ted Karras, is a really good coach and an even better recruiter.  He's sold a lot of these local kids on it and it's working.  I wonder how many kids think of NAIA the same way some of us think of NAIA.  I bet they don't.  And now, a title is a title, regardless of what level they play at.  It's problem for the Indiana D3s. 

DePauw used to get several of those kids from the Indy private religious schools.  Now they hardly have any.  Only 8 this past year, 3 from Brebeuf Jesuit, 2 from Cathedral, 2 from Heritage Christian, and 1 from Cardinal Ritter.  That's good football and it produces good football players.  There's a reason 4 of the 5 Indiana HS state champions were private schools, and have been for some time.  It's not quite this simple, but I believe the more of those players you get, the better you're going to be.  Marian is a pretty good example of that.

[smedindy]

I didn't notice an overwhelming amount of catholic school kids on the Marian roster. I was anticipating more.

[gofor7pitt]

They have a players problem--and all signs point to the fact that Bill Lynch will be a confusing recruiter, at best.  He coached up some athletes that were more or less evenly matched with Wabash, and then he left. Walker was probably doing all the recruiting anyway. Now Lynch's pitch would be: I promise I won't leave this time? GOOSE BUMPS. SIGN. ME. UP.

Late to the party here on my response to this post from days ago, but why is he a confusing recruiter?  I say again that every single coach in the country would have done what he did when he went to IU.  Nobody turns down a chance to leave D3 to be an asst in the B1G for your best friend.  Nobody. Your assumption that Walker did all the recruiting is just that.  He hardly had time to recruit football.  I would guess that recruiting season is baseball season.  Long was the recruiting coordinator, anyway.  Lynch is a very good recruiter.  He knows Indiana better than just about any coach I've ever met.  There are some unique challenges right now in recruiting Indiana.  Marian is a problem.  Franklin is a problem.  I think the pool of kids that DePauw & Wabash both recruit is dwindling, and truthfully, most of those kids go to Wabash right now.  Why wouldn't they?

I'll say this again, just to make sure we're on the same page with how this is going.  Either they're going to cave to do it Lynch's way or not.  He's the guy for the job.  I believe that 100%.  But, the admin needs to let him do it and stop trying to have a hand in it.  That hasn't worked.  In fact, it destroyed the program.  There are lots of rumors flying about how this staff will be assembled.  Some of it is very, very concerning.  If any of it is true, it's not sounding too promising right now regardless of who the hire is, which makes me sad. 

I'm just working on an assumption here, but I'd be surprised if Bell actually means it.  Like somebody said earlier, why wouldn't you take Coe when Raeburn built it but then turn around and take DePauw when it's a mess and there are questions about the administration's commitment to anything football related?  I thought the same thing when Steve Mohr from Trinity was a finalist for the DePauw job when Lynch got it.  It just feels like a contract leverage situation to me.

Nice to know Franklin is a problem!! 

Next season could the best Coach Leonard has had at Franklin with next years senior class.

[wally_wabash]

Read this over on the OAC thread and I just can't get the ripple-in-time/what-if scenarios out of my head.  It really is an all timer.  An article in the paper in Cleveland on Larry Kehres reveals that Coach Kehres interviewed to be Hiram's football coach way back in the day and they didn't offer.  That's a real thing that happened. 

[SaintsFAN]

Speaking of Marian, did you see that trophy last night?  I couldn't tell if they had just won a college championship or the Bud Bowl.

LOL -- +K

Wes -- I was surprised to see kids from Cathedral, Chatard and Roncalli on the roster at Marian University.  Wonder how many more will go there with a National Title in hand.. One would think that a kid would want to play at Wabash or Franklin (but not Hanover) before Marion.

Makes sense that Marian would have pretty strong pull with the Catholic schools in Indy, doesn't it?

Absolutely -- it looks like they've done quite well with the Catholic schools, for being such a new program.

[formerd3db]

In other offseason news, Wittenberg is going to use its lone non-league games in 2013 and 2014 to play...Butler.  Why?  Honestly, why?  I didn't understand it when Wittenberg was scheduling games with Dayton, I don't get why Franklin is scheduling games with Butler, and I don't understand why Wittenberg is tossing its one non-league game to get face-kicked by Butler.  I will never understand the point of this. 

And why is Butler playing these games?  Seriously, that Final Four money is going to run out sooner or later.  Why don't the Dogs go take money from Purdue or IU if they want to burn a non-league game that they won't get anything meaningful out of football-wise?  If you're going to waste everybody's time, you might as well get paid for it.

IMO Franklin playing Butler is foolish.  As hould Witt, FC should be playing a solid D3 team from the North Region to establish a better region record and SOS.  FC got a 6 seed road game this year as they didnt have enough region metrics.  While Butler doesnt count, it doesnt help unless you win and then the NCAA selection team would have to know enough about Butler to consider the win a positive. In a normal year Butler will pound Witt. Just my two cents.

There are differences of opinion on this, although I tend to think that most people agree with yours.  Years back, IMO, there was no reason why a school should not play a DIAA or DII school, if they wanted to.  One theory (and I believed it because I experienced it) was that by "playing up" at the next level for a non-conference game or two, in the long run, it made your team better.  Granted, you might lose some games before you defeated them, yet that also depended on the year.

In addition, when Witt was playing Dayton and other examples such as Alma playiing Drake and Ferris State, Hope playing Valpo and Indiana Central (now University of Indianapolis), and even playing Butler in recent years, that was not a problem either.  Butler had gone from being a good DII program, to a less than stellar DIAA program and had a difficult time against their occasional DIII opponents.  No so anymore, as the former DIAA, now FCS programs, including Butler's and San Diago's have tremendously improved.  And BTW, up until recent, in a normal year in the past, Butler would not have pounded Witt, however.

An ironic aspect of this i.e. the Pioneer League and some of the other FCS schools, is that some of the DIII schools outdraw them in home attendance for games.  Which is kind of strange in regards to the FCS schools wanting their recognition as DI football.  Also, next year, the Pioneer League gets an automatic bid to the FCS Playoffs.  Perhaps the Ivy League should take notice. And BTW, I have never understood the very strange and hypocritical philosophy that the Ivy League has in allowing all their other athletic teams, including basketball going to post season play (March Madness for the latter), while prohibiting their football teams from doing so.  Makes no sense.

Yet, as you have mentioned, it makes no sense to really do this because of the NCAA DIII system and the SOS.  If you play a team like Butler as Franklin did, it doesn't count, yet I agree with you that it should to some degree, even in you lose the game because you are playing, for the most part, a stronger next level team.  However, it doesn't work that way. 

I've always been one to like the "underdogs getting a shot at the big guys"; so when a DIII team occasionally beat a DII or DIAA, it was great for that program.  Which is another reason why I like when the FCS (formerly DIAA) teams play the FBS teams and occasionally win.  We all remember Michigan losing to Appl.State during the Rich Rod year.  However, I also remember one year of recent when Toledo beat Purdue and then HC Joe Tiller was voicing his opinion that they had no business scheduling a MAC school.  What? Come on coach, if your team is/was so great, you should have beaten them soundly.  Of course, the FBS schools have everything to lose while the FCS teams have everything to gain if they win those type of games.  Another example was one of the DIII teams beating Bucknell one year. Nonetheless, IMO, I like to see an occasional non-conference game scheduled like that for all the divisions, again, if a school decides they would like to take the chance.

At any rate, really the only way it might work for a DIII school now, aside for winning your own conference and getting the AQ, would be an independent scheduling such a game and that being their only loss and then getting an at-large bid if they had a high SOS otherwise. Still, I do like those challenge games and the occasional upsets.   Just my $0.02 worth.  Thanks for sharing yours.

[nike]

Step away for a minute and everything shifts. 
Schmitz leaving is huge. Would wait to see where he winds up or what he decides to do before speculating on the why.  Did not think he would be forced out.  Unless trustee involvement. Will be interesting to see if he and wife remain in Wooster or if one of them got an offer from somewhere that was too good to turn down.   
Now the question is a Wooster guy or someone from the outside.
 

[seinfeld]

As referenced previously, Brian Wright (now at Florida Atlantic) is definitely a long shot, but not as long of a shot as when Wooster hired Bob Tucker to be their head football coach in 1985. The position Tucker left to come to Wooster? Defensive coordinator at Ohio State.

http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/tucker_bob00.html

[smedindy]

This is a long way from 1985.

[seinfeld]

Wooster's local sports editor spends a majority of his Sunday column on the Schmitz "forced resignation" and who some of the potential candidates are, including a name (Hajjar) that I hadn't even considered. I have to give credit to the paper for being willing to write an article like this and to press the College about what really happened. It is not easy for a small paper to do this, especially in Wooster, where the school is very careful about crafting its image and clearly tries to influence how the paper covers them (i.e. never in a negative light).

http://www.the-daily-record.com/local%20sports/2012/12/16/scots-have-big-decisions-to-make-about-football

[wally_wabash]

That's an interesting read although I remain perplexed by the emphasis on the lack of "upsets".  Isn't the greater problem that Wooster has slipped into a position of perpetual underdog? 

[smedindy]

You're supposed to beat the teams you're supposed to beat - THAT'S the problem with Wooster. It's unreasonable to think that an upset on the Wabash / Oberlin magnitude should be 'expected'.

Wooster's spot in the conference pecking order was taken up by OWU and Kenyon last season. Wooster did not beat the teams they were supposed to beat - that's the issue, not 'upsets'.

[FightinScot]

I think what everyone's trying to get by saying that Wooster never "upsets" teams is speaking more to where we were just a few years ago. Obviously, the biggest issue is the team turned from a championship contender to a .500 team, to worse this past year - which is why Schmitz was let go.

However, what I think seinfeld and the reporters are trying to get at is that even when Wooster was one of the top teams in the conference, is that Schmitz's teams never "upset" a team to push for the conference championship. Look no further than the Wabash game in 2008 - Wooster's most recent time contending for a championship. Good team, but we never made it over that hump to be considered a truly elite team in the NCAC. Wooster, at its best during Schmitz's tenure (save the Sutton years) was the third of the 3 W's. Good, but never truly challenging Wabash or Witt for a ring. So, while the team was successful, it never made the jump to be an elite NCAC team.

Hopefully the new coach can put us back in that direction.