FB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[wally_wabash]

Game of the Week in the league has a trophy on the line.  It's Old Red Lantern week for Wooster and Denison. 

Okay, wally, very neat. I guess I'm a little lazy right now in not looking that historical information (actually have a commitment to go to right now).  So would you fill me/us in on the history of that rivalry please?  I assume it has perhaps something to do with the train between the two towns where each college is located since it involves a lantern? Thanks.

As a matter of fact it does, Doc.  Wooster and Denison played their first ever collegiate football game against one another and over the years there were obviously a lot of train rides by these teams to play the games.  In 1984, the inaugural season of the NCAC, the two schools opened league play against each other and introduced the lantern (I can't remember if this lantern is symbolic of those on the train that ran between the two or is an actual artifact from that train)  as the prize awarded to the winner.  In keeping the historical linkage of firsts between the two schools, the presidents of the schools agreed to move the start time of the game up 5 minutes so that the first ever NCAC football game would officially have been played between these two schools.  All of my information here is sourced from a 2011 article in Denison's newspaper. 

The Old Red Lantern is officially my second favorite railroad-related traveling trophy in the league.   

[sigma one]

Weather in Oberlin, Ohio, for Saturday looks like mid- to high-40s at Kickoff.  Winds could be over 20mph.  The Oberlin Yoe Notes (nice title) for the Wabash game mentions that against Allegheny last week on the Oberlin field they played in rain and mud.  Wonder what the field will look like on Saturday. If I'm Oberlin, I haven't done much to improve the surface this week. 
     With the wind and marginal (?) field conditions, could this be a ground and pound affair?  Wabash players, their overused phrase but revealing, have had this game circled on the schedule for a full year.   
           

[Wabash Hokie]

Below is the link to Wabash's game notes for the game at Oberlin on Saturday.

http://sports.wabash.edu/documents/2013/10/23/ReleaseOct22013.pdf?id=217

Hope to see the guys get out of there with a win and in good health.

[wabashcpa]

Wabash kickers 11 for 11 in FG and 39 for 41 in XP.  Strong.  Keep it up.

[formerd3db]

Thanks for the info wally!  I enjoy hearing about the history of football at all the DIII schools.  Also, I totally understand why the Old Red Lantern is your "second most favorite associated train themed" trophy!!!

[DPU3619]

The Old Red Lantern is officially my second favorite railroad-related traveling trophy in the league.   

Agreed.  I bet the Old Red Lantern sounds stupid when you try to ring it.

[big_bash]

The Old Red Lantern is officially my second favorite railroad-related traveling trophy in the league.   

Agreed.  I bet the Old Red Lantern sounds stupid when you try to ring it.

Hopefully, we never try and find out which one burns brightest.

[wally_wabash]

This is the first bit of targeting that I've seen pop up in the league this year...which quite honestly shocks me.  Thought we'd see a lot more of this stuff this year. 

But here is the case...Witt LB Mark Swope was tossed early in the second half of last week's game vs. Wooster for targeting and because the foul occurred in the second half, it means that Swope was scheduled to miss the first half of this week's game vs. Kenyon.  Wittenberg appealed to the league office, with video evidence, and the league has overturned that suspension after seening that Swope did not use his own helmet to contact the receiver nor did he hit the receiver above the shoulders.  So really, there's no foul there at all...but Wittenberg was still penalized the 15 yards (which they shouldn't have been) and Swope lost that half of football. 

This...this right here is what I was concerned about with this new rule entering this year.  "When in doubt, throw 'em out" is so irresponsible and totally unfair to the players.   And without the benefit of immedeiate on-site replay to adjudicate those instances where there is a question about the nature of the contact, I don't think it's ok to incorrectly eject a player from a game. 

[ADL70]

Goes against the "innocent until proven guilty" ethic.

For an OOC game which conference can reverse, say if next game is OOC too?

Addendum:

I have learned that CWRU was contacted by the NWC Supervisor of Officials to see if CWRU wanted to have the disqualification of a Spartan player during the second half of their game at Puget Sound reviewed.

[wally_wabash]

Goes against the "innocent until proven guilty" ethic.

For an OOC game which conference can reverse, say if next game is OOC too?

That's a good question.  My guess is that you appeal any next-game suspension to your own conference and we just assume that the league office is going to act in good faith and not automatically lift a suspension that is valid.  But then again, if the foul was called correctly to begin with, there probably wouldn't be an appeal.  Wittenberg had another player ejected in the game- in the first half I believe so there isn't a carry over penalty to this week- which Fincham thought was a good call.  So if there was a carry over penalty to this week, it doesn't sound like they would have appealed the play or the foul. 

[jknezek]

There isn't a whole lot of info on the targeting penalties yet, especially outside of D1, but I will relay this. So far this season, according to the SEC head of refereeing, there have been 52 targeting penalties in FBS. 15 have been overturned. Given that in any weekend there are 50 or so FBS games, and we are through week 8, there have been about 400 games. So one penalty for every 8 games, with a bit over 25% of those penalties getting overturned.

If the bias is "if in doubt throw them out", which we've heard it is, then this rule is doing really well. To have had only 52 questionable collisions marked, and only 37 of them actually head to head, this rule is having minimal impact while making the game safer. Given that only a bit over 25% of the calls are deemed incorrect on review, even given the bias, means that mostly referees are doing a good job being discerning.

That brings us to your example. Using the stats above, about 25% of the targeting calls in D3 are probably wrong. With twice as many games a week, roughly, and 7 weeks into the season (700 games), we can assume that just under 100 (1 call per 8 games) targeting calls have been made. With the error rate, 25 players have probably been unjustly held out from a half, or just over a half but less than one game. That's 25 players out of the roughly 25,000 players in D3 football (242 teams with 100 player average rosters is probably a bit conservative). 1 in 1000. Not a bad price to pay for making the game safer. Assuming we're a bit over halfway through the season, we should end up with 1 in 500 players, or just over 1 player in every 5 teams.

What do you say to those 50 kids? Well, the same thing we all think the parent should have said to the Texas H.S. player instead of filing a bully report. "Son, I'm sorry, but the world isn't always a fair place. The sooner you learn this lesson, the harder you will work to help improve the situation."

My biggest problem with the targeting rule is the same as most people who watch D1. If it gets reviewed and overturned on the field, the 15 yards should be voided as well. Other than that, I think this rule is spot on and doing a great job helping make the game safer. The error rate is acceptable to me and the actual application of the rule is not a widespread calamity as many predicted.

[DPU3619]

Every team films their games from the top of the box and the end zone.  Some schools now film from the sideline as well for marketing & whatnot.  I've seen some D3 schools with hype videos for their kids with sideline film.  So, even at this level or the HS level, you've got 2 or 3 angles on every play.  Why aren't we throwing a flag and then having the league review the film later?  Why can't it be like a baseball fight or a flagrant foul in basketball?  We'll look at it later and and hand down suspensions from there.  Throw the kid out right now if you're certain. That's no different than any other personal foul.  If not, the league can request the film and make up their minds later.

[wally_wabash]

Every team films their games from the top of the box and the end zone.  Some schools now film from the sideline as well for marketing & whatnot.  I've seen some D3 schools with hype videos for their kids with sideline film.  So, even at this level or the HS level, you've got 2 or 3 angles on every play.  Why aren't we throwing a flag and then having the league review the film later?  Why can't it be like a baseball fight or a flagrant foul in basketball?  We'll look at it later and and hand down suspensions from there.  Throw the kid out right now if you're certain. That's no different than any other personal foul.  If not, the league can request the film and make up their minds later.

Yes Yes Yes.  The leagues should be deciding whether or not to suspend a player who has run afoul...not undoing bad calls and bad enforcement.  The player is protected from unjustly missing playing time (and if the player deserves to miss time, that time will come...justice is done) and you remove the burden from the game officials to toss a player out of the game when they aren't really sure they should.  It's too much for those guys to deal with without the aid of any immediate on-site replay.  And when it comes to removing players from games and taking that opportunity away from them- of which there are so very few to begin with- any error rate is too much.  If you're going to take a game away from one of these players, I think you better be damned sure you get it right. 

[ExTartanPlayer]

Every team films their games from the top of the box and the end zone.  Some schools now film from the sideline as well for marketing & whatnot.  I've seen some D3 schools with hype videos for their kids with sideline film.  So, even at this level or the HS level, you've got 2 or 3 angles on every play.  Why aren't we throwing a flag and then having the league review the film later?  Why can't it be like a baseball fight or a flagrant foul in basketball?  We'll look at it later and and hand down suspensions from there.  Throw the kid out right now if you're certain. That's no different than any other personal foul.  If not, the league can request the film and make up their minds later.

Yes Yes Yes.  The leagues should be deciding whether or not to suspend a player who has run afoul...not undoing bad calls and bad enforcement.  The player is protected from unjustly missing playing time (and if the player deserves to miss time, that time will come...justice is done) and you remove the burden from the game officials to toss a player out of the game when they aren't really sure they should.  It's too much for those guys to deal with without the aid of any immediate on-site replay.  And when it comes to removing players from games and taking that opportunity away from them- of which there are so very few to begin with- any error rate is too much.  If you're going to take a game away from one of these players, I think you better be damned sure you get it right.

I agree with this.  I think jknezek's point of view is that the immediacy/severity of the punishment increases the impact (edited to clarify - the impact of the PUNISHMENT - perhaps it means more if there's an immediate threat of being removed from the game) and, in theory, will make players more careful.  Respectfully disagreeing, I prefer your viewpoint, wally, that a questionable hit should be flagged during the game, but no suspension should be handed down at that time, instead preferring that the league office review any hits deemed questionable later to determine if they are suspension-worthy (which is why I bolded the particular passage - if it's a dirty hit, the kid will get suspended eventually).  I believe I posted something of this ilk earlier this season and jknezek disagreed about the practicality/necessity of such a system, so we're kind of going in circles.

jknezek, I know you point out the relatively low incidence of ejections and say this is an acceptable tradeoff.  I disagree, but again, we're going in circles.  I made the point earlier this season that I'm vehemently against an athlete losing a half/game from his senior season if he makes a clean tackle attempt resulting in head-to-head contact that an official sees from 30 yards away and throws a flag because this is now a point of emphasis; you see this happening in a few games as an acceptable trade-off for making the game safer, illustrating that an equivalent number of concussions may be prevented by said rule, or an argument to that effect, and that players missing game (and more importantly, class) time because of concussions is a worse problem than a few players being ejected and/or suspended.  Respectfully agree to disagree.

[jknezek]

Respectfully agree to disagree.

You got it. The only reason I reposted on the topic was because the statistics were fresh this week. Otherwise I wouldn't bother rehashing.