FB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[miac952]

Heck, I'm worried that a higher division team will pick off BJ to be their defensive coordinator.

No kidding. Looking at all the points Purdue gave up you would think they'd at least consider calling.

A Purdue coordinator job could be a huge pay raise, but it also might mean you are looking for a job in a year. Hazell might be a lame duck and could have been brought back for one more year just because of the shear number of D1 jobs open and how far down the pecking order Purdue would have been on that list.

If Leipold does get the Buffalo engine churning to even higher levels in the MAC the floodgates could open to D3. It was considered an edgy move outside of the D3 community when they hired him.

[Li'l Giant]

Yeah, Purdue was a bad example.

[miac952]

Yeah, Purdue was a bad example.

Definitely agree with you though. Big school coordinator jobs are where the money leaps are. D2 Augustana SD lost their HC five years ago to a struggling Michigan State program that was in its second year under Mark Dantonio. Salem went there to become a RB coach with no guarantee of even having a job a year from that point. Now he is the QB coach making $340k a  year for a national power and has the development of Kirk Cousins and Connor Cook on his resume. If someone is willing to take a loss of power to be an asisstant there is no way D3 or D2 can keep up with that. And the more success stories there are like Leipold or Salem the more the big timers will start raiding the ranks of D2 and D3.

[jknezek]

And the more success stories there are like Leipold or Salem the more the big timers will start raiding the ranks of D2 and D3.

I know this will ruffle some feathers, but we are being awfully quick to declare LL a success at Buffalo. They finished 5-7, 4th in the East in the MAC, on a 3 game slide. Last year they finished 5-6, third in the East, on a 2 game rebound. This year they averaged fewer yards, scored fewer points, and allowed more yards on defense. They did allow fewer points, but a good chunk of that was trading their money game from Baylor (2014) to Penn State (2015). By almost any objective measure, this season was marginally worse than the season that got the last coach fired.

Now I'm not an advocate of judging LL on one year. That's ridiculous. He needs time to get his own recruits, his own system, and basically build the program. But I also think it is extremely premature to declare him any kind of success on this year. If anything, 2015 was at best a stutter step backwards.

[miac952]

And the more success stories there are like Leipold or Salem the more the big timers will start raiding the ranks of D2 and D3.

I know this will ruffle some feathers, but we are being awfully quick to declare LL a success at Buffalo. They finished 5-7, 4th in the East in the MAC, on a 3 game slide. Last year they finished 5-6, third in the East, on a 2 game rebound. This year they averaged fewer yards, scored fewer points, and allowed more yards on defense. They did allow fewer points, but a good chunk of that was trading their money game from Baylor (2014) to Penn State (2015). By almost any objective measure, this season was marginally worse than the season that got the last coach fired.

Now I'm not an advocate of judging LL on one year. That's ridiculous. He needs time to get his own recruits, his own system, and basically build the program. But I also think it is extremely premature to declare him any kind of success on this year. If anything, 2015 was at best a stutter step backwards.

Fair point. I was probably projecting what could be. They had a couple of bad losses to end this season too.

Tom Manning would be another one recently. Now Iowa State's offensive coordinator. Mount Union guy.

[Dr. Acula]

D3 coordinator to D1 coordinator would be almost unheard of.  It's usually D3 coordinator or HC to D1 position coach.  Hallett just left Berg to be O line coach at Toledo, for instance.  Manning is a Mount guy, but he's also been a D1 position coach for years.  Campbell, Candle, Manning etc all have D3 roots, but all had to start at the bottom when going up to D1.  My guess is Hammer would follow the same path if he chose to move to D1.

[Old Gold Tiger]

Wabash and DePauw bring back similar numbers and by all means should be playing Week 11 in C'ville for the league title.  If that doesn't happen, something went really wrong for one or both of those teams. 

I agree with the bullish outlook in Crawfordsville and for DePauw, but is there evidence to suggest Witt won't be a factor in the conference race?  My sense is they'll be hungry and motivated after a relatively disappointing season for that program.

[HSCTiger fan]

Keeping Coach Hammer at Wabash along with the other assistants needs to be a priority.  The recent article in USA Today showed how the football programs in the top divisions provide their coaching staffs with bonuses when they have an outstanding year.  Wabash raised enough from the Alumni in one afternoon at the first Gentlemen's Classic to send the team to Virginia this year.  I suspect that the Alumni could come up with a pretty good bonus pool through donations to the Athletic Fund in a day or two to provide financial incentives of a bonus pool to keep the staff happy and at Wabash rather then being enticed away by other Division 3 schools and larger schools for that matter..  The success of the former UWW coaches at Buffalo this year has not gone unnoticed. A number of the larger schools looking hard at the top Division 3 coaching talent.  Purdue which is 30 minutes up US 231 and Ball State which is not far away on Indiana 32 are both looking for coordinators and assistant coaches for their respective programs, and they are just the tip of the iceberg.

Ball State's coach Pete Limbo coached as an assistant at Hampden Sydney College in 1997. They went 0-10 the only year he was there! 

[Joe Wally]

D3 coordinator to D1 coordinator would be almost unheard of.  It's usually D3 coordinator or HC to D1 position coach.  Hallett just left Berg to be O line coach at Toledo, for instance.  Manning is a Mount guy, but he's also been a D1 position coach for years.  Campbell, Candle, Manning etc all have D3 roots, but all had to start at the bottom when going up to D1.  My guess is Hammer would follow the same path if he chose to move to D1.

What was Brock Spack's transition from Wabash to Purdue?  Position coach to position coach?

[DadofBashWarrior..]

D3 coordinator to D1 coordinator would be almost unheard of.  It's usually D3 coordinator or HC to D1 position coach.  Hallett just left Berg to be O line coach at Toledo, for instance.  Manning is a Mount guy, but he's also been a D1 position coach for years.  Campbell, Candle, Manning etc all have D3 roots, but all had to start at the bottom when going up to D1.  My guess is Hammer would follow the same path if he chose to move to D1.

What was Brock Spack's transition from Wabash to Purdue?  Position coach to position coach?

Brian Ward was an assistant at Wabash...look where he just moved to...


Current position


Title
Defensive Coordinator

Team
Syracuse

Conference
ACC

Coaching career (HC unless noted)


1997
McPherson (DC/ST)

1998–2000
Glendale CC (DC/DB)

2001–2004
Wabash (AHC/DB/ST)

2005
Missouri Southern (Co-DC/ST)

2006
Tulsa Union (OK) HS (DC)

2007–2009
McPherson

2010
North Dakota St. (DB)

2011
Drake (DC)

2012–2014
Western Illinois (DC)

2015
Bowling Green (DC)

2016-present
Syracuse (DC)

Head coaching record


Overall
17–14 (.548)

Accomplishments and honors


Awards

2009 College Fanz National Coach of the Year

[Dr. Acula]

He went from D1 coordinator to bigger D1 coordinator.  I meant going straight from D3 coordinator to D1 coordinator.  That may have been poorly conveyed by me in my OP.

[wally_wabash]

Wabash and DePauw bring back similar numbers and by all means should be playing Week 11 in C'ville for the league title.  If that doesn't happen, something went really wrong for one or both of those teams. 

I agree with the bullish outlook in Crawfordsville and for DePauw, but is there evidence to suggest Witt won't be a factor in the conference race?  My sense is they'll be hungry and motivated after a relatively disappointing season for that program.

Won't take us long to find out as Wabash and Witt will play in Springfield in Game 3 again next season.  Here's my take on Witt 2016:

- Jenkins, Stump, Culvahouse, Dehnke, Gary.  All gone.  That's basically all of Witt's skill positions that are in need of replacement.  Can Quinn Cook or Jake Kennedy step right in and do what Jenkins did in 2014 and to a lesser extent 2015?  Who knows.  They threw 14 passes between them in 2015, none likely to have come in high leverage situations.  One of these two guys is going to get two starts before they get to deal with Wabash's defense.  Good luck with that.   
- All told Witt loses 89% of their total offense from 2015.  That's a lot to replace.  71% of their rush yardage graduates, 60% of their receiving yards.  All but 80 of their pass yards.  It's not just the yardage here either that's the big deal, it's the reps.  There weren't a lot of reps to spread around to non-seniors on that offense in 2015. 
- They do return their entire offensive line, which will help a young and inexperienced offense.   
- I expect they will be a bit better on defense, although their most disruptive defensive player, Josh Bannick, won't be there to crush the middle of the DL. 

Witt will get Wabash and DePauw in Springfield in 2016, which is a bonus.  However, the timing of the Wabash game couldn't be worse (I expect Witt will be much better in the latter third of the season than they are in the first third).  But the bigger thing for me at the moment is that Witt is coming off of 2014 and 2015 seasons where they averaged and 3.1 and 3.8 ypc, respectively.   That's not conference championship level football.  That's pretty poor, frankly.  Until they get back to running with some semblance of effectiveness, I think they've been passed over by Wabash and DePauw. 

[Joe Wally]

He went from D1 coordinator to bigger D1 coordinator.  I meant going straight from D3 coordinator to D1 coordinator.  That may have been poorly conveyed by me in my OP.

I thought that Spack did.  I should have looked it up.  Lazy posting on my part.  -k

[DPU3619]

Too lazy to screw with trying to quote one specific part of wally's post about Witt from my phone.

Agree that they don't run it well enough. I only see 2 games of theirs per year, but it appears that it's not really a huge deal to them. That may change for 2016. But this year they were content to try to beat DePauw and Wabash thru the air. Unfortunately, they threw it to the defense a lot.

Biggest loss for Witt, in my mind, over the past few seasons is OC Andy Mitchel. He's the OC at NAIA Marian in Indy now. They're playing in the NAIA title game for the second straight year this weekend. It really hasn't been the same since he left. Having Reed Florence (now the OC at Milikin) when you're an OC helps too. Mitchel is really, really good. He was part of Emendorfer's staff at Platteville when their O started going bonkers.

[Li'l Giant]

Biggest loss for Witt, in my mind, over the past few seasons is OC Andy Mitchel.

This is one reason why I fear losing Hammer so much. Losing an outstanding coordinator can be a huge loss.