FB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[83 Little Giant]

Good topics of discussion.  Another lag measure of the decline of Wabash football is the level of engagement on this board.  Very little that occurs on the field causes me to want to comment here.  After expressing frustration and displeasure, there is not much more left to say.  The good news is we still have a slugger's chance at impacting the league championship, however unlikely that might be, and we still have the opportunity to beat the Dannies.  More about that will start to come out on the Monon Bell board.

Now, about this week's game... below are the game notes for Saturday's home game against Oberlin.  Hope to see some of you at the game.


https://sports.wabash.edu/documents/2018/10/19//2018_Oberlin_Gamenotes.pdf

[wally_wabash]

It's clear that we all are passionate about Little Giant football and the activity here this week has been constructive and fair.  I don't think anybody wants 2015 to be the apex for Wabash football.  I don't think it has to be, either.  Certainly, Wabash has slid from being in quarterfinal level games.  I think we're at a bit of a crossroads right now.  Slide too far, and you risk undoing a decade and a half of building and momentum.  But it doesn't have to be that way. 

The Little Giants sit at 5-1 right now and control their own destiny with respect to winning the conference championship.  The talent, I believe firmly, is there to do that.  There are not great teams in the NCAC right now.  Nobody is light years better than anybody else, even Wittenberg.  Wabash can win four games to close this season and achieve many or all of their goals.  Certainly though, the level of play must be rise.  Fewer errors, more focus, more energy, more competing. 

Wabash has been so steady for so long that we forget what it's like to have this kind of a crossroads moment with the program.  Those of us who experienced the Carlson-to-Creighton change, probably had a similar feeling then.  Kind of unknown what was going to happen as Wabash decided to totally reboot the program.  Then maybe there was some unease after the 2004 6-4 campaign where maybe there may have been some wavering on whether or not CC was a flash in the pan or really had the chops to be great (spoiler- he had the chops).  But that's the last time there was ever a question about whether or not Wabash football was going to excel.  And now I think we're here again and there is a lot to prove.  2018 has been hard, no doubt.  Harder than I can possibly imagine.  But there's a chance here for 2018 to be special. 

The next 22 may be the most critical 22 days of Wabash football that I can remember in the last dozen or so years.  I hope, like the rest of you, that these next few weeks get things moving forward and upward again. 

WAF. 

[Sir Battlescars]

https://www.mydaytondailynews.com/sports/alter-grad-steps-leader-for-wittenberg-offensive-line/KvrJldYMFvY4ZFNSO4ErHM/?utm_source=newspaper&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=6172384&ecmp=newspaper_email&

If there are any Wittenberg fans checking in here, this is a great article about Offensive Lineman Tommy Gerhard.

[bowwowindy!]

https://www.mydaytondailynews.com/sports/alter-grad-steps-leader-for-wittenberg-offensive-line/KvrJldYMFvY4ZFNSO4ErHM/?utm_source=newspaper&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=6172384&ecmp=newspaper_email&

If there are any Wittenberg fans checking in here, this is a great article about Offensive Lineman Tommy Gerhard.

Yep, great article right there.  Good things happening at Witt right now obviously; rankings, regular season win streak, record setting QB.  Big game next week but they need to take care of business today.

[cave2bens]

Excuse an deranged luddite for broaching missed PAT kicks in Crawfordsville last weekend (and throughout this season), but want to toss out a thought (perhaps even some levity for some other geezers  ).  With the advent of artificial turf allowing for a more predictable bounce, has anyone ever considered a possibility of resurrecting the "dropkick" as a conversion tool?  Granted, the last successful one in DIII dates back twenty-two years - by St Lawrence vs. Hartwick - and lost popularity by the mid-1940s in exchange for range and supposed precision and accuracy.  Just imagine a "jack of all trades" athlete being in a single back set for the "extras?"  Will he pass, run, or pop it through the posts - simple formation, simpler execution on the snap, no holder, and three unpredictable options facing a defense.  Under Article 10, the rules continue to exist.  Okay, so I'm bored in retirement today...   

[sigma one]

I read an article last week about Michael Dickson, a rookie punter for the Seattle Seahawks.  He's from Australia and apparently can do incredible things with a football.  The article says he is working on drop kicking.  Maybe at some point the Seahawks will let him dk either an extra point or a field goal.  That's the NFL though. 
     I'm supposing (some kicking guru should comment) that the drop kick is so ancient most kickers don't even know what it is.  And if they do, the drop part is so important that even with artificial turf the kick is bit of a risk.  Riskier than a snap and hold--someone will have a point of view on that.  No body practices it, so there has been no refinement of it as a weapon in several lifetimes.   Players with rugby experience may be the most familiar with the technique.  But the rugby ball is so much closer to round than a football.  Just my thinking.
     For a long time, I've thought that instructing kickers is at the bottom of what coaches do to help players, particularly in DIII, where coaching staffs and budgets are limited.  There is no space for a kicking coach on DIII staffs.  Are there a few exceptions to this?  Maybe where a coach is a former kicker himself and can help with technique.  There are kicking camps out there--there are camps for everything these days.  But how much in season coaching does a kicker get?
     This is all prelude to saying that Wabash's kicking game--both punts and place kicking--has been horrible this season.  Both Wabash kickers seem to have lost confidence.  That's in addition to their protection breaking down frequently.  If kicks are not blocked, they're missed.  If punts aren't blocked, they are sometimes shanked.  It's all been disappointingly inconsistent.
     Wabash did kick two FGs last Saturday, but they also missed two extra points.  The heavy wind made it hard to tell anything new about the punting game, but at least there were no blocked punts.
     It's an oddity that the Wabash football field lines up east/west instead of north/south.  As a result, when the wind is blowing as hard as it was out of the west (the prevailing direction in Indiana) last Saturday, the kicking game is profoundly affected.  Ability to control the field is critical.   Punters for both teams were getting 15-20 yards a kick when their team was into the wind.  Neither team got good enough field position to attempt a field goal toward the west end of the stadium         

[sigma one]

Here's a peculiar one.  Of all the games played through Week 8 between Division III teams, the North Coast Athletic Conference has both the highest scoring game and the lowest scoring game.  Wittenberg 68, Denison 66; Wabash 7, Ohio Wesleyan 0.
     Davidson defeated Guilford  91-61; but, of course Davidson is not a Division III team.
     OWU has been involved in three games where the winning team scored 10 points or fewer:  Otterbein 10, OWU 7;  OWU 9, Wooster 7; Wabash 7, OWU 0.

[smedindy]

Dickson drop kicked a kickoff earlier this year when the Seahawks wanted to prevent a return. It. Was. Fantastic!

[Li'l Giant]

     For a long time, I've thought that instructing kickers is at the bottom of what coaches do to help players, particularly in DIII, where coaching staffs and budgets are limited. 

it's not necessarily just DIII. I once had a conversation with a former kicker at UTSA and he talked about how he never got any kind of meaningful coaching until he graduated and paid for it himself in trying to get to the NFL.

[ADL70]

Wittenberg has a kickers coach, a former kicker for the Tigers Gary Sitler.  According to his bio, he lives in Granville.  I am aware that for a time he coached kickers for Denison.

[sigma one]

I don't know how long Sitler has been there, but their kicking has been very good to excellent for a long time.

[ADL70]

2014 season per bio

[83 Little Giant]

Big game tomorrow in Springfield.  Below are the game notes from both schools.

https://sports.wabash.edu/documents/2018/10/26//2018_Wittenberg_Gamenotes.pdf

http://www.wittenbergtigers.com/sports/fball/2018-19/files/FB-GmNotes-Wabash.pdf

[old wabash]

it is witt week...and no one seems excited!! this (in NCAC days) used to be almost as exciting as the other tiger game!! 

[aueagle]

Puppy Up !!
Hiram playing Big Red tough !!
Bishops up... Because they should be against
the Yeoman..switching over to the LG's