FB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[Shamrock]

Nolan Fischer, an OL/DL from Bishop Dwenger in Fort Wayne, IN has stated (via twitter) that he is coming to Wabash.  According to his huddl profile, he is 6'1 285lbs.

[Shamrock]

Another Bishop Dwenger player, DB Howie Steele, is headed to Wabash according to his twitter feed.

[Shamrock]

Two more from the twittershpere:

Andrew Perry a LB from Castle HS in Newburgh and Joe Rios a RB from Pendelton will attend Wabash this fall.

[Shamrock]

Some more Wabash FB recruits from twitter:

Jaron Bradford, QB/CB, from up the road at North Mont H.S.
Keifer Carmean, a 6'5(!) wideout, also from North Mont.
Kamden Earley, a RB/CB from Pendelton H.S. (IN)
Bryce Adams, OL,  a transfer from Indiana Wesleyan
Parker Lewis from Milan H.S. (IN)
Steven Thomas, DE, from Danville H.S. (IN)

[Shamrock]

Happy Easter, North Coast.

[bleedpurple]

Happy Easter everyone!

Just thought you guys might be interested in this link. UW-W Assistant Coach Tim Shields is hosting a series on Youtube called "Quarantined with Coaches". The discussions are great for anyone who wants to do a deep dive into listening to football experiences from coaches' perspectives.  The link below is a discussion with former Wabash Head Coach Chris Creighton and one of his GA's. Good stuff! Lots of respect for CC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wybpEiq9GU&list=PLqdULPmC4TWGgYUD89WvOFaF7b4cg9B1Q&index=2&t=0s

[Sir Battlescars]

https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/sports/all-american-wittenberg-lineman-now-baker-london/c04phhFiBy8sR7WJ4YhWLK/

Nice article about a former d3football.com all-American

[Shamrock]

London, Ohio!  That makes more sense.  I couldn't imagine moving all the way to England to open a bakery. 

Good on him!  Nice story.

[sigma one]

Since early this month Wabash has been rolling out its incoming freshmen on its football twitter feed.  The last few were highlighted today.  The total of deposited recruits is 58, 29 offensive players and 29 defensive players.  As in past years, the vast majority of the players are from Indiana; only 5 are from other states.   Who knows what will happen come fall, both with schools startups and the football season.  But it looks as though the potential for a good recruiting class exists for the LGs.   Over the years i have both liked and had concerns about the quality of recruits.  Wabash has shown that it can win with Indiana recruits, with a few out-of-state players sprinkled in (and there have been some great players at Wabash from Michigan, Texas, Arizona, California, and Mississippi). This year, and maybe next, the Indiana recruiting base may be a bit of an extra advantage as other colleges in the NCAC draw their players from a wide geography base.  It may happen that these wide recruiting bases shrink as parents and students decide to stay closer to home, not to travel long distances to college.  Time will tell. 
     Anyway, the class looks good, with a large number of recruits from 5A and 6A high schools in the Hoosier state, a bunch of academic all-state players, and good balance among the various positions. 

[Shamrock]

Broadening the focus to the general health of the College, Wabash has 257 freshmen coming to campus this fall which is a very strong class under normal circumstances.  Combine that with the willingness of the alumni to support the College financially (a great Day of Giving earlier this week) and there is good reason to be optimistic about Wabash's future heading toward its bicentennial.

[Caz Bombers]

I just read where Ohio Wesleyan had to make a number of deep cuts to staff and institutional programming. Sports-wise, they cut the women's rowing program that had only debuted in the fall of 2018.

[formerd3db]

I just read where Ohio Wesleyan had to make a number of deep cuts to staff and institutional programming. Sports-wise, they cut the women's rowing program that had only debuted in the fall of 2018.

For sure, and unfortunately, we are very likely going to start seeing more programs cut over these summer months.  Central Michigan University just announced they were cutting men's track and field and Furman cut baseball and men's lacrosse.  I believe we'll see this trend among some of the DIII schools as well, although to what extent and what specific sports, who knows?  IMO, though, I'm not sure how cutting sports like the women's rowing program and track and field saves that much money. Granted. those sports are not revenue generating ones, however, they certainly would be somewhat easier with attempts at controlling the coronavirus atmosphere with regard to individual athletes.   

[wally_wabash]

I just read where Ohio Wesleyan had to make a number of deep cuts to staff and institutional programming. Sports-wise, they cut the women's rowing program that had only debuted in the fall of 2018.

For sure, and unfortunately, we are very likely going to start seeing more programs cut over these summer months.  Central Michigan University just announced they were cutting men's track and field and Furman cut baseball and men's lacrosse.  I believe we'll see this trend among some of the DIII schools as well, although to what extent and what specific sports, who knows?  IMO, though, I'm not sure how cutting sports like the women's rowing program and track and field saves that much money. Granted. those sports are not revenue generating ones, however, they certainly would be somewhat easier with attempts at controlling the coronavirus atmosphere with regard to individual athletes.

Anecdotally, way back when I was part of the student gov't committee that allocated funds to student groups and I remember Wabash's crew club to be one of the more expensive student groups to fund.  Boats are expensive!

[formerd3db]

That is true, Wally. However, some programs, even if officially sponsored by the college, actually raise their own money for purchasing of equipment in some cases.

[wally_wabash]

Might be useful to have the NCAC institutions Fall 2020 announcements aggregated in one place.  I'll update this post as more schools make announcements.  I don't believe, as of yet, that plans for athletics in general and football specifically have been addressed. 

Allegheny - Planning to return (May 28)
Denison - Planning to return, but with a much softer "commitment" to doing so.  (May 11) [urlhttps://reopen.denison.edu/hc/en-us/articles/360049277734-Denison-will-welcome-students-to-campus-classes-will-start-August-17]Denison plans to resume in person living and learning on August 17. [/url] (June 12)
DePauw - Planning to return (May 8) DePauw is going to have a week of "advance" learning before resuming in-person instruction on Aug. 24. (June 5)
Hiram - Planning to return, one week later than previously scheduled. (April 30) I don't see an official announcement, but there is a nugget in Hiram's return to work plan that says students are returning for an Aug. 31 start.  (June 12)
Kenyon - Targeting Aug. 27 to return, with a Denisonian level of wait-and-see.  (May 26)  Kenyon plans to resume in person learning on Aug. 24(June 15)
Oberlin - Planning to return, either as scheduled or maybe in October. (May 5) Scheduled to begin classes, on campus and in person, on Aug. 31 with a year-round, three semester schedule that staggers which classes are on campus during each term.  It's wild, actually.  (June 10)
Ohio Wesleyan - Appointed a task force (May 8) OWU scheduled to resume in-person learning on Aug. 20. (June 4)
Wabash - "Intends" to resume classes in the fall (May 8) Scheduled to begin classes, on campus and in person, on Aug. 12 (June 11)
Wittenberg - Planning to resume (May 11) Will resume in-class instruction on Aug. 17 (June 8)
Wooster - No commitment or announce of "planning" for resumption, but they are hopeful.  (May 28) Resuming on campus classes as previously scheduled on Aug. 19. (June 15)

Right now, there's a lot of optimism and hopefulness in these statements, but not a lot of specifics.  I expect that these announcements will be superseded with something more concrete in the last half of June as schools really have to commit one way or another. 

Also worth noting is that nobody is talking about athletics in general and football specifically in their announcements.  Sports, I think, are a whole separate hill to climb after schools figure out whether or not they can have student residents. 

June 11 update: Oberlin, Wabash, and Wittenberg have laid out schedules for returning to campus with much stronger language than what had been used in May's statements.  It seems difficult to see the rest of the NCAC schools not following this trend in the coming days.  Nationally, the steam seems to be on models that either speed through the semester to finish by Thanksgiving, or to close campuses at Thanksgiving and finish the last 1-2 weeks remotely. 

June 16 update: Updates for DePauw, Denison, Hiram, Kenyon, OWU, and Wooster.  All are firming up plans to resume on-campus living sometime in the latter half of August.  Allegheny's stance was pretty firm as of their last update, so I think that's everybody in the NCAC now that has definitively chosen the on-campus lane and will go forward from there.  I think all of this had to get settled before the conference decides how or what they'll do about fall and winter athletics.  My assumption is that, like all of these schools barreling toward a business-as-usual fall, athletics will follow suit with NCAC competition.  Interconference competition might be a different matter, but we'll see.  The athletics conversations have had to be more or less stalled out until these institutions decided whether or not they were going to have a residential fall or not.