FB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[BashBacker#16]

Congrats to Wabash WR's Bart Banach and Mike Russell for their showing in the NCAC track meet.  Also a good showing for Cornerback Ja'Michael Hill.  Banach was hurt early in the season ('05) but will be a great addition to the WR corps in 2006.  A former Indiana North All Star - and he's 6'2"!  His younger brother has a good shot at one of the open OLB spots.

Bash starts 2-a-day practices next week in preparation for their May Panama trip. 

[BashBacker#16]

http://www.courierpress.com/ecp/high_school_sports/article/0,1626,ECP_751_4614400,00.html

Another good one for Bash...

[illinihscoach05]

Bashbacker 16 - Kelly - Wabash in my opinion always attracts the top D3 kids in Indiana and even in states like ours here in Illinois (Chicago area) because it offers:  (1) a high quality education with good placement, (2) good facilities (they even cleaned up Mud Hollow I heard), (3) solid coaches and a great faculty/staff, and (4) one of the best athletic programs in all of D3 in several sports.  I loved recruiting there - good financial aid too!  You are living proof of the great student/athletes 'Bash attracts!

......and like a coach who chucks bats on the field when he is PO'ed - WABASH ALWAYS FIGHTS!  Amen!

[wabco]

Not too early to predict:  Look for the Little Giants to run the table again.  The "pack" is essentially back.  I expect Huff to be the QB ... he should be solid after being in the program 3 years (was expected by some to start last year).  If he quides well and does not try to force the play but lets Wabash explosiveness dictate ... the table is run.  If not, a dog fight.  As for me ... "You Go Huff"!!!

[waterboy]

Hmmm, when did Wabash get one of the best D3 athletic programs in "several" sports?  What teams or individuals can even say they've seen the national playoffs on a perennial basis?  Football going twice in the last four years doesn't really qualify Wabash as a national power. 

[theaprof]

Boy, you guys are really all over the "we're number one" bit aren't you?  I advise you to continue to look to the OAC and especially MUC for true dominance in athletics.  Football, track, etc.  Oh yeah, we even graduate a few of our men and women as well.  Look forward to stomping the NCAC champ in round one or two of the playoffs this fall--We've got a few returning as well--Do the names Kmic and Garcon ring a bell?  Oh, yeah there's also a few others.

We don't rebuild--we reload. 

See you in the play-offs.  MUC 45, NCAC champ 10 (if they make it that far!!)

[theaprof]

Not that we're counting or anything, but we (the OAC) are even champs of the North region board with in excess of 80 pages more posts than the nearest competitors.  Maybe we just care/obsess about football more than the rest of you.

[seinfeld]

Under the interesting but not surprising category, according to this article in the John Carroll student newspaper, Larry Kehres is the highest paid employee at Mount Union (see bottom of the article). You expect to see that at a Div. I school, not a Div. III school.

http://www.carrollnewsonline.com/index.php?id=462

[oldguy]

Thats because all Mount Union offers is a good football program.

(Just kidding Raider faithful.  Relax.  I know there are a lot of successful Mount grads out there.) 

[Ryan Tipps]

I was looking at each NCAC team's sked for this coming season, and I noticed that Allegheny and Hiram are each playing eight conference games here in '06. Where did that come from? I don't remember that happening in the past couple of years, but maybe I'm missing something. Gold standard for the NCAC has always been seven.

While I'm not terribly concerned about Hiram, I can't help but wonder if this provides an advantage or a disadvantage for Allegheny. I assume that a 7-1 Gheny team would be ranked ahead of a 6-1 Witt team, even if that Witt team was the only team to beat Gheny. Now what if they were the top two teams in the conference? Does it seem fair that Gheny would get the bid because they decided to play one more NCAC bottom-feeding team?

I think something vaguely similar happened in the ASC last year, where Hardin-Simmons had one extra conference game over UMHB (due to a hurricane-related cancellation). Even though UMHB beat Hardin-Simmons, H-S, if they would have won the last game of the season, came very very close to getting the automatic qualifier because they had one extra conference game under their belt.

This is just a weird situation in the North Coast this year. I would also like to find out, if anyone knows, why Gheny went with eight conference games. Maybe they just couldn't pick up that third non-conference game?

[WallyFS4]

I know at DIII it is academics first, and it should be.  With that being said, I have no problem with Larry Kehres, or any coach for that matter being the highest paid employee.  They are responsible for recruiting more students to the school than most professor's do.  They work 24/7, 365.  It takes a very special person to coach at the college level.  It's not just Saturday's.  That's the icing for the cake for the coach.  During the season most coach's work 18-20 hour days.  The off-season is much easier.  Most coach's only work 12-14 hours a day.

Should athletics be put on the same level as academics.  I don't know.  I do think that athletics will play as big a part of a mans life, as does his college education.

WABASH ALWAYS FIGHTS!!![/font]

[wally_wabash]

WCLegacy-

I believe that the Allegheny vs. Hiram game is a non-conference game between conference teams...if that makes sense.  That is to say, when Allegheny beats Hiram, it won't count in the NCAC standings.  Wabash and Earlham played similar non-conference games against one another in '02 and '03. 

I'd much rather see these teams go outside of the conference for non-league games, but when it's crunch time and you really need a 10th game, I guess you take what you can get. 

[BashBacker#16]

Theaprof,

You OAC guys are great.  It is important to note that the guy that posted about Wabash and our athletic programs, coached their in the mid-80s.  I think he was just being complimentary about the school and its athletic programs - not stating that Wabash is the end-all-be-all of D3 athletics.

Anymore recruiting scoop from NCAC schools?  I have only seen 2 guys for Witt's class - Donte Swain - WR from Roger Bacon H.S. (OH) and a Billy West - a RB from Loveland H.S. (OH).  

Oldguy - do you feel better about the Wabash class, I tried to post some information (newspaper clippings) to show that there are some quality guys.

[Ryan Tipps]

wally--

Thanks for the insight. It's still a weird situation, but if it works for both teams and doesn't have an impact on how the conference plays out, I say go with it.

I hadn't noticed that Bash was in that same situation with Earlham a couple years back. It was even more latent because Wabash appeared to play seven conference games in '03, but you're right, they were officially credited with only six of them. That year, it seems some teams were playing seven games as conference ones and others playing six. That's still a disparity that I'm not comfortable with, especially if we actually wind up, one of these years, having and NCAC champ that doesn't sweep the conference slate. An inconsistent number of conference games could leave a lot of angry players, coaches and fan.

Of course, '03 was the year Kenyon went on hiatus, so that might have messed things up a bit.

Anyway, thanks again for the info. It's odd, but yes it makes sense.

[BashBacker#16]

Wabash commits in the Indy Star...

Wabash
Chad Canterbury, TE-DE, 6-2, 215, Scecina
John Melind, QB-K, 6-0, 200, Broad Ripple
Skip Tokar, OL, 6-7, 295, Zionsville
Bryan Watson, LB, 6-2, 225, Zionsville

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/99999999/SPORTS02/51114038