FB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[Ralph Turner]

McMurry opens its season at Huntingdon, so we see them before they play Adrian. 

Huntingdon started a football program five years ago.  They were the first D3 program in Alabama and were able to get some very good athletes in their first few years.  Huntingdon has scheduled aggressively and has not been afraid to travel where they can get games.  They and Lagrange move to the SLIAC next year where I think they contend for the title in the first season.

I believe that you will see a very talented, very good team with respect to fundamentals.  The program is now entering its fifth season and the last of the program's founders graduated last year.  The program went 0-7 in its first year and lost 11 games before winning its first game in the fifth game of 2004.  Huntingdon has gone 17-7 over the last two and one-half seasons, and the Hawks now have a record 17-18 thru its first four seasons.

I think that there is a very good chance that they are at least 2-1 going into the Adrian game.  (I favor them over McMurry and Maryville and see them losing barely to UW-Oshkosh, but look forward to their review in Kickoff 2007.)  You will be impressed with the Huntingdon team speed.

Huntingdon even has an unofficial web site.

[ACRULZ]

Ralph:

Thanks for the info!  Looks like Huntingdon is not to be taken lightly.  The Bulldogs may be in quite a fight!  I will have to check out that site, thanks again!

[ADAWGISADAWG4LIFE]

ACRULZ:

I would disagree with the cradle of coaches situation.   The fact is other than Coach Embry who is the one interning with the Lions, two of the other three have never even coached a game at Adrian or spent a full semester at the school.  Coach Krepps who is now at EMU did serve the entire season coaching the FB/TE and did a very good job and did move on to a GA position at Eastern which was a good move for him.  As for the one that left and is now down in Central Arkansas, spent from February until about April as he was often gone and down south for the summer until his departure.  The new candidate at EMU isn't gone yet, but sounds like he will be and has been at Adrian since maybe the end of February.  I'm not disagreeing that they are moving up and doing well for themselves, but it just seems odd to me to call it a "cradle of coaches" when many of them simply seem to be using it as a very temporary stepping stone.  As an Adrian guy I would like to see a little more loyalty from coaches who have been given good starts.  I'm not saying by any stretch they are obligated to stay for a year, but they did sign a contract and by leaving so late in the summer leave a program in a bind in terms of replacements.  It is not easy to fill low level job openings so late into the offseason with camp approaching and can become a problem to assimilate a new coach to the offense or defense as well as the school and players so late in the game.  Thats just my thoughts on the issue.

Ralph:

Huntingdon from the little research I have done looks like they should be a solid team and a good early season test to see where Adrian is at.  I noticed that they have not been afraid to schedule out of region opponents nor are they afraid to schedule against playoff caliber teams which they have been highly competitive with.  I would imagine they should have alot of athletes as there are very few southern DIII teams which could lend itself to a very exciting offense and big play defense.  I would wonder what type of underclassmen they had behind their founding group?  Often teams will be very strong when they can have a group of players come through for all 4 years together any insight into returning starters or the like?

[Ralph Turner]

Good evening, Dawg.

I am not sure what type of players started at Huntingdon.  Their AD started the program, and then he moved to LeTourneau.  Huntingdon then brought in a real "football guy", the current head coach, Mike Turk for the second season.

The AD had the foresight to get the program off on good footing.  I guess that this is the fourth year under Coach Turk, and so we are seeing the first class of his graduating seniors.

My knee-jerk response was that these players were a bunch of Southern high school football players who loved the game so much that they could not give it up.

That seems to be a common D3 story. 

Dawg, I think that Adrian is in for a real "dawg-fight"! 

[ADAWGISADAWG4LIFE]

Ralph:

In that case they may see even better growth by the way you say it.  The addition of a strong recruiter and football guy to a program can do wonders especially in a target rich environment like Alabama.  I will be interested to see what brand of football they bring with them up north and am hoping to get that Saturday off of work to be able to head out and see it for myself.  I do applaud Adrian for adding what appears at least initially to be a tougher contest than some they have had in the past. 

The D3 Story in and of itself is guys that love football and cant give it up.  Its a good blend as many of the players are plenty talented enough to play at a higher level but understand that their love for the game is not a buisness and make the choice to go D3 the higher you get the more the game owns you, not vis versa. 

[D306]

Wow

Go away for a few days and the board "lights up".
Great to see the interest and the energy is high as the season approachs.

Don't shot me just what I hear, but some of the numbers at Adrian seems to "jive" with the word in the HS Seniors and Juniors comments, that Adrian is in a big push to improve the campus, and get more kids in the College. Enticing athletes with a hard push about sports and playing time/interest in them.
I would be interested in the numbers in other sports, are they also high?
12 games and 2 JV teams actually is exciting, seeing that much interest just wonder how many will make it out the other side, in Football or graduating from AC.

Hope seems to be the team to beat in the MIAA, in what looks to be another very tough MIAA season. I think no one gets out undefeated in the conference.
Olivet, and Albion are going to put a scare in Hope.
Albion with what I think will be a high scoring Offense and a defense that will need to make some big plays, with a lot of unproven and untested talent.
Olivet returns a ton from a very tough team, and a solid defense with alot of secondary help. A Olivet offense that can play ball control and run power straight at you.
Adrain continues to confuse me, I thought they were going to be a force last year. This team has numbers and some talent, the numerous changes I think hurts the continuity.
Alma with the Scot Gun will continue to put up points, new QB's thrive in the system. Line play and defense need to make a statment to be more consistent and win the league.
Tri-State is the team on the rise, this year or next year Tri-State is going to push it's way into the top echelon of the league.
WLC I am weak on, and wonder if the change in conferences would not be the best thing for WLC. Local games, Local families and excitment.
Kazoo, the issue has been discussed numeorus times on the board.
Need numbers in a big way, can not judge coaching, team or anything else without players. Kinda sad for a long time member of the MIAA.

OK I am caught up on my thoughts after vaca.

[ADAWGISADAWG4LIFE]

D306:

You have heard right, Adrian is taking some much needed steps to improve their campus.  The changes have been happening for the last year and as an alumnus it is nice to see something positive happening on a campus that was stagnant for the first 6 years of my involvement with it.  Buildings are being redone and there is a big push to make it a campus more students will want to live on and stay at on weekends which would be big.  The school has bought numerous houses surrounding the  campus and is turning them into "theme housing" for students to live in.  Not a bad idea for the students but I doubt neighbors will like living next to college students, not that there is any real resolution but it is a big bonus that students like.  I do know the one policy that is unpopular along with the housing purchases is the change to a 4 year residency requirement at Adrian which never existed in the past, it was met with quite a bit of student opposition.   But the facilities and buildings and programs looking to be added are all a great thing and about 15 years overdue.  The president and his staff have done a great job initiating about 15 years of change and hoping to do it in two.   The college is expecting a freshman class of over 500 which would be the biggest since the vietnam war era.

Also, agree with your predictions for the upcoming season, but I would put Alma a little higher up, time will tell and we all know the MIAA season is highly competitive and hard to predict.  I would imagine that Hope will be picked 1st in the poll and we will see if that is the kiss of death as is often the case or if Hope can break that trend. 

[D306]

Dawg

I listed some thoughts of the teams going into the year.
While it was in no particular order.
I would think that possibly switching Adrain and Alma in positions that could be pretty accurate.

Well, back out of town, visiting a couple more potential schools with my daughter.
Funny how 2 kids, 2 years apart can have such different thoughts of what they want in a college experience. My Daughter has only 2 Michigan based schools on the list. My son turned down out of state offers and considered only a couple in state seriously. Best thing about it is "they" are/were active and excited about college, instead of it being a "mandatory" or optional stage in life. Pretty tough now a days to land a good job unless you get a College degree and possibly a Master on top of that.
After visiting many schools in the last couple years, if you get past the "thrill" of a big city campus, and look at the quality of the school and the "feel" on Campus D3 schools really shine in my view point.

Though I was very impressed with Gtown and Miami Of Ohio. For different reasons but both are impressive and visually Great Campuses.

[bulldogalum]

D306:

Can't go wrong with either Miami-Ohio or Georgetown.  Both fine schools in great atmospheres.

[WLCALUM83]

Hope's and Albion's 2007 Pre-Season football reports are now on their respective web-sites:

[sac]

http://hollandsentinel.com/stories/072507/localsports_20070725059.shtml


Just an article, nothing special.

[ACRULZ]

I see everyone is picking Hope and Albion to be at the top of the league...well my top three are actually Alma, Hope and Adrian.  With Alma's passing game and stable of QB's they will always be tough, not to mention the blitz happy defense they have.  Hope has a good coaching staff and a very good defensive line, their offensive line is pretty good (not the best, that honor probably goes to Albion) but as I felt in the 2006 season, Hope won't KO anybody but they will stay in the fight and wait for you to make a mistake...if opposing teams play disciplined football against Hope they are a very beatable team.  Adrian I believe is anyone's guess.  Year after year I'm just not sure what Adrian team we will see.  Even with the coaching changes...and mind you that these changes are not as problematic as people think.  The D-Coordinator spot ONLY GOT BETTER!  I believe the O-Coordinator spot has improved (look at Hancock's track record) Calhoun had a tendency to find something he liked and run the crap out of it, even if it didn't work too well.  Also from what I hear, Calhoun tried to coach the entire offense, well when you do that, you can't pay attention to the little things.  Hopefully Hancock lets his coaches coach.  They lost the FB/TE coach, ok big deal...I understand it is on a different level but USC lost 5 coaches before last season and they did pretty well.  The BIG coaching spots (HC, OC, DC) remain the same which is the important thing.  I personally can't wait to see Hancock's offense.  I think it will be very explosive, Adrian has a weak O-Line (at least last season they did), but I think Hancock will scheme to hide this factor.

Well all in all...I'm wishing that the MIAA will win a playoff game and finally get some respect.  When it comes down to it, we all want the MIAA to succeed!

[D306]

As usual Mount Union is the #1 team in the pre-season poll.

After reviewing the 2006 Roster, I see that the team members are from numerous states.
Mount runs the FB program like a D1, is that and a solid Coaching staff the main reason they have such success. I know success breeds success , and players want to go to a winner. But I see numerous Fla. players on the Mount Union roster. How many kids want to come to our type of weather for college? Is Mount Union that highly thought of Academically?
Lots of lessons to be learned, from reviewing other teams rosters.
I see Wheaton in Ill. has quite a mix of players, I know Wheaton has a great reputation, a great campus and location.

No intimating anything questionable about successful teams, looking for opinions.

[sac]

You'll get much better answers in the OAC room.


Mount Union is smack in the heart of high school football in Ohio.   Plus, I think their success has opened up some recruiting avenues that probably weren't there 15 years ago.

[HOF]

ACRULZ:  Sounds like Adrian added some quality coaches.  I jumped online today and broke down their OC and DC.   Sometimes the coaches might be better than others...just like anthing in life, but it seldom comes down to coaches.  Yeah you can out coach a guy or two, but in the end it is the arrows, not the Indian shooting them.

If I remember right, AC's oline and dline were very weak.  Maybe the new guys can bring something else to help them out.  Cause I'm sure it ain't the coaches coaching those positions, as much as it is the players playing them.

I have Hope, Olivet, Albion in my top three.  I think Adrian has a chance, but they just don't have the players right now at key positions on paper.  So time will tell with them.

Look out for Alma...they always seem to make it interesting.