FB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[sac]

Alma is having a disaster of a performance at Adrian.

With 7 minutes left in the second quarter its Adrian 16 Alma 0.......but the story is Alma has 5 yards of total offense and 5 turnovers.  yikes!

[Uncle Rico]

Well, the weather in Albion appeared to be all clear and no thunder.... Albion 41 - Trine 14.     

Good luck to Albion in the playoffs! 

[sac]

scores:
Albion 41, Trine 14 (Albion wins MIAA championship outright)
Adrian 16, Alma 0
Hope 27, Olivet 7

[formerd3db]

Back from the game at Olivet.  It was also great to meet Hopewatcher and his wife today (his son had a great game today if I may say).  Also great to visit with OC_SID who is a very gracious host. Another great weather day for football this late in the season.  Congrats to Coach Kreps and his staff and all the players for their win today as well as a really good 7-3 season.  The improvement this year was tremendous and great to be back in the realm of a winning season and a very fine effort in obtaining a second place finish as well as having been in the run for the title to the last.  As I mentioned in a previous post, Hope's players had a great attitude change and rose to the occasions most of the time they needed to.

Today's game started out sluggish for Hope, but they pressed on and eventually scored and held on defense when necessary.  Olivet is no slouch team and can beat anyone in the league.  Today was just not their day, however, they are much improved also despite their record.  A decent crowd for them today, although it would have been much nicer to see more students there.  A very nice touch and the Olivet administration and athletic department are to be commended for their wonderful honoring ceremeonies and welcome tent for all U.S. veterans and current military personel as part of yesterday's/this weekend's Veteran's Day holiday.  That was excellent. 

Congrats to Albion on their MIAA title.  I will admit, however, that I was totally shocked at their win over Trine today.  I thought Trine would win and, of course was hoping for that so that Hope could share in the league title, but also am shocked at how they imploded the latter half of the season, but especially today.  Anyway, we'll see just how good Albion really is by what they do in this first playoff game.  Overall, as most of you have already said, the MIAA was a much improved conference this year and hopefully, the teams will do better in their non-conference games next year, which will continue to contribute to their getting to that next level in the playoffs.

I've enjoyed posting with everyone here this season and hope this will continue in the off-season, just like we did last year.

So that's my summary of today's game at Olivet.  I will look forward to hearing about your "take" on the other MIAA games today regarding your teams.   

[ThunderHead]

I took the short trip to Albion today. Great atmosphere today on Albion's behalf.

Trine looked like Trine today to me. I predicted that Orr would have a big day and he did. 200 yards on the day, averaging 7.1 yards per carry, with one TD. (Albion averaged 6.2 yards per carry today)

The Trine offense was inept, and the play calling had a large part to do with it in my opinion. Had it not been for a score late (with 0:00 on the clock) against the 4th stringers from Albion the game would have ended 41-7.

Congrats to Albion on winning the conference crown. I think they did the most early on with their non-conference schedule to prepare themselves for a run at the crown, and I think it payed off. Best of luck in the playoffs.

Also congrats to Hope on a 7-3 season, to me - they far exceeded their pre-season expectations.

[formerd3db]

In reviewing the stats, great attendance today at the MIAA games:

@ Albion, 4143
@ Adrian 2100
@ Olivet 1505

For Albion, that is surprising and better since their fans, while having decent attendance, haven't had the "overbearing" crowds that, IMO, they should have.  Nonetheless, I can imagine what the great collegiate atmosphere must have been like there as ThunderHead mentioned.

Decent crowd for Adrian, considering their faltering and since it was against Alma, but their 8-2 record is still good.  But...(and I'm throwing this out here just for the sake of it) will their President call for the firing of Deere if he continues to produce winning records without a championship?

As far as Olivet, that is a nice crowd for them, considering they were only having about 550 per game, with the exception of a nice homecoming crowd for them (around 2500) earlier.  I forgot to mention that they have some excellent athletic facilities also, which fits well for their college size and campus.

I hope you don't mind me posting these attendance figures, but you guys know I'm a college football history and attendance figures freak!   My point is, these numbers today speak well for our conference (at least compared to a great number of the small colleges in DIII). 

[sflzman]

I'm not even going to comment on that game. A joke. I don't understand the game plan at all with all the runs and no passes. Especially considering they didn't and havent have/had Ed Mason who's been benched for missing practices....

This is the season that could have been...

[Raider 68]

Was surprized that Trine did not finish the season stronger. Best wishes to Albion in the playoffs, not sure how they will do against some top seeds. D3football has them against Mount Union in the first round, if so, there is some history there!

Formerd3db,

Congrats on Hope havaing a very good year!

[wisd3fan2]

Trine Football caught my interest last year after seeing the good game they played against UW Whitewater and the fact that one of our best high school QB's had decided to attend there. I posted and found myself arguing with Thunderhead about the QB he liked and our guy from Wi. Now that the season is over, I see how silly that arguement was. Both of these guys probably figured out the situation with-in days of arriving. In stead of being mentored they were most likely given the plays and thrown out to the lions. This shows them that they chose to play for very lazy coaching. Can you imagine the Badgers treating Wilson in this fashion?? I have not posted much since but have been reading your board. I now see that thunderhead is a very smart guy that really knows his stuff.
I read his posts and saw how critical he was about the coaching staff at Trine and now see that his statements were under statements. In my opinion this coaching staff walked in on a great bunch of players in the class of 2010 and took the credit for their success.
I read posters saying that the players on the sidelines were not cheering for the players on the field. This alone shows the failure of the coaching staff. Moral is one of the primary jobs of a coaching staff and after seeing one of their games was shocked, for this is what we noticed too.
People on this board need to listen to Thunderhead for he tells it as it is, even when  it is painful.
The class of 2010 not only won championships but created a strong recruiting envirnment. I think that the coaching staff not only lost games with probably the best team but also destroyed that edge in recruiting.
I think that the defensive coaches did ok, being very stiff especially in the red zone all year. However the offensive coordinator, O-line coach, and QB coaches are very bad. The calls often times made us laugh. They play like teams of the '50's and '60's. Its 2011!!!
The players were the bright spot, I think they did real well despite poor coaching.
We also feel that the best coach on the team was Ryan Hargraves. This kid did a great job this year. We thought he played scared but now feel that it is not the opponent he feared but was his own coaches.
D3 football is so pure because the players play for the love of the game, however it is very evident that this coaching staff steals that love, shooting themselves in the foot. Changes need to be made!
One  another note, the MIAA champs scored only 3 points against an average WIAC team this year.
Congrats to Albion but play-offs will be a very steep slope.
JUST MY OPINION!!!!

[ThunderHead]

After reading the posts about Alma, I had to look at the stats, is this correct?

Jarrett Leister

1-10 in the air.
0.3 average
sacked 3 times for 16 yards
2 picks

What the heck happened to this Scot-Gun? I haven't seen only 10 pass attempts in a game since 5th grade. 

[ACMIAAD3]

I'm not even going to comment on that game. A joke. I don't understand the game plan at all with all the runs and no passes. Especially considering they didn't and havent have/had Ed Mason who's been benched for missing practices....

This is the season that could have been...

It was a sad year in Alma after alot of expectations but when you throw 20 pick and fumble the ball 15 times and your turnover ratio is minus double digits you will rarely win football games. I sure hope that they get the ship righted. They seemed to regress as the season went on and tanked in the end.  They have alot of work to do and I think the offense needs to be overhauled and more power football installed. There is always next year right?

[adidas28]

Trine Football caught my interest last year after seeing the good game they played against UW Whitewater and the fact that one of our best high school QB's had decided to attend there. I posted and found myself arguing with Thunderhead about the QB he liked and our guy from Wi. Now that the season is over, I see how silly that arguement was. Both of these guys probably figured out the situation with-in days of arriving. In stead of being mentored they were most likely given the plays and thrown out to the lions. This shows them that they chose to play for very lazy coaching. Can you imagine the Badgers treating Wilson in this fashion?? I have not posted much since but have been reading your board. I now see that thunderhead is a very smart guy that really knows his stuff.
I read his posts and saw how critical he was about the coaching staff at Trine and now see that his statements were under statements. In my opinion this coaching staff walked in on a great bunch of players in the class of 2010 and took the credit for their success.
I read posters saying that the players on the sidelines were not cheering for the players on the field. This alone shows the failure of the coaching staff. Moral is one of the primary jobs of a coaching staff and after seeing one of their games was shocked, for this is what we noticed too.
People on this board need to listen to Thunderhead for he tells it as it is, even when  it is painful.
The class of 2010 not only won championships but created a strong recruiting envirnment. I think that the coaching staff not only lost games with probably the best team but also destroyed that edge in recruiting.
I think that the defensive coaches did ok, being very stiff especially in the red zone all year. However the offensive coordinator, O-line coach, and QB coaches are very bad. The calls often times made us laugh. They play like teams of the '50's and '60's. Its 2011!!!
The players were the bright spot, I think they did real well despite poor coaching.
We also feel that the best coach on the team was Ryan Hargraves. This kid did a great job this year. We thought he played scared but now feel that it is not the opponent he feared but was his own coaches.
D3 football is so pure because the players play for the love of the game, however it is very evident that this coaching staff steals that love, shooting themselves in the foot. Changes need to be made!
One  another note, the MIAA champs scored only 3 points against an average WIAC team this year.
Congrats to Albion but play-offs will be a very steep slope.
JUST MY OPINION!!!!

You do realize that the class that just graduated with 3 straight MIAA champiuonships in the spring was actually the class of 2011 (because they graduated in the year 2011). Yes their last football season was in 2010, but that is not how graduating classes are determined - well maybe in Wisconsin it is, I don't know, but in the rest of the world it is determined by the year you graduate. Also, the class of 2011 (2010 in Wisconsin) was actually this staffs 3rd recruiting class - so they didn't walk in on anything.

I agree, the 7-3 record is a travesty - you are right this staff has got to go how does a D3 school put up with ****? (insert sarcasm font) When Trine lost to Adrian everyone was praising Adrian and sure they were going tot the playoffs, Albion is going to the playoffs, and was undefeated in conference play. On paper and on the field both teams were better than Trine this year. I didn't like the Hope loss - but sometimes with a young team you get those kinds of games. This group now has a year of experience under it's belt as well a JV team that played well all year from what I heard. Mix in the next recruiting class that just walks in(sarcasm font)  and who knows what happens. Regardless if they win the championship in 2012 (graduating class of 2013) or not this program is in a much better place than the 0-30 or what ever they were before this staff turned it around. I believe they are 46 - 17 since this staff arrived - and 36 - 7 in the last four years.

Just my opinion, but you know what they say about opinions.

[hope52]

nice job albion  good  luck in the playoffs

[adidas28]

Congrats to Albion - they played lights out yesterday. They ranthe ball, threw the ball, played good defense and special teams. They are the best team I saw inthe MIAA all year. Clinton Orr is the real deal. I was especially impressed with the play of the middle backers and corners for the Brits. Good luck in the playoffs!

[ThunderHead]

adiadas28,

agree on your assessment of the Brits. K+ to get you off zero.  (cause I know you love the smiley faces)