FB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[DBQ1965]

Does Hope have a scrimmage with another team coming up?

No.  First, Hope was one of the few DIII teams that still held to the traditional Intra-squad Final controlled game type scrimmage as opposed to most other schools who have been scrimmaging other colleges in a final exhibition scrimmage in the past decade+ or so.  These are what I called the "Spring Games" of August, somewhat like the DI annual final Spring Game after spring practice season.  As I'm sure you know, this was kind of like a semi-game day as parents, friends and fans of Hope football attended, in a game day like atmosphere, with a set number of controlled plays, hired refs, etc., etc.

Second, Coach Kreps last year, for the first time (at least as far as I know, otherwise it was a long long time going way back even before my own playing days there), held the final scrimmage two weeks before the first game instead of the Saturday before to cut back on injuries to key players.  Of course, we all know that is a risk at any time.  However, this year, Coach K has decided not to have a scrimmage at all and just a limited regular practice.  While that is a change in tradition, I can understand his reasoning.  We'll see if it makes a difference this year.

Thanks ... I'll just wait for the Monmouth game.

[wally_wabash]

Does Hope have a scrimmage with another team coming up?

No.  First, Hope was one of the few DIII teams that still held to the traditional Intra-squad Final controlled game type scrimmage as opposed to most other schools who have been scrimmaging other colleges in a final exhibition scrimmage in the past decade+ or so.  These are what I called the "Spring Games" of August, somewhat like the DI annual final Spring Game after spring practice season.  As I'm sure you know, this was kind of like a semi-game day as parents, friends and fans of Hope football attended, in a game day like atmosphere, with a set number of controlled plays, hired refs, etc., etc.

Second, Coach Kreps last year, for the first time (at least as far as I know, otherwise it was a long long time going way back even before my own playing days there), held the final scrimmage two weeks before the first game instead of the Saturday before to cut back on injuries to key players.  Of course, we all know that is a risk at any time.  However, this year, Coach K has decided not to have a scrimmage at all and just a limited regular practice.  While that is a change in tradition, I can understand his reasoning.  We'll see if it makes a difference this year.

This is an interesting topic and one I have mixed feelings about.  I've seen Wabash players lose large portions or entireties of seasons due to injuries suffered in both an intrasquad scrimmage (which Wabash doesn't do anymore...that I know of) and in the camp-ending scrimmage with Wheaton (which Wabash has been doing for a decade or so now).  I definitely appreciate the utility of getting a "game" in before Game 1 and working through a lot of the typical first game mistakes (procedure penalties come to mind specifically), but man, sometimes there is a heavy price that gets paid for that dress rehearsal and I'm not always sure it is worth it. 

[ExTartanPlayer]

Does Hope have a scrimmage with another team coming up?

No.  First, Hope was one of the few DIII teams that still held to the traditional Intra-squad Final controlled game type scrimmage as opposed to most other schools who have been scrimmaging other colleges in a final exhibition scrimmage in the past decade+ or so.  These are what I called the "Spring Games" of August, somewhat like the DI annual final Spring Game after spring practice season.  As I'm sure you know, this was kind of like a semi-game day as parents, friends and fans of Hope football attended, in a game day like atmosphere, with a set number of controlled plays, hired refs, etc., etc.

Second, Coach Kreps last year, for the first time (at least as far as I know, otherwise it was a long long time going way back even before my own playing days there), held the final scrimmage two weeks before the first game instead of the Saturday before to cut back on injuries to key players.  Of course, we all know that is a risk at any time.  However, this year, Coach K has decided not to have a scrimmage at all and just a limited regular practice.  While that is a change in tradition, I can understand his reasoning.  We'll see if it makes a difference this year.

This is an interesting topic and one I have mixed feelings about.  I've seen Wabash players lose large portions or entireties of seasons due to injuries suffered in both an intrasquad scrimmage (which Wabash doesn't do anymore...that I know of) and in the camp-ending scrimmage with Wheaton (which Wabash has been doing for a decade or so now).  I definitely appreciate the utility of getting a "game" in before Game 1 and working through a lot of the typical first game mistakes (procedure penalties come to mind specifically), but man, sometimes there is a heavy price that gets paid for that dress rehearsal and I'm not always sure it is worth it.

Just one man's opinion/experience, but I never felt like our scrimmage was worth it.

IMHO, our scrimmages (Westminster once, Waynesburg three times) did not feel close enough to a game simulation (incidentally, this is not only reflective of the game itself; one complaint of mine is also that we never spent more than one meeting/practice preparing for the opponent's offense/defense schemes, which meant that even as we took the field, we often came up to the line and botched the execution because we hadn't prepared to block certain fronts) to feel much benefit; I honestly think we'd have been just as prepared for Week 1 if we skipped it.  Perhaps this is just the hindsight of a multi-year starter talking; and maybe I'd have felt it was really beneficial if I had played sparingly for a couple years before being thrust into a starting role as a junior or senior.

Re: intrasquad scrimmaging, we only held three or four practices where the full first-team O lined up against the full first-team D for any plays at all, and even within those we did not tackle to the ground (coaches would blow the play dead early) because there was a season prior where CMU lost two running backs to season-ending injuries in one scrimmage.

With the NFL hullabaloo around pre-season games and players lost to injury during the pre-season, this is a fascinating topic to me.  It's definitely a shame to see a player like Jordy Nelson go down with an ACL tear, although I think the team & coaching staff should not be so quick to blame the NFL for forcing them to play 4 preseason games (after all, the coaches could elect not to play any starters).  I wonder if an NFL coach with some cachet (Belichick; someone who doesn't care what anyone thinks of him, and will never be fired) should take an even more brazen stand against the preseason, perhaps ordering that none of his starters even bother coming to the stadium for the last preseason game.

(Yes, I know that this spits in the face of team unity and supporting your potential teammates)

I really think the only way the NFL would shorten the 4-game preseason would be if coaches and players took action; instead of merely voicing their displeasure, show it by refusing to participate.  Send all the starters home altogether; don't even bring them to the game.  Is it really that much of a competitive disadvantage (in the regular season) to skip the handful of series that your starters play in the second and third game?

Anyways, back to college...much like the NFL preseason, besides getting the team some nominal preparation for the season, I think the preseason scrimmage is held 1) to break up the monotony of camp practices, 2) to get your team a chance to hit someone else, and 3) if there's any true season-preparation value, it's likely in letting the staff evaluate guys that are competing for jobs, and seeing the freshman players in action against someone else to decide whether any of them merit some early playing time.  With big rosters on many D3 teams, it's got to be nearly impossible to pick out that one stud freshman RB who might be a smidgen better than your 4 or 5 upper class guys vying for playing time, and sometimes a live-action scrimmage can help flesh that out.

Quite the ramble here.  Comments?

[sac]

Kind of neat story, the Steve in this article played basketball at Hope while I was there.
http://highschoolsports.mlive.com/news/article/4483856051374346388/referee-jerry-hendrickson-starts-53rd-and-final-season-with-sons-by-his-side/

[formerd3db]

Wally and ExTartan:
This is extremely tardy, nonetheless, I thought I'd reply anyway, the very extreme lack of activity on our MIAA board notwithstanding (even for pre-season and perhaps the worst we've seen over the years).   You both make very good points regarding the "final scrimmage or no final scrimmage" topic.  It is a difficult decision for sure, including the safety and "tradition" considerations as well as the competition at positions evaluation considerations as you both pointed out.  Of course, we all know that the potential injury factor can happen at anytime whether in pre-season or season. But obviously, the decision for a pre-season ending scrimmage within one's own team or versus another college remains with the head coach.  It will be interesting to see how what effect, if any either way, that may have had on our team this year.  I can let you know after this weekend's season opening game.

Sac:
Thanks for posting that article.  What a great story and a lifetime family memory for those guys.

[TUAngola]

Game night at Trine University as the Thunders welcomes their in-state rival Manchester College for their annual Thursday night season opener.  Heading out shortly and will comment on my observations on the 2015 edition of the Trine Thunder upon getting back from the game.  Former major league baseball player Tino Martinez to deliver the game ball for tonight's contest.

[TUAngola]

Trine wins season opener over Manchester 38-14.  Our QB Taylor Masiewicz had a nice game, being a senior and last year's MIAA offensive player of the year, he is expected to lead this team.  We really didn't rely on his arm all that much as Manchester couldn't stop our ground game.  The RB depth we have this year is by far the best I've seen at Trine in quite some time.  We all knew about Frank "the Tank" Vuocolo, who is our pounder, however the season debut of Freshman Lamar Carswell was pretty impressive.  He has tons of quickness in his cuts and speed!  To me he has bigger school talent, but am very happy he found his way to Trine.  He finished with around 175 yds and 3 td's.  However he did have a fumble on the 2 yd line on the first drive that Manchester recovered, so it wasn't all good, but still on some of his runs my buddies and I just looked at each in amazement.  He'll be a important weapon on an already loaded offense.

The Trine defense was only so so.  Don't get me wrong though, Manchester can move the ball.  They run the exact spread offense that Trine does and have a veteran QB that can throw it around.  We did hold their pre-season All American WR/KR Dakota Nelson in check.  We didn't kick away from him, or pooch kick, which surprised me.  But the special teams did a great job in coverage and didn't let him get loose with his tremendous speed.  Manchester's first 2 drives ended with interceptions by Freshman CB Marcus Winters, who is a nice addition to our secondary.  But we are still not very good against the run and our tackling was awful.  It's the first game and tackling will improve.  But we wiffed on a lot of tackles tonight.  Our new place kicker Haydock did very well, hit all his extra points and put our first points on the board with a FG. 

So, we did what was expected for the most part tonight.  Got some things to work on on D, but the offense was very solid.  Nice crowd again too, I think just shade under 5000.  Good luck to the rest of the MIAA teams on Saturday.

[DBQ1965]

Watched the Hope - Monmouth game today.  Hope played well for one half and then fell victim to inconsistency.  Hope QB Kish played a good first half but had a miserable second half passing, thanks in part to very good Monmouth defensive play.  The Flying Dutchmen defense had its own moments, but not enough to keep Monmouth from putting together some time consuming scoring drives which kept Hope's defense on the field too much of the time.  Even a Hope highlight ... a 96-yard KO return for a TD by Chris Leigh ... put the Hope defense right back on the field.  Leigh will make some noise in the MIAA this season.  Hope's defense seemed vulnerable to the short-to-medium pass, but give credit to the Monmouth receivers as well.  It will be interesting to see how Hope does against Elmhurst, another team which played a good second half today, albeit against Loras.  Hope will need to be more consistent on both sides of the ball if it wants to take its MIAA opener against Albion.

At least you didn't have to play St. John's today.

[formerd3db]

Watched the Hope - Monmouth game today.  Hope played well for one half and then fell victim to inconsistency.  Hope QB Kish played a good first half but had a miserable second half passing, thanks in part to very good Monmouth defensive play.  The Flying Dutchmen defense had its own moments, but not enough to keep Monmouth from putting together some time consuming scoring drives which kept Hope's defense on the field too much of the time.  Even a Hope highlight ... a 96-yard KO return for a TD by Chris Leigh ... put the Hope defense right back on the field.  Leigh will make some noise in the MIAA this season.  Hope's defense seemed vulnerable to the short-to-medium pass, but give credit to the Monmouth receivers as well.  It will be interesting to see how Hope does against Elmhurst, another team which played a good second half today, albeit against Loras.  Hope will need to be more consistent on both sides of the ball if it wants to take its MIAA opener against Albion.

At least you didn't have to play St. John's today.

I agree with your assessment, yet would just add that poor tackling was also a huge contributor to Hope's demise Saturday.  That was really quite consistent throughout the game and they will need to work on tackling technique in practice, IMO.  Another general observation is the Monmouth is not the patsy it used to be in years back.  They had some good sized linemen on both sides of the ball and good receivers and RB.  It will be interesting to see how they do for the rest of the season.

A disappointing loss, Hope needs to regroup and try to rebound this weekend at Elmhurst.  I suspect it will be a somewhat close game, as Elmhurst is in a rebuilding phase so to speak, unless Hope falls apart as they sometimes have seemed to do on these early season away games the past few years.  But, it would be nice for us if that doesn't happen.  (Sorry jaybird )

[formerd3db]

Thoughts about this weekend anyone?  I think Hope has a chance to gain its first win of the season Saturday against Concordia-Wis. (Revised-got the Concordias mixed-up. )

[Mr. Ypsi]

The MIAA went 7-0 today!!!  I'm guessing that this has NEVER before happened - anyone know?  Seems like there is always at least one essentially unwinnable game on the schedule.

[OC_SID]

The MIAA went 7-0 today!!!  I'm guessing that this has NEVER before happened - anyone know?  Seems like there is always at least one essentially unwinnable game on the schedule.

Last year, the MIAA had a 6-1 record against the NACC rivals. Kalamazoo was the only team to lose.

[Mr. Ypsi]

The MIAA went 7-0 today!!!  I'm guessing that this has NEVER before happened - anyone know?  Seems like there is always at least one essentially unwinnable game on the schedule.

Last year, the MIAA had a 6-1 record against the NACC rivals. Kalamazoo was the only team to lose.

Granted that the MIAA has found a much worse league in the NACC.  But 6-1 is not 7-0.  Has the MIAA EVER had a 7-0 week before?

[sac]

The MIAA went 7-0 today!!!  I'm guessing that this has NEVER before happened - anyone know?  Seems like there is always at least one essentially unwinnable game on the schedule.

Last year, the MIAA had a 6-1 record against the NACC rivals. Kalamazoo was the only team to lose.

Granted that the MIAA has found a much worse league in the NACC.  But 6-1 is not 7-0. Has the MIAA EVER had a 7-0 week before?

Not likely in recent history since its actually pretty hard to find a weekend where all 7 teams (since Trine joined) played on the same day before these conference challenges with the NACC and CCIW.

Prior to Trine joining the league obviously the best record they could have had for about 45 years was 6-0.  You'd have to go back and look at the days Hillsdale College was part of the league, and those aren't on the internet.

So the answer is probably no with the most likely reason being they've had very chances to even go 7-0.

[waxx]

Not likely in recent history since its actually pretty hard to find a weekend where all 7 teams (since Trine joined) played on the same day before these conference challenges with the NACC and CCIW.

Prior to Trine joining the league obviously the best record they could have had for about 45 years was 6-0.  You'd have to go back and look at the days Hillsdale College was part of the league, and those aren't on the internet.

So the answer is probably no with the most likely reason being they've had very chances to even go 7-0.

The MIAA had 7 when Wisconsin Lutheran was in the league. And d3football.com has 8 teams when Tri-State joined from in 2007. Also, Defiance was in the league in 1999, and maybe before, but d3football.com's records only go back to 1999.

Interesting question though, can't imagine there are too many times when the entire league went undefeated.