FB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[SaintsFAN]

It's not a big surprise they didn't, but I was hoping to Kzoo get a vote for top 25. I know their schedule to this point has been great, but I thought a win over Adrian and then Albion might raise a few voters eyebrows. They have a winnable game with Alma this week and then a gauntlet to finish; Olivet, Hope, Trine. I'm rooting for them but I think a final record better than 7-3 would be a big surprise.

Not only hasnt been great, but the third-worst SOS for an unbeaten team in D3.

For 2018 or all-time?

(years in which they've kept SOS numbers)

Nevermind, dumb question

[formerd3db]

A few musings after the weekend games:

Hope had a solid game against Kalamazoo this past Saturday.  After only leading 13-7 at halftime (after a missed PAT) and the touchdown after we pulled a fake FG attempt! I was glad to see Coach Sturs choose that play!  A good trick play once in a while is a good thing.  It was a good win for the Seniors on Senior Day, always a day of mixed emotions for those in that category.  The Kalamazoo team I saw on Saturday was the best team they have had in a long time, IMO, even better than when they beat us at their place 3 years ago in 2015.  The first half showed it, however, their offense fell flat and both Hope's offense and defense rose to the occasion and wore them down.  Clearly, Hope is a better team, however, it still is a great season for Kazoo, which will end up most likely 7-3, unless Trine has a terrible off day next Saturday.

For Hope, assuming we beat Adrian (which we should, but it is always tough down at their place regardless), another 8-2 season will be wonderful.  The only disappointment is, of course, not winning the title and getting the AQ even if we were to end up being co-champs. 

One aspect that I would just throw out here for discussion is the following...have any of you noticed it seems (at least to me) that overall attendance at DIII football games this year is extremely down?  I have noticed that many schools are not even getting 1,000 fans to their home games. At Hope, it is disappointing as we will now have had 3 winning seasons in a row and home attendance has been terrible, IMO.  Certainly not like it was back in our winning years, even in the "old" days.  Disappointing, IMO. I am not sure why other than a possible contribution to this may be the extremely bad weather i.e. rainy seasons we have had for football these past two years.  I noticed the attendance dip trend last year as well. I would have to check more, however, I believe this trend has also occurred to some degree across all the NCAA football divisions.  Thoughts anyone?

I would just add that we have been extremely lax this year on our MIAA board.  For whatever the reason, the participation has been paltry at best, and that includes me as well

[ThunderStorm_3peat]

Trine has consistently been in the top 10 to 15 in attendance for some time now.  They avg 4800 fans this year which would put them at number 3 nationally with 2017 attendance. 

[HOPEful]

I was very impressed with the number of people at the earlier Hope games. Unfortunately, drawing and losing to Trine at the front end of the season surely decimated attendance numbers for the second half of the season. I do think Hope tends to have somewhat fair weather fans, both metaphorically and literally. Games in dicey October and November weather for a team all but eliminated from playoff contention just won't get the turnout that you'd hope to get.

[formerd3db]

Trine has consistently been in the top 10 to 15 in attendance for some time now.  They avg 4800 fans this year which would put them at number 3 nationally with 2017 attendance.

Yes, I meant to have included the statement ..."with the exception of Trine and Olivet (and possibly Albion at least last year it two also).

I was very impressed with the number of people at the earlier Hope games. Unfortunately, drawing and losing to Trine at the front end of the season surely decimated attendance numbers for the second half of the season. I do think Hope tends to have somewhat fair weather fans, both metaphorically and literally. Games in dicey October and November weather for a team all but eliminated from playoff contention just won't get the turnout that you'd hope to get.

I would agree with that. Yet, again even in some past years several years ago, we still had upwards of 3,000+ at games when the title was not necessarily on play towards the end of the seasons. According to some Hope students I have talked to, unfortunately football just doesn't quite have the higher stature it once had on campus. I hope that will change. Ack over time.

[sac]

I've chatted with others who think the makeup of Hope's student body has changed over the years and being a part of the athletics scene just isn't their priority.  Student attendance at basketball has been hit or miss to way way down the last few years unless its Calvin.

[HOPEful]

I've chatted with others who think the makeup of Hope's student body has changed over the years and being a part of the athletics scene just isn't their priority.  Student attendance at basketball has been hit or miss to way way down the last few years unless its Calvin.

Last year, basketball was WAY down. However, they played very few games at home before the students left on break. Once they returned, the team was 6-6, hardly a record that's going to draw the casual fan's attention. Worse yet, only 2 of their MIAA home games were Saturdays, and the Dew Crew has always had an easier time showing up on Saturdays vs. Wednesday nights.

I think this season will be a much better barometer for student attendance. The men's basketball team returns pretty much everyone other than Dante Hawkins and plays 6 home games before Christmas.

For football, I do think the numbers are very weather related. Students at Hope tend to look at distance away from campus MUCH differently than at bigger schools. It may sound funny, but the 1 mile walk to the football stadium is a very long ways away in the eyes of a student, especially on a less than perfect October or November day. I don't think a non-playoff Hope team will ever draw a large student crowd in October or November.

[TUAngola]

Congrats to Trine on their back-to-back undefeated MIAA championships.  This years team not as dominant as last years overall, but it's tough to win football games every week and this year's team is good at finishing games and found a way to get the W's.  I went to a majority of the games, only ones I missed were at Finlandia (too far) and yesterday at Kalamazoo (stayed home to watch Trine's WBB home opener).  Lot of posters here are down on the MIAA, but I tell you what, there are a lot of top notch offensive teams, Adrian, Albion, Hope, Olivet, they can all move the ball on anyone.  A lot of Trines games were shootouts that's for sure.  Other than Hope there really aren't a lot of good defensive teams in the league however.  Kalamazoo's D is decent, but Carswell made them look bad yesterday.  School and MIAA record 359 yards rushing. 

Now on to the playoffs.  I hope the D3 committee puts Eureka coming to Trine for a 1st round game.  There would be some offensive fireworks to see Eureka's Reasnover and Trine's Carswell and their teams matched up.  2 of the best running backs in D3 this year, maybe THE 2 best.     

[formerd3db]

Congrats to Trine on their back-to-back undefeated MIAA championships.  This years team not as dominant as last years overall, but it's tough to win football games every week and this year's team is good at finishing games and found a way to get the W's.  I went to a majority of the games, only ones I missed were at Finlandia (too far) and yesterday at Kalamazoo (stayed home to watch Trine's WBB home opener).  Lot of posters here are down on the MIAA, but I tell you what, there are a lot of top notch offensive teams, Adrian, Albion, Hope, Olivet, they can all move the ball on anyone.  A lot of Trines games were shootouts that's for sure.  Other than Hope there really aren't a lot of good defensive teams in the league however.  Kalamazoo's D is decent, but Carswell made them look bad yesterday.  School and MIAA record 359 yards rushing. 

Now on to the playoffs.  I hope the D3 committee puts Eureka coming to Trine for a 1st round game.  There would be some offensive fireworks to see Eureka's Reasnover and Trine's Carswell and their teams matched up.  2 of the best running backs in D3 this year, maybe THE 2 best.   

TUAngola:

Yes, congratulations to your Trine team, alums and fans for Trine's second consecutive MIAA title and undefeated season. I agree that is a tough accomplishment for any team regardless of the conference they play in. Trine will represent our league well as they always have.

The only asoect I have a slightly difference of opinion with you on is that, while I agree there were some very good offenses in the MIAA this year, compared to the national scene, overall, they would not quite be that good enough to win it all on the national scene (of course, that factor also includes having a great defense as you have already pointed out.) As you have mentioned, many of our MIAA posters here have been down a bit on our league ( that includes myself ) and we have discussed this several times on these boards in the past few years. And that is, I am of the opinion that situation will not change until our league teams start playing better non-league opponents, as was done years ago. Obviously, the league administrators have control over that in regards to the contracts between the various conferences for the 4 year periods (CCIW and now the current one) as has been in place the last several years. While no one likes to lose those type of games if our schools were to be playing the likes of nationally ranked teams each year for their non-conference games, I and others believe (the argument has always been) that a) it will make our teams better in the long run and better prepared for the post season against the better teams and b) you still have to win the league title anyway to get there in the first place, so other than seeding in the platoffs, that doesn't matter if you have a couple of losses to higher tier teams. You still have to face them anyway in the playoffs.

Just my opinion, which hasn't changed. Nonetheless, again, we'll be rooting for Trine in the playoffs, and wouldn't it be great if they did somehow make it to the Stage Bowl?!!! It happened for Albion back in 1994-that was a great season and I remember those post season games!

[TheGreenKnight920]

SNC fan here. I see we match up in the first round, and I'm curious as to a mini-scouting report about Trine. Just looking at the numbers, lots of offense...On our end, we have arguably one of the better defenses in the country, mainly in the run game, but our D picked off 6 passes yesterday against a high powered Monmouth offense. We also limited Monmouth to only one or two first downs all first half. Conversely, we run a pretty bland triple-option, despite having an All-American wide receiver, though we threw the ball relatively well yesterday. Our kicker is getting NFL looks and is a real X factor in close games. What about Trine?

[TUAngola]

SNC fan here. I see we match up in the first round, and I'm curious as to a mini-scouting report about Trine. Just looking at the numbers, lots of offense...On our end, we have arguably one of the better defenses in the country, mainly in the run game, but our D picked off 6 passes yesterday against a high powered Monmouth offense. We also limited Monmouth to only one or two first downs all first half. Conversely, we run a pretty bland triple-option, despite having an All-American wide receiver, though we threw the ball relatively well yesterday. Our kicker is getting NFL looks and is a real X factor in close games. What about Trine?

Hi GreenKnight.  Sounds like your team is perfectly suited to stop our offense as we are a run heavy team.  Lamar Carswell at running back is lighning quick and  one of the leading rushers in the nation, he should be on one of the D3 All American teams at year end, if not it's a huge travesty.  He's set virtually all the Trine rushing and TD records in his career.  He broke the MIAA single game rushing record with 359 yesterday against Kalamazoo.  However, he can be prone to putting the ball on the turf, especially the last couple games he's fumbled 3 times.  We run a no huddle pistol offense, single back, with varying receiver packages anywhere from 4 wideout set to 1 wideout and 3 tight ends.  We rotate QBs, both can run at times, with Brandon Winters it's usually trying to make something out of a broken down pass play, with Andrew Duckett it's usually a designed run.  We have an all conference wideout in Jeffery Barnett, but he doesn't get the ball nearly enough, sorta like your guy at SNC.  Barnett is also a dangerous kickoff return man, I believe he's had 3 returns for TDs this year, and 1 other one that was called back because of a penalty.

On defense we run a 4-3, but can be flexible depending on what the other teams run.  We aren't a very good defense, our run defense has had issues, but we play in a conference with a lot of good running backs.  We don't put a lot of pressure on getting to the QB either unless we rush more than 4.  The strength of our D is our 2 cornerbacks, both who will probably be All Confernece.  Marcus Winters was defensive POY last year in our conference at CB and has the school record for career INTs.  Opposing teams slot recievers have had some big games against us, but wideouts not so much.  Our kickoff and kicking game is solid, Hibbets kicksoff and does long FGs, he broke the school record for longest FG this year at 48 yds, Garza is our XP guy.       

[TheGreenKnight920]

SNC fan here. I see we match up in the first round, and I'm curious as to a mini-scouting report about Trine. Just looking at the numbers, lots of offense...On our end, we have arguably one of the better defenses in the country, mainly in the run game, but our D picked off 6 passes yesterday against a high powered Monmouth offense. We also limited Monmouth to only one or two first downs all first half. Conversely, we run a pretty bland triple-option, despite having an All-American wide receiver, though we threw the ball relatively well yesterday. Our kicker is getting NFL looks and is a real X factor in close games. What about Trine?

Hi GreenKnight.  Sounds like your team is perfectly suited to stop our offense as we are a run heavy team.  Lamar Carswell at running back is lighning quick and  one of the leading rushers in the nation, he should be on one of the D3 All American teams at year end, if not it's a huge travesty.  He's set virtually all the Trine rushing and TD records in his career.  He broke the MIAA single game rushing record with 359 yesterday against Kalamazoo.  However, he can be prone to putting the ball on the turf, especially the last couple games he's fumbled 3 times.  We run a no huddle pistol offense, single back, with varying receiver packages anywhere from 4 wideout set to 1 wideout and 3 tight ends.  We rotate QBs, both can run at times, with Brandon Winters it's usually trying to make something out of a broken down pass play, with Andrew Duckett it's usually a designed run.  We have an all conference wideout in Jeffery Barnett, but he doesn't get the ball nearly enough, sorta like your guy at SNC.  Barnett is also a dangerous kickoff return man, I believe he's had 3 returns for TDs this year, and 1 other one that was called back because of a penalty.

On defense we run a 4-3, but can be flexible depending on what the other teams run.  We aren't a very good defense, our run defense has had issues, but we play in a conference with a lot of good running backs.  We don't put a lot of pressure on getting to the QB either unless we rush more than 4.  The strength of our D is our 2 cornerbacks, both who will probably be All Confernece.  Marcus Winters was defensive POY last year in our conference at CB and has the school record for career INTs.  Opposing teams slot recievers have had some big games against us, but wideouts not so much.  Our kickoff and kicking game is solid, Hibbets kicksoff and does long FGs, he broke the school record for longest FG this year at 48 yds, Garza is our XP guy.       

Carswell will be the first real test for our run defense, as our competition has been pretty lowly outside of Monmouth. I don't think this one will be a shootout. If Carswell is running well despite the defense, Trine might run away with this one early, as our offense does not score a lot of points. But if our defense can contain him, its going to be a special teams oriented field position battle game, which we have been very competent at winning. It will also be interesting to see how Rhodes, our QB, is able to throw on what sounds like a formidable secondary, if the game script calls for it. He makes a lot of safe throws right around the line of scrimmage, but is prone to throwing some bad INTs when going downfield. Best of luck to your squad, I'm sure we are in for a good one this Saturday!

[ThunderStorm_3peat]

I'm not sure many running backs have been better than Levell Coppage (Wisconsin Whitewater) since 2010 but Carswell just might be better than him.  I don't recall seeing any back make some of the moves Carswell makes including Coppage. 

[TUAngola]

Congrats to Trine on their back-to-back undefeated MIAA championships.  This years team not as dominant as last years overall, but it's tough to win football games every week and this year's team is good at finishing games and found a way to get the W's.  I went to a majority of the games, only ones I missed were at Finlandia (too far) and yesterday at Kalamazoo (stayed home to watch Trine's WBB home opener).  Lot of posters here are down on the MIAA, but I tell you what, there are a lot of top notch offensive teams, Adrian, Albion, Hope, Olivet, they can all move the ball on anyone.  A lot of Trines games were shootouts that's for sure.  Other than Hope there really aren't a lot of good defensive teams in the league however.  Kalamazoo's D is decent, but Carswell made them look bad yesterday.  School and MIAA record 359 yards rushing. 

Now on to the playoffs.  I hope the D3 committee puts Eureka coming to Trine for a 1st round game.  There would be some offensive fireworks to see Eureka's Reasnover and Trine's Carswell and their teams matched up.  2 of the best running backs in D3 this year, maybe THE 2 best.   

TUAngola:

Yes, congratulations to your Trine team, alums and fans for Trine's second consecutive MIAA title and undefeated season. I agree that is a tough accomplishment for any team regardless of the conference they play in. Trine will represent our league well as they always have.

The only asoect I have a slightly difference of opinion with you on is that, while I agree there were some very good offenses in the MIAA this year, compared to the national scene, overall, they would not quite be that good enough to win it all on the national scene (of course, that factor also includes having a great defense as you have already pointed out.) As you have mentioned, many of our MIAA posters here have been down a bit on our league ( that includes myself ) and we have discussed this several times on these boards in the past few years. And that is, I am of the opinion that situation will not change until our league teams start playing better non-league opponents, as was done years ago. Obviously, the league administrators have control over that in regards to the contracts between the various conferences for the 4 year periods (CCIW and now the current one) as has been in place the last several years. While no one likes to lose those type of games if our schools were to be playing the likes of nationally ranked teams each year for their non-conference games, I and others believe (the argument has always been) that a) it will make our teams better in the long run and better prepared for the post season against the better teams and b) you still have to win the league title anyway to get there in the first place, so other than seeding in the platoffs, that doesn't matter if you have a couple of losses to higher tier teams. You still have to face them anyway in the playoffs.

Just my opinion, which hasn't changed. Nonetheless, again, we'll be rooting for Trine in the playoffs, and wouldn't it be great if they did somehow make it to the Stage Bowl?!!! It happened for Albion back in 1994-that was a great season and I remember those post season games!

I agree that the MIAA non conference schedule for the most part is pretty weak.  And the SOS for MIAA schools is even taking a further hit because of the MIAA's decision to add Finlandia as a provisional member in Football only.  Then we are locked in to the NAAC contract, hopefully for not much longer.  That leaves each MIAA school 2 nonconference games to schedule.  Trine will probably never get out of the Manchester game to start the season.  It's the closest thing we have to a traditional rival in Indiana, and the Thursday night games under the lights are fun.  However, I'd much rather have us playing another Indiana school, Franklin or Hanover would be awesome, Wabash or DePauw, but they both only have 1 nonconference game available so that would be hard to get on their schedules.  CCIW schools would be great, but they probably don't want to play MIAA schools much as they too want to have a higher SOS at year end.

[ThunderStorm_3peat]

I'd like to see Trine dump Manchester I don't think any player on Trine past or present would consider them a rival. Also, need to drop Bluffton and add an OAC team and an NCAC team.