FB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[Gregory Sager]

Anyway, you will highly likely be right in predicting Millikin's eventual disposition in the league as those games play out, but they didn't look like a "real cruddy team" today, IMO.

The CCIW is a solid enough league that even the teams towards the bottom of the standings aren't necessarily "real cruddy." Therefore, Millikin's final record should not be seen as a reflection of how it compares among the 240 or so schools that play D3 football. However, over the past six years Millikin has finished (starting with 2010 and going backwards) seventh, sixth, seventh, seventh, sixth, and sixth in the eight-team CCIW. Over that period the Big Blue have gone 10-32 in league play. They have a new head coach this year, and they opened the year by losing at home to Illinois College -- and no decent CCIW team should ever lose to a MWC team, especially at home. Over the past ten years the CCIW has won nine out of ten contests against the MWC, with the only loss suffered by traditional CCIW doormat NPU.

This year the CCIW coaches picked Millikin to finish seventh in the CCIW preseason poll. That seems like a reasonable pick to me.

Sorry. I know that you'd like to put as good a shine as possible on Hope's loss, but it appears to me that the odds are against Millikin finishing as a "mid-tier" team in the CCIW this year.

[formerd3db]

Gregory S:

Thanks for the insight/background info re: Millikin (and the CCIW).  I really was not trying to put some "shine" into our loss - I never do that, seriously.  Rather, I describe the games in relation to how I evaluated the competing teams for that particular game. As you and I both know, you can't always judge a team by one game (unless a team is just downright horrible ) and, of course, it is even more difficult to judge that from opponents that anyone doesn't play very often. Hope did not play good yesterday and essentially reverted back to the same mistakes we've been making the past 4 years now.  Again, there were some bright spots as I summarized in my previous posts, however, we simply did not get the job done when it could have/should have been done.  Overall, we are still not a...-well, I'll just say it - a very good football team.  Potential is there yes, but a long way to go and the next 2-3 weeks will be "tell-tale".

[ThunderHead]

hey fellas, thanks for the Karma fellas. I'll try to be a good boy...

I appreciated all the grace.

Now that's not to say I won't say things that might make you wanna smite me, but I hope at least now you guys feel I'm not trying to "cause trouble". Often it's just bring in some conversation and I hope you guys see me as a decent contributor to the board.

[formerd3db]

That's okay, ThunderHead and no problem (I'm saying this from my personal perspective because I am certainly not the "Czar" on this board nor would ever think of myself in such a way. ). Again, from your personal experience, you bring some additional insight to the college game which some of us do not have. I don't think anyone really thought you were trying to "cause trouble".  There are some people on other boards who do try to do that (and actually do), however, I don't think we have any of those types here on our MIAA board.  Obviously, there will be times when all of us disagree on various aspects and there is nothing wrong with that.  The only time I smite people is when they "cross that line" and make it personal a personal issue on others, are outright disrespectful, etc., etc. and I think everyone here is intelligent and mature and sensible enough to know when that occurs (as opposed to some jerks who smite people just because they don't like their opinions and thus have "it in for them" regardless).  As I see at the bottom of Pat's personal info, he has included a quote from one of the other veteran posters on these boards about being respectful in disagreements when discussing opinions/topics.  Again, I think we all do that here on this board.

[sflzman]

About the Washington an lee game. I hope my scots can win but it's going to come down to limiting tournovers. We lost the first two games on TOs in the red zone and a Rockford we got down 10-0 on a pick 6 from the regents 10. Leiser has to limit INTs and we gotta pound it out on the ground bc WL gonna have a tough time slowing the offense if we can use the two headed monster of mason and lesiter to set up the downfield game to Henderson. Henderson leads the miaa in receiving by over 100 yards and mason leads in rushing by over 100 yards. We also have the number one and three tackles in sabatella and bovee of I remember correctly?

[Stinger]

How about people just post, speak their mind, and not worry about "karma"? Ridiculous that this comes up all the time. 

Also, Pat, right on. If you have the means to ask a question on the internet, you have the means to find the answer.

Great home win for Kzoo last night. Momentum building.

[adidas28]

How about people just post, speak their mind, and not worry about "karma"? Ridiculous that this comes up all the time. 

Also, Pat, right on. If you have the means to ask a question on the internet, you have the means to find the answer.

Great home win for Kzoo last night. Momentum building.

I definitely agree with you Stinger! As you can see I do not worry about karma!

[Uncle Rico]

How about people just post, speak their mind, and not worry about "karma"? Ridiculous that this comes up all the time. 

Also, Pat, right on. If you have the means to ask a question on the internet, you have the means to find the answer.

Great home win for Kzoo last night. Momentum building.

I definitely agree with you Stinger! As you can see I do not worry about karma!

Adidas, I suspect most of those smites are from Nike fans.

[jknezek]

Thanks for the info on Alma. With little comparisons to go on, I think I'll just play the homer card and put the pick on the Generals. We seem to be having trouble stopping the pass, F&M and Centre both were able to throw on us, so you may not need much of a ground game. Sewanee tried to run all game and got nowhere, F&M couldn't run on us, and Centre was able to run and pass with good balance in the second half, although we had them dead quiet in the first. I doubt you'll see much of a pass out of us. Triple option variants with a stable of 6 or 7 different runners. If you haven't seen it regularly, it's real hard to stop. We've put up good points on every opponent and if we limit the turnovers and penalties we tend to have an awful lot of clock time on O. Usually if we get out in front, it's tough to recover, but Centre did manage it. Looking forward to the game.

[BOYA87]

I feel like an Indiana boy on this Michigan board should probably talk a small amount of smack about that ND vs MSU game.  ND finally looked like the team they should be.  IMO if we started Reese from the get go they are 3-0 and climbing the rankings.  Expecting bigger and better thigns out of my Irish!  Maybe this football season wont be so bad for us Indiana folk  (ie the Colts wont be much fun to watch this season but I will just have to suffer through with them!)

[D306]

Boya87

I expected a ND win this weekend.
I actually thought they would be 3-0 at this point.

ND gave the first 2 games away.
You earn your losses and your wins so it is what it is.

MSU surprised me not that they lost going down to ND, the complete lack of a running game and BS play calling. Looked like PEE WEE football, MD really sent his team's faith in him back.

Ball security is the key for ND, need to utilize the pressure they can generate with these athletic DL guys to protect the backend on defense. Like the SS/FS what ever #22 is he plays with a bad attitude and makes his hits count.

Congrats to Kazoo another good win, like to see them winning. I think Kazoo is building something over the last couple years, should be improving as the field offers recruits a higher level look.

[ThunderHead]

I find it funny with a karma of -1 that you two (stinger and Adidas) think I play the karma game. That said, there is not reason not to try to get along and make my point in a respectful way. Which I admit, sometimes I don't always do.

That was all I was trying get across.

[Uncle Rico]

I feel like an Indiana boy on this Michigan board should probably talk a small amount of smack about that ND vs MSU game.  ND finally looked like the team they should be.  IMO if we started Reese from the get go they are 3-0 and climbing the rankings.  Expecting bigger and better thigns out of my Irish!  Maybe this football season wont be so bad for us Indiana folk  (ie the Colts wont be much fun to watch this season but I will just have to suffer through with them!)

Shoulda coulda woulda been 3-0.  Sure glad they actually have to play the game.  Maybe ND can petition for a "do-over" for the first two games.    That said, I feel very lucky that Michigan escaped with the W and am not very sure the result would have been the same if they played again. 

Even though a life-long Steelers fan since the days of Lambert, Hamm, Greene, Bradshaw, etc...etc..etc... I am almost getting ready to jump on the Lions bandwagon finally! 

[ThunderHead]

D306,

MD doesn't call the offense, nor really have a lot to do with the offense in EL other then stipulating the air vs ground attack. The play calling was handed over to Dan Rousher (O-Line Coach) after Don Treadwell left from Miami of Ohio.

MD is committed to the ground game, almost at times to the detriment of the offense. This all said, MSU is running with two legitimate D1 wide-outs in BJ Cunningmam and Keshawn Martin. Bennie Fowler is injured and Keith Nichol simply isn't a legitimate threat to zone defense. I also don't think MSU uses it's TE enough, Dion Simms is as good as any TE in the B1G.

The offense line also struggled in protection calls as it related to the passing game and I guess that's what happens when you don't test yourself in the pre-season.

Overall ND simply beat them, BK and Co. out coached MD and Co. All this said - I feel like ND did more to lose both games early on the SF or UofM did to win them. Credit ND, it was a good win and a much needed win for the BK.

[adidas28]

I find it funny with a karma of -1 that you two (stinger and Adidas) think I play the karma game. That said, there is not reason not to try to get along and make my point in a respectful way. Which I admit, sometimes I don't always do.

That was all I was trying get across.

I was really only refering to my own -5 karma, nothing else. I post what I post and if others like or don't like it -  I don't worry about it.