FB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[sac]

Robert Morris 42 Olivet 0

Hope 42, North Park, Ill. 24

There's another one somewhere?

I figured I'd rub it in

So Hope scores 42 for the 42nd annual community day game.

and 1-0 for only the 2nd time since I was in school reading 2 books, doing 3 essays, while working 3 jobs, had 2 internships, 18 credits while walking up hill in the snow both ways, and living in Kollen Hall......and that was just the first week.

[Gregory Sager]

You're all heart, dude.

[Raider 68]

Mixed results for the MIAA today. Albion was impressive, Hope as well. The coming weeks will be interesting.

sflzman:
Sorry, I thought Heidelberg would be too much for your Alma today!

[DBQ1965]

Mixed results for the MIAA today. Albion was impressive, Hope as well. The coming weeks will be interesting.

sflzman:
Sorry, I thought Heidelberg would be too much for your Alma today!

No ... I was at the game and Hope wasn't that impressive today.  The score was partially indicative of NPU's flashes of ineptness ... but Hope had some of its own.  Still, Hope had fewer mistakes and even fewer undisciplined actions.  I was thinking Hope's first real test would come in the IWU game, but it it may be next week on the road against Millikin ... they could be 2-2-0 heading into MIAA conference play.

[sflzman]

Mixed results for the MIAA today. Albion was impressive, Hope as well. The coming weeks will be interesting.

sflzman:
Sorry, I thought Heidelberg would be too much for your Alma today!

No ... I was at the game and Hope wasn't that impressive today.  The score was partially indicative of NPU's flashes of ineptness ... but Hope had some of its own.  Still, Hope had fewer
mistakes and even fewer undisciplined actions.  I was thinking Hope's first real test would come in the IWU game, but it it may be next week on the road against Millikin ... they could be 2-2-0 heading into MIAA conference play.

It would be interesting to find a scenario where that 0 is not a zero

[RFMichigan]

Can anybody give me an idea of the "average" number of newcomers (freshmen and transfers) that show up for the beginning of fall camp that don't, for whatever reason, make it to the opening roster?

[realist]

Mixed results for the MIAA today. Albion was impressive, Hope as well. The coming weeks will be interesting.

sflzman:
Sorry, I thought Heidelberg would be too much for your Alma today!

No ... I was at the game and Hope wasn't that impressive today.  The score was partially indicative of NPU's flashes of ineptness ... but Hope had some of its own.  Still, Hope had fewer
mistakes and even fewer undisciplined actions.  I was thinking Hope's first real test would come in the IWU game, but it it may be next week on the road against Millikin ... they could be 2-2-0 heading into MIAA conference play.

It would be interesting to find a scenario where that 0 is not a zero

According to Wikipedia:
"The only exception would be if teams agree to a draw because of severe weather conditions (if severe weather strikes when a game is tied once the third quarter begins, including overtime, or during overtime, if one team scores in an overtime period, and the other team had not finished their series when the weather situation occurs (lightning), and the lightning delay is excessively long, the teams may agree to a draw for the safety of the players; the NCAA rules are stringent on lightning delays, requiring a minimum 30-minute delay upon the first detected lightning strike within 10km of the venue, and each lightning strike detected at the venue results in an automatic resetting of the clock). The 1995-1996 school year was the last to feature tie games."

[Mr. Ypsi]

I salute the (tied for) first place Tigers!!

The weekend went exactly as I predicted (an extremely rare event! ):

Friday they out-slugged them; Saturday and Sunday Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander shut them down!  Bless You Boys!

[hopewatcher]

Happy first week everyone.....I also was at the Hope game Saturday, and probably felt a little better about it than DBQ1965, and have less predictive thoughts looking forward. Although, I agree that Hope did have some problems early, they were able to make the required adjustments and finished strong.....Here are my thoughts:

Defense: NPU scored on 3 of its first 4 possessions running up something in the neighborhood of 200 yards. As I understand it, part of the reason for this was that NPU made some changes to its offense (new coordinator, I heard), and what they ran was not enirely what Hope expected. Hope made some defensive changes, and NPU only scored one more time in the game, and barely had another 100 yards the rest of the way....Should Hope have known and been better prepared......maybe......but it was game 1, a first time oppornent and its not like anybody scouted NPU's scrimmage....bottom line is that they made the needed adjustments and shut things down.

Offense: Hope's running game did a great job. The line opened holes, and the 4 backs did their job from there. The passing game took a little longer to get going...started off just 3-9, but then going 17-22 the rest of the way, hitting 7 different receivers. All in all a very good effort, with way more positive than negative.

Special Teams....Kicking game was strong, punter was a freshman who did a decent job and will get better as the season goes on.

Overall this was a big win...Its been 10+ years since Hope won a season home opener, and longer than that since they beat anybody from the CCIW. I know NPU iis hardly the standard bearer for the CCIW, but they were 3-0 to start last season. It was good to see Hope play with a workman like confidence. Although the score did get close a couple of times once Hope scored their second touchdown, there never seemed to be a sense of concern as there might have been in the past. Just an attitude of ' lets do our jobs and finish the win'...the same kind of attitude that won the Adrian game for them last year....they are learning what it takes to win and just need to do it consistently....

Now its on to play Millikin and 'hope' the progress continues. The Dutchmen have not yet earned the right to forecast wins. They are to the point that they can go into games knowing they are capable of competing to win if they just continue to work hard to get better, stay healthy, and play with the same passion, resolve and the workman like effort. We're looking forward to that, and expect a fun season.

Go Hope!     

[hopewatcher]

By the way...Hope also rolled out new uniforms and new helmet decals.....they looked sharp.....all to go along with the new turf, lights, and other stadium improvments......

[DBQ1965]

My take on the Hope-NPU game may have been tainted by the two obnoxious NPU fans (parents of players I think) sitting near me.  I had to move seats and that still didn't help much.

[Raider 68]

My take on the Hope-NPU game may have been tainted by the two obnoxious NPU fans (parents of players I think) sitting near me.  I had to move seats and that still didn't help much.

DBQ1965,

When are you coming to Alliance to see the Raiders?

[hopefan]

Looking forward to driving up from St Louis to Decatur to see Hope play at Millikin on Saturday (barring bad weather)... will there be any other Hope fans there ....  Sac, Flying Dutchfan, Civic... do you travel for Football?  Or how about my CCIW buddies.... Sager?

[Titan Q]

Looking forward to driving up from St Louis to Decatur to see Hope play at Millikin on Saturday (barring bad weather)... will there be any other Hope fans there ....  Sac, Flying Dutchfan, Civic... do you travel for Football?  Or how about my CCIW buddies.... Sager?

Besides the fact that Mr. Sager broadcasts North Park football games (and the Vikings have a home game next week), somehow I can't imagine Greg driving 180 miles to Decatur to catch a Hope vs Millikin game.  I'll let him confirm for you though!

[formerd3db]

My assessment of the Hope game is actually the same as DBQB and Hopewatcher believe it or not.  I was not as impressed by Hope other than they, indeed, did make the adjustments and did what they needed to do to win, which is an improvement over recent years, when we had difficulties overcoming some challenges (and couldn't score when they needed).  Admittedly, NPU wasn't a powerhouse, however, they were very quick and bigger than I had expected.  However, a "win is a win" as that old saying goes and we Hope fans will take it as being even more special since it is the first season opening win in several years as sac mentioned.  Also, as has been mentioned, the Milikin game (and the IWU) game will be the real test to see how much Hope has improved over last year.

BTW, I very much like the new Hope jerseys (the navy blue with the 3 Adidas stripes at the shoulders), however, I do not like the new "H" logo.  I guess I'm just the old fashioned traditionalist and like the Hope Yale/BYU styled "H" that we had for years (except for one year when I played way back when) .

I was also shocked at the Alma score.  Obviously, the 'Berg is a tremendously improved team, but the smashing that Alma had was totally unexpected -at least from my perspective.