FB: American Rivers Conference

[Lance Harbor]

DF2004 - If by some miracle, Central and Coe lost next week, we'd have a three-way tie broken this way:

Of Central, Coe and Wartburg, which team made it to the playoffs most recently? Wartburg (2004 Champs)

Wartburg gets eliminated.

Now, who won head-to-head between Coe and Central?
Coe

Central gets eliminated.
COE gets the automatic bid.

That's basically what WH is saying.

[Pat Coleman]

DF2004 - If by some miracle, Central and Coe lost next week, we'd have a three-way tie broken this way:

Of Central, Coe and Wartburg, which team made it to the playoffs most recently? Wartburg (2004 Champs)

Wartburg gets eliminated.

Now, who won head-to-head between Coe and Central?
Coe

Central gets eliminated.
COE gets the automatic bid.

That's basically what WH is saying.

Are you saying that in a three-way tie with TWO losses apiece, the tiebreakers don't at all look at who the other loss is to? If that's true, it's pretty silly. You shouldn't jump straight to the Rose Bowl Rule when there are on-the-field circumstances that could be useful.

[Voice of Coe]

The Voice of Coe has arrived with his first post. 

[coocooforcoekohawk]

awesome, looking forward to your wisdom Voice.

[DutchFan2004]

Lance, 
 
Then its not a true Rose Bowl rule correct?  Thats all I'm asking? Has Wartburg had the Automatic Bid the last 4 years.  Coe hasn't had the automatic bid since Central.  If Coe has I believe if the IIAC has a true Rose Bowl rule it would go to the Dutch.  Do you know where the IIAC has these rules published or is this conjecture on your part?

[The Show]

Pat -

For your 2 loss assumptions...

Wartburg would have lost to Luther and Central.

Central would have lost to Buena Vista and Coe.

Coe would have lost to Simpson and Wartburg.

Luther beat Simpson.
Simpson beat Buena Vista.
Buena Vista beat Luther.

That would put Buena Vista and Luther at 5-3 in the conference and Simpson at 4-4.

Clear as mud, huh? 

[warthog]

I certainly wasn't hoping that my 500th post would be a congratulatory message to  the Central faithful.  After the thumping yesterday, that is all it could be.

The Dutch simply took it to my Knights.  The usual parade of Central players have received their ink, but I want to acknowledge the player I most enjoyed watching.  That is #60, the Central right offensive tackle.  He was all over the place, always seeming to be at the point of attack.  I don't know if he has played like a man possessed all season, but yesterday he was a certified Knight butt kicker.  He did a good job of making the Wartburg d-end ineffective.

In addition to the disappointment of watching Wartburg lose, I didn't get a chance to speak to DutchFan1.  I can report she looked lovely while attired in her red Central pullover.  Had I been her, I might have found some place to sit away from the one man cornet band.  He probably fired up the crowd, but the horn blasting in her ear had to hurt.

I thought the national anthem sounded particularly patriotic yesterday.

Special teams weren't very special for the Knights yesterday.  Giving your opponent a touchdown on a kickoff and allowing three blocked punts that turned into touchdowns will beat you every time. 

Weather may have been a contributing factor, but DutchFan2004 had the same observation I did concerning the crowd.  I didn't think Wartburg had a very good following considering the game was likely to be for all or a share of the IIAC championship.   This team just hasn't seemed to capture the imagination of the student body, alumni or Wartburg community.

I've spent the afternoon packing up my orange and black gear for another year.  There is good news.  For those of us whose teams didn't finish the way we had hoped, there is always next year.  Don't start sending messages. I know the season isn't officially over.  I am realistic.  There is no way there will be a combination of a Wartburg victory and losses by both Coe and Central that will give the Knights a share of the IIAC title.

The only thing left for the Knights to do is win one for pride next Saturday.

[sportsknight]

Sounds like sour grapes SportKnight.........    You and your classless teeshirts about TeKippe.  Nice touch.  See you next year when we return 17 starters.  10 on offense.

Get over it Cochuck.  I think you'd be singing a different tune if a couple more of those starters that will be back next year played better in Waverly.  And actually you won't be seeing me next year...I'll have graduated.

As far as the play-offs go, the IIAC does not use a "true" Rose Bowl Rule.  They only use the RBR to get it down to two teams, at which point it is decided by head-to-head.  Thus, if there was a three-way tie, Wartburg would be eliminated by the RBR, knocking it down to just Coe and Central, at which point they would go by the head-to-head result, which is Coe over Central.  So as it stands right now, the Kohawks are in very good shape to get to the playoffs, even if they would lose next week.

And just for clarification's sake, Coe did get the automatic bid back in 2002, when there was a three-way tie between they, Wartburg, and Central.  That time around, Central was bumped by the RBR and Coe got the auto by virtue of their win in Waverly, although the Knights ended up making the play-offs anyway.

[coocooforcoekohawk]

No doubt sportsknight,

What was classless about those T-shirts.  It's better than the bumper stickers Coe put out in the late eighties that read "Cornell Swallows," in answer to the Rams insisting that Coe sucks.  I didn't like the t-shirts, but they weren't classless. 

[DutchFan2004]

Warthog, 

From what I learned yesterday from a Wartburg student that is friends with my son is that alot of the Wartburg student body is offended by the Football players.  That's his words not mine.  He sat with us from the 3rd quarter on so he could talk to our son after the game.  He said that the football team does not try and court a fan base.  Now I don't know if that's true or not just passing this on to you after your post about the student fan base.  It has really been an educational experience reading your posts as well as the other Wartburg posters.  I really like Wartburg we have had one son graduate from there and one at Central.  Both schools are class institutions as well as all the IIAC schools seem to be.  Hope that Coe wins next week as well as the Dutch so that the IIAC can have two schools in.  Hopefully we can show up and finish the season well.  Then if that happens we can make some noise in the playoffs to help get some respect for the conference.

[Lance Harbor]

Pat - Yes, you would first look at the head-to-head records (in which case, all three teams are 1-1 vs. each other)

Then it goes straight to the Rose Bowl Rule.  Pretty crazy, but that's the way I understand it.

[davedevine]

Walston,

I'm extremely perplexed as to how Wartburg has 3 punts blocked in one game? 
any bad snaps or were there just some serious protection issues going on?

I don't think i've ever heard of a team blocking 3 punts in a game before...
throw the KO return to the house in there and it truly sounds impossible...

it's truly an unbelievable  way to finish at Walston considering the stakes...
wasn't expecting this type of outcome at all...

congrats goes out to the Dutch on ending the 3 year run WB put together..
WB will have the same opportunity again next year, this is  a given....

[Walston Hoover]

1 protection breakdown on an iffy snap if I remember
1 punter taking an extremely long time to get rid of the football
1 terrible snap

Its been that way all year long, I don't know why we should've expected it to be any different yesterday.

Give a ton of credit to the guy who returned the kick. I'll bet watching tape he broke at least 4 tackles.

[DutchFan2004]

Walston,

I agree with you saying that he broke a bunch of tackles, but you I think its gets back to "the big hit" they all want to make.  If I remember it correctly one of the Knights came into put the big hit on did not wrap up and all it did was stop Doud push him back some and give him a chance to see an open lane.  Now maybe from my vantage point it didn't happen that way but thats the way I remember it.  I thought the third blocked punt was a bad snap with your second team kicker after the first team kicker had had two blocked already, The so so snap was more to do with your kicker taking forever to kick it and the other one is from your kicker just taking to long I agree with that.  Your line can only hold the blocks so long.  I know that they want faster kids on the punt coverage team but I also thought that your punt coverage team was a very small size crew.  How do you feel about that observation? Is it fair of me to say that?

[Charlie Kohawk]

I'm sure glad I didn't waste any time thinking about a three-way tie, which is about as likely as winning the lottery. Coe simply needs to take care of Simpson -- no easy task -- and secure its third conference title in four years. Eric Raeburn doesn't get enough credit for the program he has built at Coe. And his wife deserves recognition too. Rumor has it she locked up the IIAC Coach's Wife of the Year award Saturday when she was seen dragging her wagon up the grass embankment surrounding the Rock Bowl. It just didn't feel right not having her on the sidelines toting the little Raeburns around the track. The new Rock Bowl is impressive, but they seem to have gone overboard in an attempt to limit access to the field. I wonder who will be the first Duhawk injured descending the slippery slope. They could use the single stairway between the stands and the field, but they'll have to walk sideways to negotiate the glorified ladder.