FB: American Rivers Conference

[warthog]

Alfred:

It appears the coaching staff at Wartburg spent lots of time at "M" towns, Mason City, Manchester, Monticello and even one from Muscatine.

I was glad to see another batch come out of Tipton.  Speaking of Tipton, I saw them get hammered late in the season last year for their first loss to an undefeated Starmont team that I believe later lost in the playoffs to the state champions.  I went to the Tipton/Starmont game with the one person I would call Wartburg's best football fan over the last nine seasons.  He always circles names of players he feels Wartburg should put on their radar screen.  I noticed he only had one Starmont kid's name circled.  I couldn't understand because the circled kid wasn't in my opinion all that special.  When I asked why, he said this time he only circled the name of a senior he didn't think should be recruited.  I agreed as I watched Starmont call off the dogs early so they didn't mercy rule the game. 

My point to all this is to ask what happened to all those kids?  I see Wartburg landed one, but the rosters of other surrounding schools (Luther, Cornell, Dubuque, Loras, Coe, Upper Iowa) don't seem to have any of them.   

[Walston Hoover]

Charlie or Coocoo-I;ve heard from several people now that Coe's chances for another title have taken a huge hit. Can you confirm or deny this?

[lorbec47]

I had heard that Coe struggled in a scrimmage vs U-WP last week as well. Probably just working the kinks out.

As far as Starmont kids go. I honestly don't know how many even go on to college, it seems that they tend not too. I could be way off my rocker though.

[coocooforcoekohawk]

Charlie or Coocoo-I;ve heard from several people now that Coe's chances for another title have taken a huge hit. Can you confirm or deny this?

The hit occurred at the Platteville scrimmage.
We know have one less QB
We feel our chances are still good , however.
Not sure about our backups backup, but the backup will do just fine.
Bobby Demoulin is a quality QB

[lorbec47]

You mean Tekippe (sp?) got hurt? That's too bad if it did. You just hate to see that. I haven't been to a scrimmage yet where they allowing hits on the QB. Interesting.

[Floyd in Iowa City]

How long is TeKippe out, if at all?  He did a very nice job last year.

This perhaps may be the first real big injury of the season in the IIAC, but Wartburg had Hammes in and out of the lineup last year and Luther lost Sherden in the 5th game.  I would always rather have it where all teams were at maximum strength and the eventual champion saw the best from everyone they played.

[Walston Hoover]

I have heard out for the season with torn acl from multiple sources. I have seen guys play with the same injury though so I guess we'll see.
Was this a cheap shot at the scrimmage-Usually coaches don't want anyone within 5 yards of their qb at these things.

[Floyd in Iowa City]

As I was asking questions about rosters a few pages back, I see Wartburg's roster shows 141 players with 72 of them being listed as first-year players.  Looks like nothing has been slowing down as it relates to Wartburg's ability to recruit!

Good to see that most of the conference sites are now getting the rosters up as the first game approaches.

Luther looks like they have 38 freshmen and 81 returning players that form the 119 guys on their roster.  9 guys on the roster are from Decorah.

Central's website shows 111 guys on that roster with 42 being freshmen.  They also have 9 players overall from Pella.

[K-Mack]

ACL?

Yikes.

[K-Mack]

I'll play along.

BV at Bethel ... Royals by 7.

Central at St. Thomas ... Dutch by 10.

Coe at IWU ... Coe by 6, recent news taken into account.

NW at Cornell ... Rams by 3. The Wing-T confuses 'em once again.

UW-P at Dubuque ... Hate to do this, but Platteville by 7.

Loras/St. Ambrose ... Loras by 2, avenging the 1-point loss last season.

Luther at Martin Luther ... Luther by 14.

Simpson at Concordia (Wis.) Simpson by 8.

Monmouth at Wartburg ... Knights by 10.

Maybe I've been drinking the IIAC kool-aid after doing the preview. 

Well with the talk about this weeks games here they are and my picks

BV at Bethel    Bethel in a close game because of being a home game for Bethel and it think they have as many returning as BV does. 

Central at ST Thomas  Central in a close game

Coe at Illinois Wesleyan  Coe easy

Northwestern (MN) at Cornell  Northwestern in a close game

UW Platteville at Dubuque  UW in a close game

St Ambrose at Loras  Loras

Luther at Martin Luther  Luther

Simpson  at Concordia (Wis)  Simpson
   
Monmouth at Wartburg  Coach Koelher will win his debut Wartburg.

Good luck to the IIAC teams and if I didn't pick the IIAC teams I still want them to win. 

[Charlie Kohawk]

Now that the cat is out of the bag, I'll chime in. Andy did indeed tear his ACL in the Platteville scrimmage. While I've heard the coaches describe it as a horse-collar type tackle, no one has suggested it was a cheap shot. While you hate to see this happen to anyone, I feel especially badly for Andy because he plays with so much heart. But he's a tough kid, and will be back. In fact, he has chosen rehab over surgery in hopes of playing yet this year.

Meanwhile, the Kohawks will be fine with Bobby under center, er, I mean in the gun. He certainly has plenty of weapons at his disposal with Sucko, Northern, Rife, King, et al. Speaking of tough kids, Jase Jensen is back after winning his cancer fight. I'm sure he's chomping at the bit to take the field on Saturday.

GO KOHAWKS!

[lorbec47]

It's good to hear that TeKippe didn't take a cheap shot, and that he has a chance to be back this season!

I'm going to do it too. I'm saying an IIAC sweep, go get'em...

[Floyd in Iowa City]

Lorbec,

Any news from the Loras camp on how they are looking so far this year?  It would be a nice win for the league if they can get past St. Ambrose this week after a couple of tough losses over the past two years.

[DutchFan2004]

That's a shame about Tekippe.  I hate to have anyone hurt.  I have no idea how to rehab a torn ACL.  Is that wise.  Kilted Rat if you read this maybe you could help.  I will ask my son but being a first year med student I'm not sure he will know.  I suppose it all depends on how badly its torn.  I hope for his sake it isn't bad.  Having said that I hope he makes the right decision for himself and does not try to rush into anything.  I am sure he will be missed on the field. 

[sportsknight]

BV at Bethel - I'll take Bethel by no more than 10.

Central at St. Thomas - Dutch by 7-13.

Coe at IWU - Tough pick given TeKippe being out.  I'll take Coe in a very close game.

NW at Cornell - New season, new coach, new gimmick offense for Cornell.  I'll take NW.

UW-P at Dubuque - UWP won by 26 last year.  This game will show us how much better UD has gotten.  I'll still take the Pioneers by around 10.

Loras/St. Ambrose - Ambrose by no more than 7.

Luther at Martin Luther - Luther by 17.

Simpson at Concordia (Wis.) - Loras beat Concordia in the season opener last year, before all their injuries.  Good game for the Storm to roll out the new offense.  Simpson by 10-14.

Monmouth at Wartburg - Tough pick here, but I have to go with the Knights by 3-6.

Thoughts on some of the new Wartburg freshmen...
I heard Yordi was a stud for Solon last year.
Don't be surprised to see Krogmann from West Delaware kicking for the Knights this year.
Hodge from DBQ Senior and Pena from Wat West could be solid performers before they're done.
Alex Boom could be the second coming of Dan Hammes, except doesn't start college with injury issues.
Jimmie Hunter from NU could be great too.  I'm a bit surprised to see so many NU kids coming in since they only won 2 or 3 games last year.  Although their coach told me that if he had 11 Jimmie Hunter's, they'd have gone to the playoffs.
Wouldn't be surprised to see Armile from CF contributing on the O-Line as soon as next year.
Alex Ross should be able to add depth to the receiving corps when Vinzant and Breitbach depart after this fall.
Overall, I like this class.  Not sure how many can play this year, but there are a lot of guys from some pretty successful programs in there. 

Warthog, as far as only getting one new guy from WSR...I don't think the Go-Hawks are producing that many college-capable players anymore.  I don't know how the outlook is this year, but their numbers were way down last year.