FB: American Rivers Conference

[DriftlessDuhawk]

https://kohawkathletics.com/sports/football/schedule

Coe has released their schedule. The Kohawks play their longtime rival Cornell to start off the season in which has been an incredibly one-sided affair in the 21st century. Their second noncon game is at UW-River Falls who went 7-3 last year with lots of high-quality wins. This should be a step up in competition, even from playing UW-Eau Claire last year, in which the Kohawks barely beat them in OT. UWRF beat UWEC 71-14 last year for context.

https://athletics.central.edu/sports/football/schedule

Central has also officially posted their schedule with noncon games against Illinois Wesleyan and Randolph Macon. We have already discussed the Randolph Macon game on these boards, but it should be a fun matchup. Illinois Wesleyan is back on the Dutch's schedule this season following a Central 49-14 win in 2024. IWU hired a new coach this year following the retirement of long-time head coach Norm Eash, and the program is looking for a resurgence.

[doolittledog]

Two away games for Coe, though Mt Vernon is only a few miles down the road.  Seeing their countdown and noting in 2 weeks I can tell my wife it's now 150 days until college football season.  That will rate an eye roll from her!

[HansenRatings]

Not every ARC school has announced their 2025 schedule, yet, but the top 4 teams of the last few years all have, so I figured I would plug those schedules into the ol' Hansen Ratings machine to see how they stack up. First, here are my preseason conference ratings as of right now, which haven't been adjusted for returning starters, yet.

Rk	School		Rating		AdjO		AdjD
15	Wartburg		33.6		37.7		5.2
27	Central		27.6		38.6		11.6
29	Coe		27.0		36.4		10.1
56	Dubuque		15.6		36.0		21.2
137	Loras		-6.9		29.1		37.5
138	Simpson		-7.1		24.5		33.2
165	Nebraska Wesleyan		-12.5		18.1		32.0
168	Buena Vista		-13.3		20.5		35.2
214	Luther		-31.3		9.7		42.8

And then looking at the schedules and projections for the top 4:

School		SOS		Proj. W-L
Wartburg		0.545		8.7-1.3
Central		0.546		8.0-2.0
Coe		0.488		7.5-2.5
Dubuque		0.586		5.6-4.4