FB: American Rivers Conference

[sportsknight]

Was very nice talking to the gentleman from Dubuque Wahlert on Friday night.  You kind of caught me off guard, so I apologize for not asking for your name.

[DBQ1965]

Great result from the duhawks today, Pulled starters early to keep fresh legs for the post season. Team is looking at the top again in the IIAC when they play their first team, another year another great season. See you all in november

IdahoSoccer ... I just gave you some additional karma for your humor here.  What else would keep Duhawk fans going?

GO SPARTANS!

[5 Words or Less]

Loras AD is thinking to himself...
"Maybe Osterberger wasn't such a bad coach afterall..." 

"Another saturday, another loss for our football team...oh well, Loras is a soccer school anyways..." 

"Our once proud Duhawk basketball team didn't even make the conference tourney last year, our football team might go 1-9, thank God our mens and womens soccer teams are nationally ranked or I might be out of a job..."

"I gotta get me some of what IdahoSoccer is drinking...that is one positive, glass is half full person..."

OR ... "Let's follow Cornell."

[doolittledog]

Me thinks 5WOL knows something

Certainly not to the Midwest Conference for Loras?!?!

Join their old buddy St. Ambrose in the NAIA???  Loras has a miniscule endowment...could they afford scholarships???  The NAIA is down to about 88 or 89 football schools...will there be an NAIA soon???

An IIAC with 7 schools ain't much of a conference...what the heck would we do?  Go D2 as a conference and bring Upper Iowa back in with us?  Their administration made some odd comments regarding conference affiliation recently!

One thing I have loved about the IIAC is the long term membership of its schools and the rivalries that breeds.
BVU 1922-present
Central 1922-present
Luther 1922-present
Simpson 1922-present
Loras 1926-1954...1986-present
Dubuque 1929-present
Wartburg 1936-present
Coe 1998-present
Cornell 1998-running away in 2012

I don't like it when families break up.  Especially now that UD is finally getting the upper hand on their next door neighbor Loras.  Maybe THAT is why Loras might think of leaving.  They could continue to be smug and look down their noses at UD if they didn't have to play...and lose to the Spartans

[Ash Park]

Loras AD is thinking to himself...
"Maybe Osterberger wasn't such a bad coach afterall..." 

"Another saturday, another loss for our football team...oh well, Loras is a soccer school anyways..." 

"Our once proud Duhawk basketball team didn't even make the conference tourney last year, our football team might go 1-9, thank God our mens and womens soccer teams are nationally ranked or I might be out of a job..."

"I gotta get me some of what IdahoSoccer is drinking...that is one positive, glass is half full person..."

OR ... "Let's follow Cornell."

Salt in the wound 

I know the jabs at Cornell for leaving is mostly all in fun, but in all honesty if people think they are making the switch to the MWC SOLELY to be more competitive in football they are dead wrong. Most of the coaches of all sports would stay in the IIAC if they had it their way. Who wouldn't want to play against the best competition possible?  Unfortunately this decision was up to people much higher up than the coaches and AD at Cornell. The board of trustees and the president at the present time wanted this move and wanted it for some time. Fact of the matter is Cornell has much higher admissions standards than MOST IIAC schools and has a much longer process for admitting students. Every school in the IIAC is a great school and a student will get a great education at any of the IIAC schools in my opinion. It is the belief of the higher ups that switching conferences does put Cornell at a more level playing field as far as recruiting, financial aid, and admissions standards go. This is probably true. In this case it does make it sound like they are jumping ship to be more competitive, but not for the sole reason of being more competitive in football or sports in general. This move definitely has more to do with the mission of the school, enrollment, academics, alumni base, strong recruiting areas, etc

[DBQ1965]

Hey ...

It looks as if I will make my first UD homecoming since 1971 ... having to work Sunday mornings kept me away too many years. I'm driving over from Grand Rapids with another '65 alum ... so I don't know what all the plans are ... but I hope to get chance to meet doolittledog and mrs. doolittle ... and Willie University ... and whoever else might be around.  And as a person-of-faith ... I believe there is a chance we could actually beat the Mighty Knights!!!

GO SPARTANS!

[badgerwarhawk]

This is a big week for the Spartans.  Good luck Saturday.

[KICKIN95]

Loras AD is thinking to himself...
"Maybe Osterberger wasn't such a bad coach afterall..." 

"Another saturday, another loss for our football team...oh well, Loras is a soccer school anyways..." 

"Our once proud Duhawk basketball team didn't even make the conference tourney last year, our football team might go 1-9, thank God our mens and womens soccer teams are nationally ranked or I might be out of a job..."

"I gotta get me some of what IdahoSoccer is drinking...that is one positive, glass is half full person..."

Give the new coach a chance to get his own players in before you write him off.  Once he starts recruiting in Loras's old stomping grounds (Chicago and the Eastern region) thing will start looking up.  Osty was a Western Iowa recruiter and gave up on the biggest hotbed of players in the midwest.  Merk will get it done when he something to work with.

[doolittledog]

I'm just having fun kickin95.  I think all coaches should be given 5 years to get things going their way.  Stay on here awhile and you will see I take a light hearted approach to most everything in my life, especially this message board.

Now, what do you know about Loras possibly leaving the IIAC???   

[warthog]

I already want next weekend to be here.  Dubuque homecoming against Wartburg should be a great game.  Mrs Doolittle and I will be in town with loads of old friends enjoying ourselves and hopefully get to see a dominating performance from our Spartans.  Hopefully we can host some Wartburg fans from this site at our tailgate as well.  It would be great if we could have the same weather next week that we just had today.

Just tell us where, when, and what to bring.  At least two of the Wartburg faithful will be there. 

[Fannosaurus Rex]

I get to so few Central games that when I do, I feel like I ought to be able to share some football insights.  But I can't so I will just say that it was a great game.  Besides the final score, I was also pleased to note that my fellow Central fans seem to be getting noisier than I remember them.  There have been times, in the past at Schipper Stadium when I wondered if me and the cheer leaders and the guys on the bench were the only ones who knew when a big play was coming up.  That wasn't the case Saturday.

Hey DBQ1965, I hope you have at least as much fun at your homecoming as I did at mine this last weekend.  Although now that I think about it, I wouldn't mind too much if your team got beat.  But otherwise, enjoy!

[Willie University]

Was a little disappointed I couldn't "watch" the UD-Simpson game but I did listen to it! Not sure what was up with the video not working?? Please tell Simpson if you don't have video of the games, then don't have a LINK to watch it!!

That is the only bashing I will do. You heard it here first, Simpson is going to surprise a few teams.. They are definitely an "up and comer".

As for the Spartans saturday. Great win and great effort in particular for RB Justin Spaulding. Mikey Z had another tremedous game but from what I heard, Justin was running with authority saturday.

I can't tell you how excited I am for this weekend's game against Wartburg. I have a feeling it's going to be a shootout.

Sportsknight- I am a wahlert grad but unless you were at Hyvee and helped me find something, it wasn't me 

Willie U

[Willie University]

I already want next weekend to be here.  Dubuque homecoming against Wartburg should be a great game.  Mrs Doolittle and I will be in town with loads of old friends enjoying ourselves and hopefully get to see a dominating performance from our Spartans.  Hopefully we can host some Wartburg fans from this site at our tailgate as well.  It would be great if we could have the same weather next week that we just had today.

Just tell us where, when, and what to bring.  At least two of the Wartburg faithful will be there.

Would love to meet you guys but it'll have to wait for another game....won't be arriving until close to game time and will have the kids and have to meet up with some college buddies.

But, warthog, I'll look for the orange and black attire with your UD hat 

[DoubleDomer]

Loras AD is thinking to himself...
"Maybe Osterberger wasn't such a bad coach afterall..." 

"Another saturday, another loss for our football team...oh well, Loras is a soccer school anyways..." 

"Our once proud Duhawk basketball team didn't even make the conference tourney last year, our football team might go 1-9, thank God our mens and womens soccer teams are nationally ranked or I might be out of a job..."

"I gotta get me some of what IdahoSoccer is drinking...that is one positive, glass is half full person..."

OR ... "Let's follow Cornell."

Salt in the wound 

I know the jabs at Cornell for leaving is mostly all in fun, but in all honesty if people think they are making the switch to the MWC SOLELY to be more competitive in football they are dead wrong. Most of the coaches of all sports would stay in the IIAC if they had it their way. Who wouldn't want to play against the best competition possible?  Unfortunately this decision was up to people much higher up than the coaches and AD at Cornell. The board of trustees and the president at the present time wanted this move and wanted it for some time. Fact of the matter is Cornell has much higher admissions standards than MOST IIAC schools and has a much longer process for admitting students. Every school in the IIAC is a great school and a student will get a great education at any of the IIAC schools in my opinion. It is the belief of the higher ups that switching conferences does put Cornell at a more level playing field as far as recruiting, financial aid, and admissions standards go. This is probably true. In this case it does make it sound like they are jumping ship to be more competitive, but not for the sole reason of being more competitive in football or sports in general. This move definitely has more to do with the mission of the school, enrollment, academics, alumni base, strong recruiting areas, etc

Uhhh, I think this is a little bit of what Twain would have called "soul butter."  The notion that Cornell has "much higher admissions standards than most IIAC schools" is demonstrably not true.  Indeed, at least 5 Conference schools are in the US News tier of "National Liberal Arts Colleges," including Luther, Coe, Central, Simpson, and Wartburg.  While there's some difference between the admissions standards of the third quartile (Luther, Coe, Cornell) and the fourth quartile (Central, Simpson, Wartburg) schools, it's considerably LESS than the difference between Cornell and, say, its new MWC mate Grinnell.  Atop which is the fact that all are NASFAA schools.  And, last but not least, it at least bears observing that Luther, a founding member of the IIAC and the highest-ranked of its schools in the US News analysis, shared the all-sports title with the Warts (Suck) last year.  In other words, a school in the upper tier of the conference academically can certainly prosper athletically as well.  (Though not particularly so in football.  At least until we figure out a way to reincarnate Edsel Schweizer.)

But, perhaps you Rams will feel better if you just keep telling yourselves this while St. Norbert and Carroll--wait, what was that part about "a level playing field"?--are boxing your ears.

[duhawk]

As a Duhawk fan that has still has some connections within the college I can tell you that Loras is not seriously looking to make a conference change; especially not in the direction similar to Cornell.  I think the only thing that might sway Loras to move would be to help strengthen what Kickin was saying above.  Loras has strong connections to the Chicago area and only a move in that direction would make sense.  The Loras admin. sees the writing on the wall when it comes to the demographics of Iowa and it's not pretty.  It will soon be about 4 mid-size cities and many 2000 acre corporate farms.  Trust me, as a kid from small town Iowa this makes me sad.    Loras' advantage lies in its location and the college will have to increasingly rely on it to keep drawing students. 
I'll also say that although I hate seeing the Duhawks fall to UD, it is actually better for everyone that the football rivalry is better.  When I was a student(late 90's) I never understood how Loras basically saw the UD game as a must win(and Loras was always winning the game then) and then finish  around 500. Bierie put way too much emphasis on that game.