FB: American Rivers Conference

[footballdaddy]

One of the Coe players had an interesting Saturday night...

http://www.kcrg.com/news/local/Taser-Used-on-Coe-College-Football-Player-After-Utility-Vehicle-Theft-131012553.html

I can't believe something like this can happen...A running back getting "caught after a short footchase". 

(back to the recruiting drawing board)

Sounds like a normal night in Cedar Rapids to me.

[doolittledog]

I've been to every game this year, it seems that the offense is struggling to find an identity. There really is no flow or rythm at all. It doesn't help that alot of the recievers are banged up. So I say, have a bloody mary, some ribs and sit back and hope the Knights run the ball, and control the clock. Its our only hope.

I love the bloody mary and ribs part!!!

I remember thinking last year that Wartburg had no pass game so if UD could stop the Wartburg run game we could win the game...Then Wartburg came out and passsed for 400 yards and beat my Spartans 56-17

Wartburg is Wartburg...they will find a way to be competitive this weekend.  I think we might be in for an old fashioned schloberknocker, last mad standing wins the game this weekend.  The one thing I will predict is Mrs Doolittle and I will eat, drink, and be merry all weekend long

[AZDutchman]

Seems like Wartburg and UD fans want to stay away from what's going to happen with this game.
So, how about the history?
When was the last time UD beat Wartburg? and
When was the last time UD won the IIAC Championship?

Almost forgot...Does Wartburg fans bring a trailer to set up their tailgate on away games?

[DBQ1965]

Seems like Wartburg and UD fans want to stay away from what's going to happen with this game.
So, how about the history?
When was the last time UD beat Wartburg? and
When was the last time UD won the IIAC Championship?

Almost forgot...Does Wartburg fans bring a trailer to set up their tailgate on away games?

I hate to say anything about the UD - Wartburg clash for fear of laying a jinx on the Spartans ... especially since I am making the drive over to see the game.  It is Homecoming afterall. 

UD last won conference championships in '79 and '80 ... and last beat the Knights in an overtime upset 17-14 in 2006.

GO SPARTANS!

[DutchFan2004]

Seems like Wartburg and UD fans want to stay away from what's going to happen with this game.
So, how about the history?
When was the last time UD beat Wartburg? and
When was the last time UD won the IIAC Championship?

Almost forgot...Does Wartburg fans bring a trailer to set up their tailgate on away games?

I hate to say anything about the UD - Wartburg clash for fear of laying a jinx on the Spartans ... especially since I am making the drive over to see the game.  It is Homecoming afterall. 

UD last won conference championships in '79 and '80 ... and last beat the Knights in an overtime upset 17-14 in 2006.

GO SPARTANS!

Havent seen either team play yet this year.  My two cents on the game is that can the Knight defense limit UD points on the board.  UD will get yards and move the ball with Zwiefel and Hanus with some running in the mix.  Can UD keep the Knights from points as well.  I know simple formula but the Knights have a way of putting points up like getting short fields to score with.  So if the Knight D can step up and limit the points I think the edge goes to the Knights.  A low scoring game favors the Knights.  A track meet favors ole Sparty.

[AZDutchman]

Seems like Wartburg and UD fans want to stay away from what's going to happen with this game.
So, how about the history?
When was the last time UD beat Wartburg? and
When was the last time UD won the IIAC Championship?

Almost forgot...Does Wartburg fans bring a trailer to set up their tailgate on away games?

I hate to say anything about the UD - Wartburg clash for fear of laying a jinx on the Spartans ... especially since I am making the drive over to see the game.  It is Homecoming afterall. 

UD last won conference championships in '79 and '80 ... and last beat the Knights in an overtime upset 17-14 in 2006.

GO SPARTANS!

jinx's, curses and superstitions....

I just read that back in Ancient Rome gladiators used to enter the arena with their best foot forward. The Madden Curse, that followed the Sports Illustrated Cover Curse, is that the player on the cover will get injured or preform bad for the season.

Baseball, stay away from the perfect game pitcher. Myself, it was my bat. It cracked. So I glued and nailed it back together. It lasted me till the end of the season. Football games, I had to sit in the same seat. One game where there were a lot of people, I noticed friends that weren't seating in their same seat eight rows down. Asked why and they said that their seats were taken. I politely moved the people to another location so they could sit in their normal spots.

Any to add? 

[doolittledog]

Seems like Wartburg and UD fans want to stay away from what's going to happen with this game.
So, how about the history?
When was the last time UD beat Wartburg? and
When was the last time UD won the IIAC Championship?

Almost forgot...Does Wartburg fans bring a trailer to set up their tailgate on away games?

Wartburg did not have a winning record against UD until 1994...Wartburg and Simpson were 2 of the last schools to get a winning record against UD.

UD won 17-14 in OT at Wartburg in 2006...before that it was '90 or '91 since the last UD victory in the series.

UD won IIAC championships 3 straight years '78-'80

Tailgating should be interesting.  UD fans have typically filled up bars in the area during pregame before heading over to the stadium.  Never too much of a tailgating scene that I have ever seen, though they have plenty of parking space for good tailgates now that they have redone their facilities.  Wartburg fans have a pretty nice tailgating setup in Waverly...not sure how they roll on the road. 

[footballdaddy]

Tailgating should be interesting.  UD fans have typically filled up bars in the area during pregame before heading over to the stadium.  Never too much of a tailgating scene that I have ever seen, though they have plenty of parking space for good tailgates now that they have redone their facilities.  Wartburg fans have a pretty nice tailgating setup in Waverly...not sure how they roll on the road.

Just look for the orange flag and NKD will get you set up.

[5 Words or Less]

New Chris Norton video

[doolittledog]

New Chris Norton video

Fantastic video.  Great production.  Inspiring.  Thank you for sharing. 

[Fannosaurus Rex]

Let me just start by saying I don't claim to be any kind of football expert.  But since I'm an old guy, and you know how we are about any kind of change, I have decided I don't like the no-huddle offense.  It sure looks to me like, the offense gets up to the line, someone on the sidelines checks out the defense and signals in a play, the qb calls it, the defense shifts into some other look, everyone looks at the sideline some more and eventually the ball gets snapped.  The times I have seen Central run it, I never looked to me like they caught the defense out of position or off balance.  Again, I'm no expert.  Another thing that made me uncomfortable was toward the end of the Coe game.  Central had the ball and wanted to run down the clock.  It kind of looked to me like waiting for the play clock to run took them out of their rhythm and made it hard to pick up the last first down they needed to put the game away.

I didn't see the Central Dubuque game, but it seems to me that if your opponent is scoring quickly on you, which it seems Dubuque was on Central, that you would want to try to slow down the pace of the game.  Now that I type that it sounds a little like giving up but I prefer to think of it as playing away from your opponent's strength.  It is a football board right?  So what's the deal with no huddle and is there anyone who isn't doing it these days?  Or am I about a decade late with the issue?

[doolittledog]

Rex and I are fast approaching curmudgeon status

I like a strong running game with the ability to toss the ball all over the field.  Gimmicks come and go because defenses figure them out.  I guess I would be a big fan of no huddle if it was leading my team to victories.  If not, then I'm back to being an old school guy really quickly. 

Dubuque put a new wrinkle in against Central.  They didn't go no huddle but they went into a bunched formation and then would break into their positions from there.  It seemed to confuse the Central defense as I don't think the Dutch had seen that on film.  They were scrambling all over the place on the 1st few series...but after that the Dutch coaches had them prepared for it.  I also think Central kept up their "protect against the run" game plan to the end and weren't prepared for the ball to be flying all over the place.   

Hey Rex, the UD/Central game is archived here...http://client.stretchinternet.com/client/dbq.portal#

Click on the archived tab and scroll down to the correct game.  I can understand if you didn't want to watch that game.  But you might find some useful stuff on there. 

[Floyd in Iowa City]

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

Loras joined the IIAC again in the 1980s once the football program was back on solid footing after some years of NAIA ball after not having a program (and missing a lot of the glory years of Luther Football).

I don't know anything about why Loras would leave as they find success from time to time in most sports.  I have thought though that both Upper Iowa and William Penn might want back into the IIAC once they built themselves up playing Division II and NAIA respectively.  When was the last time William Penn was having this much success as a football program?

Loras is a good school to keep in the league, but I also thought the same about Cornell.

I did like reading the following from the Loras site on the game Saturday:

"The Norse outgained the Duhawks 343-144 on the afternoon. Loras was penalized eight times and punted eight times."

For the stat disparities, Luther still only won by a TD.

[Floyd in Iowa City]

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

All this does make sense and I agree about the admissions standards as well.  It is still too bad as from a Luther fan standpoint as I thought the Rams and Norse had some academic standards and financial aid things in common.  I like visiting Mount Vernon as well for baseball and football.

[Floyd in Iowa City]

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.

I also worry about the population of the state and what will happen to the smaller farming towns as well.  How that hurts Luther is only a small part of that concern as the very fabric of the state was built on strong work ethics and solid educated citizens who came from farms and farm towns.