FB: American Rivers Conference

[warthog]

Coe over Loras - That Loras offense is a mirage. It won't last in the IIAC.

Simpson over BV - Simpson is better than one would think after the 2014 season.

Dubuque over Luther - Speed kills.  Those big physical characters Luther fans are so proud of have to catch the Spartans before they can do any damage to UD.  Watch for the Spartans to wave as they fly by those muscle bound Norsemen.

Wartburg over Central - Picking with my heart on this one.  Homecoming is usually a downer in Waverly.  The normally raucous crowd is infiltrated by a bunch of alumni preachers and social workers who clap politely on every offensive play regardless whether the Knights score a touchdown or get thrown for an eighteen yard loss.  While the Knights are on defense they feel it is time to stand and try to get the attention of an old classmate two sections away. I propose the Knights hold future homecomings on a weekend when the football team is on the road and the women's soccer team is playing on the home pitch.  I hope Coach Willis has something up his sleeve because this won't be an easy one for the Knights.

[warthog]

doolittle said:

Well after the post by WB_Knights13 I was thinking Wartburg might pull a Simpson and start 3-0 before finishing 0-7 in conference play  ...so notlongago would be correct that Wartburg was a bye week 


warthog said:

doolittle - Perhaps 30 years ago.  Not so much in the past three decades.

[WB_Knights13]

This week's match-ups are interesting

Coe @ Loras ... Which hawk will fly offensively?
Buena Vista @ Simpson ... Conference litmus test for both
Luther @ Dubuque ... Spartans hope for revenge
Central @ Wartburg ... Perennial title contenders square off

Coe @ Loras: Coe over Loras in this one. Loras has improved offensively, but has not shown the ability to play much defense this season. Coe may be a bit down this season, but will handle the Loras offense by keeping their offense on the field and controlling the clock.

Buena Vista @ Simpson: Tough pick here. I haven't seen many stats from either team, and the scores I have seen have been ugly. Simpson gets the nod as they have the home field advantage.

Luther @ Dubuque: I am going to take Luther on this one. I think UD will be frustrated by the Luther Triple O, and Luther will run the ball, run the clock, and win the game.

Now, for my favorite pick of the week: Central at Wartburg, Wartburg Homecoming.
Year in and year out, this is always a great game between two excellent schools, and two great coaches. Central always has a great plan in place for Wartburg. If this game follows the trend of many past games, it will be VERY close. I think Central makes a few plays - attacking the secondary with a few post routes, and runs their misdirection toss on the goal line to perfection for a score perhaps. Also, look for Central to attack the flats near the goal line with some play action - they will look to run the FB or TE quickly into the flats, making the WB linebackers work hard to gain the leverage to cover them.

As for Wartburg - They will continue to mix it up offensively. They will be balanced behind Domeyer and Schrader, with Schrader looking to get the ball out to Anstoetter. Domeyer and Anstoetter will have both need to have big games for the Wartburg offense to put points up.

With the Knights having the past week off, they should be rested, and come out with a good game plan offensively and defensively. Walston-Hoover will be jam packed and the Knights will have plenty of energy for homecoming. I think the Knights win, 35-31. Not without a battle, however, I think the Knights are going to need to make a few critical plays on defense, possibly special teams, down the stretch to seal the win. This should be a close, physical match up and should be exciting.

It seems every wb/central game comes down to one score late in the 4th, except for the 09 and 14 games...so you're probably right, this one will be close too. I just don't see how. The only thing going for Central is the starters have had 2 consecutive weeks off.

Here's the Scores from the last 5 years:

2009: 33-41 Central
2010: 20-17 Wartburg
2011: 20-13 Wartburg
2012: 28-31 Central - A battle in Pella. The Knights walked into the endzone on a running back flare out of the backfield with no one home as the Dutch run an all out blitz. A Dutch defender falls down behind the play and draws a phantom holding call - Knights lose a heartbreaker. All after coming back and recovering an onside kick at the end of the game. I'm still salty about that one to this day.
2013: 16-14 Wartburg
2014: 35-14 Wartburg - The only outlier of them all.

And thats just 6 games, a tiny sample. 2 games over 7 points, with one still being a one score game. This matchup goes back way farther than that and there have been many more close games.

Here's what it comes down to:

1. Winning one on one matchups - OL-DL, Secondary vs Receivers

2. Making a play on special teams - The knights have been known to get after teams in punting situations. This week will be no different with the special teams coordinator dialing something up and exposing the Dutch's punt formations. I would expect the Knights to at least get close or block a punt tomorrow - I'm guessing the 2nd or third punt of the game after a few adjustments have been made.

3. Making a play when needed (offense or defense) - whether recovering an onside, NOT HOLDING (whether actually holding, or the phantom hold the IIAC refs have been known to call  ) on scoring plays or the big plays in general.

4. Who gives up more explosive plays? The Knights defense has no doubt used the bye week to shore up the defense and I 100% expect Coach Willis to have the team excited to play in a physical matchup, AND the secondary will be coached up and ready to play under Coach Winter.


Knights come out and play their best game of the season so far tomorrow. Knights 35, Dutch 24.  - I am guessing it will be a 2 possession game, although the rivalry trend tells me will likely be one score game.

[doolittledog]

Loras Coaches Show here...

https://soundcloud.com/loras-college-athletics/coachtalk-steve-helminiak-oct-2-2015

Says the Duhawks should have a cakewalk through the conference this year towards their 1st conference championship.  Wartburg has some talent but everyone else not named Loras sucks and Coe could get beat by most class A high school football teams.

Ok, Duhawk coach Helminiak  didn't say any of that.  Give it a listen and see for yourself

[Fannosaurus Rex]

Based on nothing but my humble opinion, I think Central's best chance today is for a running back to have a break out game and make that part of the offense a bigger factor than it has been.  It is hard to use Central stats for much because the Maranatha Baptist game skews things.  But it looks like they only avg a little more than 2 yards per rush attempt.  I doubt that gets it done against the Warts.

[Fannosaurus Rex]

And btw, did U Dubuque ever field the marching band I heard about back in the summer?

[D O.C.]

Lookit Wartburg! Doin' the job!

[doolittledog]

And btw, did U Dubuque ever field the marching band I heard about back in the summer?

Those fools didn't even have a pep band out there today.

[doolittledog]

Dubuque hangs on to beat Luther 16-14.

Happy for the victory. A Luther win might have been interesting as there was a rumor going around the stadium that with a Luther win 5WOL would have danced the Whip and the Nae Nae

[WB_Knights13]

Quick recap of the Wartburg-Central game:

Central played tough today. They made a few plays, but ultimately not enough. Two stops inside the red zone on fourth down, with one coming on the goal line were very impressive. Goal line offense will definitely need to be worked on in order for the Knights to make a run in the post-season.

Wartburg defense: Still giving up a number of big plays. Credit this to good play calling by the Dutch, but the tackling on the Wartburg side was poor. The defense came up with a big interception to end the game. The Dutch must have thrown some new formations at the Knights because a couple of times the Knights were caught with receivers being left uncovered, including in the red zone where they barely got a timeout called to stop the play. As they often do, Central ran their play action to perfection on the goal line finding a back out to the flat for an easy score.

Coming out of half and being down a score, Coach Willis seemed extremely calm and confident that if they took care of their miscues in the first half, they would be alright. Wartburg did a nice job of coming out and taking control. Getting a stop on defense right away after an impressive kickoff return and then marching down the field 78 yards for a score to go up 1 (Central kicker missed the PAT) was huge.

Schrader and Anstoetter had good days. Schrader was 23-30 with two interceptions. Both interceptions were off the hands of receivers and not really his fault at all. Domeyer had a good day rushing and ran hard. Overall, I predicted it would be a two score game. Central played very tough and kept it to an 8 point game, and keeping the recent trend of close games between the two going. It was a great day in Waverly for the game, with Walston-Hoover jam packed. Wartburg did not exactly look like the #6 team in the country in the first half, but I would say they took care of business in the second half and did what they needed to do. It's hard to tell if that's because they really aren't, or if Central played that well today. Credit to Central for playing extremely tough and giving the Knights all they could handle. For the Knights, it's time to evaluate the film and find a way to keep improving defensively. The positive is that they found a way to get a tough win against a tough team, and I'll take that any day, especially against Central. On to the next one vs Coe.

[5 Words or Less]

Dubuque hangs on to beat Luther 16-14.

Happy for the victory. A Luther win might have been interesting as there was a rumor going around the stadium that with a Luther win 5WOL would have danced the Whip and the Nae Nae

Be careful what you wish for ...

[doolittledog]

Dubuque Telegraph-Herald story on Coe win over Loras

http://www.thonline.com/sports/local_sports/article_6993e0ff-8448-590e-8f6f-dc7c990ba647.html?sp-tk=267CBA81A7060394F25B517C929CA2E1B13531DA86BED32853AC9926962AE46FBC895785C833F12E6238654D4F54EEDF3AF78C885762F0D35BE5CD826139BD9858D905020A364820271AF8C0E7E1909BAA7477C6D20BEA53C198472CDE19F549460C672BCE5F559E38A0E27DE9E1DFD76CD082FBBD90A8F4D64AB39F449D98A47568BEDAD1940ED0063C23C81CB6D8FFA0845AD487505B25DAD1F7A55FED97E784088988

Dubuque Telegraph-Herald story on Dubuque win over Luther

http://www.thonline.com/sports/local_sports/article_190e178c-44f4-54b1-ae09-ba2caea2eb7f.html

Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier story on Dubuque win over Luther

http://wcfcourier.com/sports/college/small-college-football-dubuque-defense-shackles-luther/article_8ac7f42e-cbd6-5136-bb23-e6892e377eb6.html

Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier story on Wartburg win over Central

http://wcfcourier.com/sports/college/wartburg-has-to-dig-deep-in-league-opener/article_ba9d37dc-e33c-5e2b-ae01-969a76cf0b5e.html

[doolittledog]

I should also send a shout out of thanks to the UD assistant coach that helped jump start our car after we tailgated too long after the game with our doors open and ran down our battery.  He was a life saver!!!

[doolittledog]

Wartburg posted video of the Central/Wartburg game.  WB_Knights13 was right, those 2 INT's were all on the receivers. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MA9vFhIJLw4

UD Coaches Show tonight. 

http://portal.stretchinternet.com/neoPlayer.htm?eventId=235549&streamType=video

Show starts at about the 5 minute mark.  From the show, with all the running Luther does the game time was 2:22  Gives you extra time to tailgate afterwards 

[warthog]

The Knights had quite a bit more total offense than Central, but the interceptions through the hands of receivers and a couple huge goal line stands by the Dutch kept the game in question until the final moments.  Plenty of things for the Wartburg team to work on in preparation for Coe.

Not sure why Wartburg would choose to forgo the quarterback sneak on the 1/2 foot line.  You would think they could pickup 6 inches on 3 or 4 tries. Taking the snap then backing up to handoff seems a waste of time and yardage. Regardless i have to give credit to the Central defense, they showed some moxie.