FB: American Rivers Conference

[Walston Hoover]

Walston-Hoover's opening lines for Saturday

Wartburg -4.5 vs Luther
Coe -17 vs BV
Loras -1.5 vs UD
Cornell +5 vs Simpson

Who's betting on who?

[dbljay21]

Walston,
I know the Knights are at home this weekend, but who else is hosting?

[Walston Hoover]

All the first teams listed are hosting

[Tony_Soprano]

Joeyice: Thank you and everyone else for the kind words.

DavidDevine: The best part about that trip was the fact wheels was driving without a license. I remember it like it was yesterday. Burr and I were running at a track meet at UNI and saw wheels in the stands (why he was there I have no idea). Anyways, he conned us into staying at the burg that Friday night and told us he would take us back in the morning. At that time I had no idea he neither had a vehicle or a license. Long story short, I owned Joe's (pretty sure burr got kicked out of Joe's), we rode back to the dorms in the bed of an S-10, me with my shirt off and burr screaming to the town of Waverly, "YOU AINT GOT IT!" When we got back to the dorms burr and I were screaming and pounding on dorm room doors, and even tried to break down someone's door. Everyone was looking at us (burr and I) like we had just escaped from a mental hospital. Little did wheels or anyone else from the burg know is that is how the beavers roll. Devine can vouch as he was the person wheels conned into driving burr and I back to stormy pond the next day and was there on a Saturday night to witness first hand the K (beaver slang for chaos).  It was at that time I knew that, although Wartburg had beaten us in football that year, they couldn't touch BV in the after hours department (sad consolation but I will take it).

I guess I should finish my own game –

Cornell – Quad City DJ's (come on ride the train)
Coe – I don't remember it being in a ghetto, I do remember thinking the field and the college itself were unique because they were smack dab in the middle of a large city in Iowa.
Dubuque – the track surrounding the field was crumbling like a month old cookie
Simpson – Kitty Litter Field (when it rained the maintenance crew put kitty litter on the field to fill the water filled holes)
Luther – Cement Bleacher Mountain
Loras – Hills
Billy Penn – Sandlot the movie, keep the playing surface, but change the sport.
Wartburg – ESPN College Gameday type atmosphere
Upper Iowa University – Fayette County Fair
BV – A little slice of lakeside heaven

[lorbec47]

In my first good week of picks EVER, I'll toss the coin some.

Luther takes Wartburg at the 'Burg. This will be a good one.
Coe takes BV.
Loras in a tight battle. (Sorry Spartans)
Simpson breaks through their offensive struggles and takes Cornell close.

Should we possibly have like a game of the week, for a tie-breaker in the event of a multiple person tie such as last week? Closest total points or a point spread? Just an idea.

[coocooforcoekohawk]

maybe we should rank our picks.

the one you are most confident in rank 1 and the least confident pick 4

Lorbec,

no one seemed interested last week.

[Floyd in Iowa City]

Congrats Coe on finding a way to get it done against Luther again this year.  I don't want to hear about the wind as a factor for either team as both teams like to throw the ball and both were hurt equally by the conditions on Saturday.

It sounds like the Wartburg Defense did what it was supposed to do against Simpson as the Storm struggled on offense for the 3rd week in a row.  For anyone that was there did the Wartburg Offense look solid all game, or did the Wartburg Defense win this game because the Simpson Defense had to keep going back out on the field?

All season I have felt better about how Luther matches up with Wartburg than Coe or St. Olaf, but this is still obviously going to be a very tough test with the rivalry and that the Norse have lost the last two weeks against good opponents.  Too bad they didn't create a little momentum for themselves by winning the 4th quarter against Coe.

After seeing the MIAC scores this weekend, I think St. Olaf has a good chance to be 9-1 this season and in the playoffs.  They were 7-3 in 2004 and 8-2 last season.

Let's see how all of the Lutherans get along on Saturday.

[DutchFan2004]

K-mack Sorry I wrote down Cornell not UD I will change it.  Thanks For Catching it.  I know its your reputation.  LOL

[Crimson and Bold]

Congrats to the 15th ranked Kohawks for their win on Saturday in Decorah.  They played very well and almost moved the ball at will, just couldn't score in the red zone.  I was impressed with DeMoulin's play.  He doesn't look like much of a scrambler, but he ran effectively and efficiently all day.  If Coe's defense can play as well as they did Saturday, it could be a long season for the whole IIAC.

picks this week:

Coe over BV is the obvious choice. Especially since Coe's at home in the "ghetto." 
Coe by 20.

Wartburg over Luther by 4.  Waverly's a tough place to go into and get a win. But I hope I'm wrong here.

Loras over UD.  The battle of Dubuque will be close since UD has improved a great deal.  However, Loras has had 2 weeks to prepare and they have to be itching to get back into the action after a bye. 
I'll give Loras 7 points

Simpson over Cornell.  Call me crazy, but I don't really know much about either team.  Cornell has just been a bottomdweller for the last couple seasons and a loss to UD doesn't make me very excited to pick them. 
Simpson by 5?

[Walston Hoover]

Floyd-
Wartburg's offense went on a 17 play 63 yard drive that took over 9 minutes off the clock to start the game, but couldn't finish the drive and had to settle for a fieldgoal. I wouldn't call them high octane at this point, but there are definitely some playmakers. They did only have 2, 3 and outs against a pretty good Simpson Defense.
Running the football is definitely the strong point, and having a running qb will help a lot this year. Both recievers are back from last year and both look to have hit the weightroom hard in the offseason.
I hope Koehler gets them going this week, but I see a pretty low scoring game Saturday.
Again, the strong point of this team, as it has been with all great Wartburg teams, will be what should be a stifling Defense.

[ramfan27]

Looked like a less than impressive showing for the Rams this weekend.  It looks like being vulnerable to big plays continues to haunt the defense, of the 5 Spartan TD's, 4 of them were from outside the red zone.  Also when you're offense runs 30 more plays then the other team and has the ball for 12 min more and you still lose by 3 TD's, somethings wrong.  I knew that Mills was hurt for this game which hurts them some, but I saw Newmeister only had two carries, I assume he got hurt during the game? Anybody know anything?

Congrats to all the winners, sounds like Coe-Luther was a hell of a game.

[Ash Park]

Newmeister hurt his hip early in the first quarter. Looked like a hip-pointer. Field position was huge saturday. On the average cornell started from their own 24 yard line and Dubuque started from their own 48. Just a interesting stat that I picked up that I thought I would throw in.

[SpeedKills84]

Good games all around this past weekend....well for the most part I guess.  Sounds like the Coe/Luther game was the only one really worth watching.  As has been said from day 1.  The Rams can be good if they stay healthy, which is not the case.  When the starting qb is out and one of the key backs goes down early, the lack of depth really starts to show.  The passing game was less than effective with the new qb (15-34 44%, 202yds, 2td/3int) and the rushing game never got going.  Dubuque is a highly unpredictable team who can truly score on any given play.  They dont necessarily have the best ball players in the conference but they do have the best athletes, and that can and will win them games.  Either way the games this week are looking to be more exciting.

Coe over BV      30-10

Dubuque over Loras     27-24

Wartburg over Luther   17-14

Cornell and Simpson is a toss up as far as I'm concerned.  I'll give the Rams the benefit of the doubt on this one.   Rams  14-6  

Good luck to all the IIAC teams.

[Floyd in Iowa City]

Again, the strong point of this team, as it has been with all great Wartburg teams, will be what should be a stifling Defense.

Thanks Walston,

I know Luther just played a low-scoring game against Coe, but I really think the Norse have to score in the 20s to win this game.  If it is allowed to be a low-scoring slugfest, Wartburg may not open up the passing game and instead rely on running the ball and defense to win the game.  Both teams need turnovers, but it might really help Luther to get a couple INTs early to take a lead and get Wartburg out of their comfort area on offense.

In the last two years the Luther-Wartburg game came down to who made the most mistakes.  Two years ago Luther couldn't run and had too many turnovers (Sherden moved to RB a couple games later), and last year Wartburg had an ineffective passing game and too many turnovers in the rain.

The Wartburg Defense has done a very good job so far this year.  How much better is the Norse Offense than those two Knight opponents?  Can Luther contain the Knight running game and force the QB to beat them while still respecting a couple of Knight weapons in the passing game?

The Norse seniors must feel like they need this game to have a strong chance of staying in the conference race.  They also need to get the season moving back in the right direction. 

[Walston Hoover]

"The Norse seniors must feel like they need this game to have a strong chance of staying in the conference race.  They also need to get the season moving back in the right direction."
You are right there. A 1-3 Start to the season and you might as well pack it in.
One area that was overlooked earlier that I think the Knights looked a ton better in was the kicking game. A 47 yard punt return, a much better long snapper, and a new KO specialist that has a ton of hangtime on his kicks.
I'm looking forward to the first real test of the year for the Knights.