FB: American Rivers Conference

[Thunderbolt]

 I will wait until later to speculate on the no shows at Luther. I've heard four names, that would have contributed. One is an OLineman that just had his appendix out. He will probably return in time. The other OLineman, I believe had some health issues in the off season.(LCNorse would be closer to that than I.)
Not having the transfer running back? It's hard to miss something you never had. However he did work out with them and went through spring ball with them and must have made a pretty good impression. I do know that the coaches approached a good returning back about playing defense this year, and he was willing to do it. That's obiously now not going to happen. As for the senior, 3 time letter winner? I'm with Floyd, I just don't get it. I hope it didn't have anything to do with sitting behind Sherden last year and seeing a transfer come in and turn some heads in spring ball. I would hope he is a better man than that. There are a lot of things more important than football and hopefully he made his decision for the right reasons.

[oldNorse]

WCF Courier article on Luther
http://wcfcourier.com/articles/2008/08/20/sports/local/10553336.txt
"Paul Hefty's laid-back, carefree approach of the past six seasons has been replaced by Mike Durnin's demanding and intense persona.

"Coach Hefty, you saw more as a friend," defensive lineman Brandon Rickertsen said Tuesday morning during the team's media day. "Coach Durnin is more of a true coach. He gets on you, yells at you. He demands perfection.

"I loved playing for Hefty, but we needed someone a little more strict, a little more in your face."


Ouch.... "true coach" tossed Hefty off the boat.

May be why some of the players are not returning. 

Kind of sad if some yelling or hard work is why some players did not return.  From the sounds of things, it is not like Bob Knight is now coaching the Norse.

It sounded like the ex-Whitewater Offensive Coordinator was the most intense by far during the hiring process, so they didn't hire the guy who would have been the opposite of Hefty from an intensity standpoint.

All I think he was trying to say was the program under Hefty was much more of a laid back personality and now with Durnin it has become more strict, just two different coaching styles, I wouldn't look into it to much. I do agree though that it is prob why some players aren't playing this year. I know when I was there that a lot of the players didn't want to play in the "traditional" type of program so they came to Luther. From the sounds of it that has changed.

Paul Hefty is an incredibly knowledgable coach who knows how to handle young men.  The jury is still out about Mike Durnin in Luther's program.  Possibly his approach will work.....it surely appears that it is different from Hefty's.  We also will have to see how this style does in recruiting without a winning background.  One can only see how this one season goes.  Luther typically does not fire coaches so he has some years with this style.

[Purple Heys]

I am in.  Just let me know when the page is up on the other board.  And let me know the rules for this year. 

Ok go to the pickem board to sign up for the up coming season.  I put out a suggestion for a tie breaker there.  If that is agreeable with everyone we will use it.  If not make some suggestions here for a tie breaker and we can talk about it here.  ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL?

I like your suggestion to pick the conference order in the preseason as the way to determine the tiebreakers.  Either that, or whoever lives the closest to La Porte City wins the tiebreaker...I could see that working as well 

Make that whoever lives closest to an ocean.   8)

[Purple Heys]

Looking at the Cornell roster it's dissappointing to see a freshman class with only 5 Iowa High School players. I truly believe that this conference is one with quality players from Iowa High Schools. Look at how Central, Coe and  Wartburg have had recent success with Iowa kids. Until Cornell can do a better job of getting Iowa kids they may continue to struggle.

How?  The schools you mention have history and direct tribal knowledge within the state.  You can't just offer money...you could, but it's illegal...kids will come for the unique curriculum (Jr.'s reason) and the academic opportunity, but until the wins come in with the group we have, the football playing Iowa kid will likely make a football decision.

[Purple Heys]

It's been a lot of factors for Dubuque.  WillieU could probably talk about this better than me.  He was at Dubuque more recently and was part of the team.  

One thing was sports in general weren't supported very well by the administration.  Facilities weren't top notch.  Losing program meant it was hard to find local talent.  

What Coach B has done that previous Dubuque coaching staffs didn't do in my opinion, is develop relationships with high school coaching staffs.  Previous staffs just plastered their names around Cali and Florida and took anybody who showed up.  Some good kids came through the system and stuck around and enjoyed their time in Dubuque.  But mostly you had a group of players that were only there to play football and weren't interested in school.  Once it got cold out and the losses mounted up they took off for home.  This also caused people to think the only way to win in the IIAC was with local kids.  They would point out that Dubuque had all these great Florida athletes and they couldn't win in the conference.  The current Dubuque staff goes out and knows high school coaching staffs and works with them to find kids that have talent but have flown under most schools radar screens.  They also find kids that want to play football, but also want to get a college education.  Having kids stick around through their senior season is why Dubuque is starting to win some games now.  Having a roster full of Freshmen won't get it done.  

As good as Wartburg and Central have been, I don't think their freshman teams would have been going 8-0 in conference play!!!

So uh, lets see.  Coach B and his staff at Dubuque are good coaches for the x's and o's...but also are good at recruiting kids that will stick around for 4 years.  And that is what it takes to succeed in the Iowa Conference.  

DING!

[Purple Heys]

I am in.  Just let me know when the page is up on the other board.  And let me know the rules for this year. 

Ok go to the pickem board to sign up for the up coming season.  I put out a suggestion for a tie breaker there.  If that is agreeable with everyone we will use it.  If not make some suggestions here for a tie breaker and we can talk about it here.  ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL?

Ummmm.  Yeah.

[Purple Heys]

Looking at the Cornell roster it's disappointing to see a freshman class with only 5 Iowa High School players. I truly believe that this conference is one with quality players from Iowa High Schools. Look at how Central, Coe and  Wartburg have had recent success with Iowa kids. Until Cornell can do a better job of getting Iowa kids they may continue to struggle.

I know the majority of those who post on this board are from Iowa so I'm sure this will ruffle some feathers, but I do not believe you need Iowa high school kids to win in this conference.  While it is strange that there were only 5 freshman from Iowa, I believe this shows the coaching staffs ability to scour the country in search of talent to bring the right kind of kid into the program.  With Cornell's unique class schedule, this will always draw prospects from all over the country and it is something the staff sound definitely take advantage of.  While Iowa HS football does produce some great football players, so does most every other state, the trick is finding the ones who get overshadowed by a D-1 caliber player yet can perform at a high level.

I agree with all the comments on this topic so far about how you have to win before in state kids will want to play for your program.  UD proves this and so does even big D-1 programs such as Missouri that until 2 years ago, most Missouri kids went out of state to play football.  Now with the emergence of the program that had most of its impact players from out of state, kids like Jeremy Macklin and other stars from the Saint Louis and Kansas City areas are choosing Missouri because of the success they are having.  The kids in state always know more about the programs than anyone else and a lot of the times these kids want to win and know who the successful programs are.

TCEN,  I would agree that if you can get out of state kids to campus and they will stay on campus all four years you can win with those kids.  The trouble has been as mentioned here is keeping them all four years.  Kids coming in as freshman and sophmores can not win (if the team is made up mostly of underclassmen) at the college level.  If the coaches can recruit successful kids out of state then the will have some good results.  I am in the camp of trying to recruit locally if possible.  Know human nature kids will get lonely for home and if things are not going well at a school far away from home they will not stay long.  

That's an interesting take...

Consider this DF2k4, if your second favorite son has a losing year in Redlands, is he going to get his head zapped by the freakishly warm winter weather with 80 degree Januarys and less than an inch of rain per month.  Will this be so overwhelming that he retreats for home?  Could you see him coming back if he experienced less than expected success?

[Purple Heys]

J2nd complication: just found out that my nephew blew his knee on a little across the middle pass --  no pads...no contact to speak of....a little honest bump from the D and came down funky.  A real shame; he had ivested a ton to prepare for the season!

Sad to hear...   

[Purple Heys]

With the amount of posting going on here on this board, just keeping up puts you reading at an equivalent pace as students at Cornell with One Course At A Time.

I'll bet you Coe grads never knew you had it in you.

[TrainsEqualCrowdNoise]

How?  The schools you mention have history and direct tribal knowledge within the state.  You can't just offer money...you could, but it's illegal...kids will come for the unique curriculum (Jr.'s reason) and the academic opportunity, but until the wins come in with the group we have, the football playing Iowa kid will likely make a football decision.

I bet if you polled a lot of former and current players, their number 1 response for coming to CC in the first place was because of the unique curriculum and the academic opportunity.  Football came second, and I believe that especially in DIII athletics this is the way that it should be.  But as I guess we have already pointed out, that is not always the case. 

I know that when I was looking at where to go to school, I was thrilled to have offers to play as high as the DII level, even though I was only offered scholarships to some NAIA programs.  I chose to go to Cornell because of the academic reputation and the possibilities I foresaw with unique class schedule, and just being able to play football and baseball came secondary.

I know that there are kids from out of state that know the history of the conference and who is a winner and all of that.  But I think it is much more likely that most of those out of states kids that are looking at out of state schools either:
1) Don't care about a programs history
or
2) Have no clue about the conference or who is a winner
I know when I played my first season I had no clue who any of the other schools were and often times had to ask who was good and who wasn't in the weeks leading up to games.  And I grew up just one state away from Iowa.  I know not all kids are the same, and thats what can make recruiting so difficult is knowing who to target and put your time and effort into.

I'm just glad that we most of us agree that Cornell isn't SOL because they only have 5 Iowans in their freshman class.  We have our issues, but I don't believe this to be one of them.

[TrainsEqualCrowdNoise]

Luther concerns me with some of the player defections from the program they are getting with the start of a new coaching staff. 

Loras has about 100 in camp which is nice.  But hearing there are only 30 newcomers there seems worrisome.

Cornell needing to replace an entire o-line along with low overall numbers can be a problem. 

Hearing a radio interview with the Simpson coach where he said they are implementing a new system and "hopefully the players get it" concerns me as well. 

BV has a solid recruiting class with about 45 new kids.  But each of the 2 prior years they only had about 25 each year.  Should be interesting to see how their season plays out. 

Dubuque lost a lot of 4 year starters and their OC.  Should be an interesting year for the Spartans.

Coe is replacing their coach.

Wartburg returns a boatload of starters but is making a coaching change.

Central lost a whole mess of starters...but things have a way of maintaining in Pella.

Should be a fun year in the IIAC. 

Doolittledog = the master of the summation

[DutchFan2004]

Looking at the Cornell roster it's disappointing to see a freshman class with only 5 Iowa High School players. I truly believe that this conference is one with quality players from Iowa High Schools. Look at how Central, Coe and  Wartburg have had recent success with Iowa kids. Until Cornell can do a better job of getting Iowa kids they may continue to struggle.

I know the majority of those who post on this board are from Iowa so I'm sure this will ruffle some feathers, but I do not believe you need Iowa high school kids to win in this conference.  While it is strange that there were only 5 freshman from Iowa, I believe this shows the coaching staffs ability to scour the country in search of talent to bring the right kind of kid into the program.  With Cornell's unique class schedule, this will always draw prospects from all over the country and it is something the staff sound definitely take advantage of.  While Iowa HS football does produce some great football players, so does most every other state, the trick is finding the ones who get overshadowed by a D-1 caliber player yet can perform at a high level.

I agree with all the comments on this topic so far about how you have to win before in state kids will want to play for your program.  UD proves this and so does even big D-1 programs such as Missouri that until 2 years ago, most Missouri kids went out of state to play football.  Now with the emergence of the program that had most of its impact players from out of state, kids like Jeremy Macklin and other stars from the Saint Louis and Kansas City areas are choosing Missouri because of the success they are having.  The kids in state always know more about the programs than anyone else and a lot of the times these kids want to win and know who the successful programs are.

TCEN,  I would agree that if you can get out of state kids to campus and they will stay on campus all four years you can win with those kids.  The trouble has been as mentioned here is keeping them all four years.  Kids coming in as freshman and sophmores can not win (if the team is made up mostly of underclassmen) at the college level.  If the coaches can recruit successful kids out of state then the will have some good results.  I am in the camp of trying to recruit locally if possible.  Know human nature kids will get lonely for home and if things are not going well at a school far away from home they will not stay long.  

That's an interesting take...

Consider this DF2k4, if your second favorite son has a losing year in Redlands, is he going to get his head zapped by the freakishly warm winter weather with 80 degree Januarys and less than an inch of rain per month.  Will this be so overwhelming that he retreats for home?  Could you see him coming back if he experienced less than expected success?

The trouble with kids is you never know what they will do!   I don't think that in his position as a GA he would leave if they fell on their face.  I would hope that he sucks it up and helps to to overcome a setback.  That is the type of player he was and I hope that that would be how he coached.  The weather in this instance is not a negative.   

[doolittledog]

Remind him to suck it up after Dubuque puts a beat down on those Bulldogs their opening game of the season!!!

Ok, not likely that will happen.  But it's preseason, I can still dream at this point 

[DutchFan2004]

Remind him to suck it up after Dubuque puts a beat down on those Bulldogs their opening game of the season!!!

Ok, not likely that will happen.  But it's preseason, I can still dream at this point 

You can do all that you want.  I have no idea how they will do.  I really do not talk to him all that much and when I do it is not about the football team.  I read and watch the SCIAC board to get some insight into the team and conference.  I think they might be fairly similar with the top teams to the IIAC and compete ok.  So I don't think the Spartans will have a cake walk.

[Wartburg Fan]

 I'm in for pick-em again this year