FB: American Rivers Conference

[Walston Hoover]

I believe this is the 4th time Willis has won the conference and not got COY. I guess for some guys its just expected.
As far as scoring defense, which I consider to be the true test of who is the best in the conference, Wartburg was at the top.

[Thunderbolt]

All-Conference Team Released
http://www.iowaconference.com/news/2008-09/1120football.htm

BV's Anderson named Coach of the Year
Loras' McGrew MVP

Tradition holds -- Willis is screwed again. So was Yordi. Interesting. Anti-Wartburg bias at work again?

I think your just trying to stir the pot a little. I don't know what else McGrew could have done for his team. I wouldn't have had a problem with Yordie either. I guess when it's that close, I would vote for the Senior. Same with COY, both were good choices. If there is a conspiracy against Willis, he must be partially responsible since there are at least 4 new voters since the last time he was up for it.

[DutchFan2004]

All Conference teams are not much more than beauty contests and test of who has the bully pulpit among the coaches.  Simpson leads the conference in Total Defense and gets 2 total honorees /  Wartburg (sorry I know you won conf. but defense was suspect) is 6th in conference and gets 6 honorees.  But then again maybe the Stover twins were worth 6 other guys, man we are going to miss them.

I think you don't give the coaches enough credit when they vote for the choices for these awards.  I think the coaches have enough respect for the game and the conference to try and put together the best players on the teams based on how they did against there own team or how they played when seen of video.  You have to remember that the coaches watch video of all these guys and study it to come up with their game plan when they play each other.  So they get a pretty good flavor of who is good and who is not.  I am sure that the coaches talk their players up but this isn't high school.  I really believe that these awards are won on the field.  We all have our axes to grind to support our teams we are fans but I really think the coaches do their best to reward the players that have the best stats and performances for their teams. 

[Thunderbolt]

All Conference teams are not much more than beauty contests and test of who has the bully pulpit among the coaches.  Simpson leads the conference in Total Defense and gets 2 total honorees /  Wartburg (sorry I know you won conf. but defense was suspect) is 6th in conference and gets 6 honorees.  But then again maybe the Stover twins were worth 6 other guys, man we are going to miss them.

It's an ugly beauty contest. If any coach had a bully pulpit, I would think he would live in Pella. And I think he would have seen to it that Central had at least one player on 1st team offense or defense. There are players that made it last year and didn't this year. There are players that I thought deserved it this year that didn't get it. The guys that vote are more knowledgeable than I, and watched a lot more film. At the end of the day, I can't pick out anyone on the list that didn't deserve it. I would much rather have it this way than the way the MIAC or even the WIAC does it.

[DutchFan2004]

Here is a question for the Kohawks.  Do you think that Brockmeyer benefitted and got first team by having Breitbach back there with him?  By this I mean did teams avoid Breitbach and try to pick on Brockmeyer and he benefitted that way?  I don't remember him in the Central game.  

[DutchFan2004]

How does the MIAC and WIAC do it I am not familiar with how they do it.

[Charlie Kohawk]

Here is a question for the Kohawks.  Do you think that Brockmeyer benefitted and got first team by having Breitbach back there with him?  By this I mean did teams avoid Breitbach and try to pick on Brockmeyer and he benefitted that way?  I don't remember him in the Central game.  

I think teams effectively avoided Breitbach all year long. The same also for Wilkens. Teams just didn't go in their direction, and I can't say I blame them. That's not a knock on Brockmeyer by any means. He took advantage of his opportunities and made plays.

[DutchFan2004]

SK,

I was surprised to see Botembe not on it as well.  I thought he was great last year.  This year he didn't seem to be making the plays against Central that he did last year.  Maybe that is why he just didn't perform at the level he did last year.  

[DutchFan2004]

Here is a question for the Kohawks.  Do you think that Brockmeyer benefitted and got first team by having Breitbach back there with him?  By this I mean did teams avoid Breitbach and try to pick on Brockmeyer and he benefitted that way?  I don't remember him in the Central game.  

I think teams effectively avoided Breitbach all year long. The same also for Wilkens. Teams just didn't go in their direction, and I can't say I blame them. That's not a knock on Brockmeyer by any means. He took advantage of his opportunities and made plays.

Oh I agree I didn't mean to imply a knock on Brockmeyer and say he didn't deserve it but if you avoid half or part of the field the other side has to step up and defend it and Brockmeyer did it and deserves the recognition for it.  I just meant that because he had Breitbach on the one side he had more opportunities to showcase his talents. 

[DutchFan2004]

Purple Heys,

Congrats to you and your son on Honorable Mention.  I think he could have been 1st team or second if Cornell had a little more success as a team.  He was right up there with Burken and Hoerner IMHO.  I know he hurt us worse than either of those two did this year.  However one game does not make a season.  Pass along the compliment to Jr. 

[kohawkfan]

Here is a question for the Kohawks.  Do you think that Brockmeyer benefitted and got first team by having Breitbach back there with him?  By this I mean did teams avoid Breitbach and try to pick on Brockmeyer and he benefitted that way?  I don't remember him in the Central game.  

I think they each missed a game due to injury, too.  Brockmyer-maybe the Simpson game and Tommy-maybe the Luther game?  Anyone remember for sure?
 

[Storm Chaser]

I think you don't give the coaches enough credit when they vote for the choices for these awards.   
[/quote]

DF04 -  I didn't mean to imply the coaches didn't attempt to do their best I'm sure they do but there is sort of an oddity about the college game regarding coaches studying video.  The defensive coaches watch the opponents offense and vice versa and unless during the game someone knocks the slober out of someone they may have no clue who is on the other team.  Generally it will come down to stats and in a close call "to the victor goes the spoils".   I just saw an imbalance when #1 Defense gets 2  and #6 defense get 6  - seemed out of whack.  And I do find it psychologically easier to pick on Wartburg

[warthog]

I would have never made it as a wagon master leading settlers out west.  I would have never guessed it is faster to Stevens Point from the Quad Cities area than it is from the Waterloo area. 

Never mind the logic, I'm going to Waverly first.  From there we'll decide whether to go to Dubuque or Rochester. 

Drive safely.

[sportsknight]

Lots of topics being discussed right now, so I'll try to hit as many as I can right here.

If urgency is what has gotten WB through the past few weeks, I'm worried about their playoff longevity.  Urgency got them OT against Dubuque???  That sounds like a one and done forecast, not something I would be talking about in terms of the playoffs.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here, Klompen, but a year ago at this time I'd be willing to bet that you'd be singing the praises of a team that "just found a way to win."  I don't think it would take a lot of effort to look back to last year's regular season to find games that Central probably should have won by a much larger margin than they did.

I am not sure that is entirely true.  I think that last year's IIAC was a much stronger conference as a whole.  UD was better, Luther was better, Coe was better, you can argue Wartburg was better and Central was much better.  So to say that Central should have won by larger margins I don't think you can say for certainty.  In the end Wartburg got it done, the rest of the league didn't is the bottom line.  The W's all look the same on the IIAC page.  There aren't pretty ones and there are no ugly ones just W's. 

Exactly.  Winning is what it all comes down to.  Wartburg got the job done when they needed to, just like Central did last year, and that's really all that matters.  We can have a big, overblown discussion about whether the conference was down one year or not, but a year from now, we'll probably have forgotten about it.  After all, Wartburg's trophy doesn't say "2008 Iowa Conference Champions (even though some people thought the league was down this year)."  In 30 years, people will look back on the 2007 season and say "Wow, that Central team ran the table in the league, and sometimes by very small margins.  They must have known how to win."  When they look at 2008, they'll say "Even though Wartburg stumbled a couple times, running off those five wins to close out the conference title was a heck of a streak for them."

My interpretation of what I think I remember it said was that Wartburg was playing with a sense of urgency knowing they had to win every game to get into the playoffs and that had prepared them for the playoffs.  When I think of playing with a sense of urgency, my personal interpretation of it is that he was saying that they knew they had to come out and play their best game every game to make it and playing their best games made them ready.  In that interpretation, I did not see the win over Dubuque as that impressive, so to be saying that had Wartburg ready, didn't strike me right.  Could be that I did misinterpret it and I'm willing to say so.

The final score of the Wartburg-Dubuque game may not have been all that impressive, but when you figure in that the strongest part of Wartburg's game (the passing offense) was taken away by the conditions, it becomes that much better a win.  The way the wind was whipping around that day, passing was not an option, so the Knights, a team that by their own admission had a disappointing rushing attack all year, took it upon themselves to become a running team when they needed to.  Outside of not being able to stop the QB draw, Wartburg defense really only made one mistake all day.  And since I have a proper frame of reference, it did look like a couple of those nail-biter Central wins from last year.

I really thought Central would be the only game they struggled with this year.  Given that WB didn't waltz to the conference championship as easy as most of us expected, I'm concerned for how well the IIAC will represent this year.  Which I would have said no matter which team was in the playoffs representing us. 

If you flip-flop the words "Wartburg" and "Central" in that sentence, I think it sounds an awful lot like what a few of us were saying last year about this time.  Obviously Central got a better seed, and therefore an easier first round opponent last year, but coming off of an undefeated season in '06, Central didn't "waltz to the conference championship as easy as most of us expected."  You're right, a lot of that had to do with injuries last year, but I think Wartburg has seen their fair share of those this year.  From what I've heard, the difference is that last year Central has some big names in skill positions get hurt, whereas most of Wartburg's injuries this have been on the front lines.  Not something you want to have when you're trying to get a running game and a pass rush going.

I think you nailed it on the head.  Willis even with taking over the team with two weeks to go got the same results as last year.  He did not improve the teams record at all.  BV improved by two wins for the conference race and almost won the AQ.  Loras improved by 4 conference wins and without Mcgrew would have more than likely ended up where they were last year.  Yordi was a year older and did not improve his teams wins.  Could Yordi and Willis have been the picks yes they could have but I agree that there is a case to be made for the outcome that happened.  Either of the choices were not bad choices. 

Um, didn't they help improve their team's place in the standings?  To me that's a bigger deal than just looking at record.

All-Conference Team Released
http://www.iowaconference.com/news/2008-09/1120football.htm
BV's Anderson named Coach of the Year
Loras' McGrew MVP

Tradition holds -- Willis is screwed again. So was Yordi. Interesting. Anti-Wartburg bias at work again?

I don't think either of them got "screwed".  I think both had a strong case and were deserving, however, were their achievements, taking the league's best team and winning the league as expected; more remarkable than the achievements of McGrew and Anderson largely responsible for both of whose respective teams far exceeded expectations?
I think the weight of where Loras and BV finished was the deciding factor.

I've already been on record as saying I didn't think Willis would get Coach of the Year (although not because he didn't deserve it) and that McGrew would, and deserved to, be the MVP.  That said, I can't help but notice that the last three seasons when Central won the conference title, the Dutch swept those awards each year.  The last four times Wartburg has won the conference, the Knights have won COY or MVP a grand total of ZERO times.

[sportsknight]

I would have never made it as a wagon master leading settlers out west.  I would have never guessed it is faster to Stevens Point from the Quad Cities area than it is from the Waterloo area. 

Never mind the logic, I'm going to Waverly first.  From there we'll decide whether to go to Dubuque or Rochester. 

Drive safely.

I'd go the Dubuque way.  More 4 lane.

Maybe you can talk Lil Warthog into meeting you in the Key City and going from there.  Would make for a much shorter day for you and the Mrs.