Around the Nation board

[K-Mack]

I'll provide the facts, you decide how much it means to you.

[gordonmann]

As a Trinity (Conn.) alum, I appreciate the props. 

['gro]

This is from ESPN.com Tuesday Morning Quarterback

Bonus Obscure College Score: Ursinus 6, LaSalle 2. The Explorers' faithful lament -- if only we'd gotten three more safeties! Located in Philadelphia, LaSalle University has a faculty member who is an expert on Robin Hood.

Bonus Combined Obscure Scores: Saint Francis of Indiana and Saint John's of Minnesota beat Pikeville and Augsburg by a combined 123-0. Running up the score is not saintly behavior!

Running Up the Score Watch: TCU held the boastful Texas Tech to a field goal in a 12-3 victory. Two years ago, Texas Tech relentlessly ran up the score on the Horned Frogs, notching 70 points; TCU had been smarting for vengeance, and by the hammer of Grabthar, they were avenged! Meanwhile Mount Union College -- year-in, year-out home of the worst sportsmanship in Division III -- relentlessly ran up the score on Otterbein, winning 71-14.

[HScoach]

Hmmmm, so MUC is consistently running up the score, eh?  This idiot must have missed the times LK kicks fields goals on 1st down or a RB hook slides on the 5 yard line to keep from scoring. 

[dc_has_been]

That is an idiot comment.  When I played agianst MUC my freshman year they beat us something like 68-0 & they did everything (unfortunetly) to not run up the score.  We were just that bad at the time!

[Ron Boerger]

That might be the most regular-season Division III "coverage" provided by ESPN.com since ... well, ever. 

[K-Mack]

I thought TMQ was NFL.com, but in any case, that dude doesn't know what he's talking about.

I'm not sure why this is on the ATN board, but it's convenient because I ripped him for it once before.

Let me see if I can find the column and passage. It was during the '04 playoffs, I think after the Bridgewater game.

Oh, the magic of Google, even faster than searching my own columns:

http://d3football.com/atn.php?id=66

Under the header Do Your Homework. Third item down, I think.

It was after UMHB won at MUC, he gleefully celebrated their demise as he did apparently after St. John's won in the title game. He even uses roughly the same phrase "frantically ran up the score" vs. "relentlessly ran up the score."

This dude just has a hard-on for Mount Union.

I'll e-mail this guy later in the week, after I finish ATN.

It might sound like a so-called small time D3 guy mad about the dis the way a home-team fan would be, but it's just poor on his part. Since I do basically the same thing he does, with D3 instead of the NFL, I know how it is.

You can't look at scores and purport to know intent. The score itself is a fact, but to chide Mount Union for purposely running up the score as though them just being that much better than their opposition is not a possibility ... tjat's just this dude talking out of turn.

And the fact that there are several documented instances of Kehres kicking field goals on second and goal, etc. makes Easterbrook look that much more stupid.

Frankly, it's embarassing for him. I'm sure since the D3 population is small and won't dent his NFL readership, but I think it's time for him to find something new. He's been on Mount Union's jock, hating unnecessarily, since at least 2003.

Even if he was right, what exactly would it be accomplishing to repeatedly harp on it?

[K-Mack]

Actually,
that's pretty much all I wanted to say, so I'll just send him basically that now. I was trying to put it off because I am so easily distracted when I should be working on ATN.

The argument from the old ATN column is pretty solid too, if I do say so myself.

If he responds, I'll share it.

[K-Mack]

That might be the most regular-season Division III "coverage" provided by ESPN.com since ... well, ever. 

Ron, I see it was Enginegro that said it was ESPN.com.

It might be there, I still get NFL.com as I Google (although I'll find out in a minute when I actually click Engine's link) ... but this might explain why he was on ESPN.com and then wasn't.

http://beldar.blogs.com/beldarblog/2003/10/easterbrook_is_.html

(clicks Engine's link)

Apparently he is back with ESPN.

In any case, I don't want to bash this dude personally, but I do want to let him know he is talking out of turn.

This is why I basically stay off the message boards. I like to argue, I'm easily distracted and I almost always get the last word. Bad combination.

['gro]

I figured this board would have a lot of views from a diverse crowd. Not intended to stir up MUC fans or else I would have just posted it there.  I see a lot of D3 references (correct and incorrect) in ESPN's page 2 -- tuesday morning QB and Bill Simmons sports guy's world -- and SI.com 10 spot.

[Knightstalker]

The guy who writes the 10-spot for ESPN is a Williams grad, that is probably why he will reference D3.

[K-Mack]

I figured this board would have a lot of views from a diverse crowd. Not intended to stir up MUC fans or else I would have just posted it there.  I see a lot of D3 references (correct and incorrect) in ESPN's page 2 -- tuesday morning QB and Bill Simmons sports guy's world -- and SI.com 10 spot.

Gotcha.

Definitely share what you see. I used to have a media watch item cleverly titled Press Coverage in ATN (it actually made an appearance this week, thanks to Gordon), but I'm usually so enthralled writing the damn thing I never get to surf the 'net (remember how I said I get distracted?)

So extra sets of eyes would be great. It's definitely not all bad stuff that's being said, and I'm not one of those guys who's gonna whine about every little swipe. We're the little guys, or the little schools anyway. It doesn't mean I am, or any of us should be, insecure about where we went or what our talents were. Shoot, a lot of D3 schools are top nizzotch (although they did not teach me that)

USA Today had a thing a year ago about all the CEOs from small schools. I think Oberlin, Union, Ithaca and Denison (maybe) were on the front page, above the fold.

US News & World Report uses the daggone NESCAC football standings, practically, for their top 10 Liberal Arts Colleges.

Anyway ...

[repete]

WSJ had a piece on CEOs coming from lesser known state schools and small private colleges this week -- might be today.

--east region ''scoffer''

[K-Mack]

--east region ''scoffer''

[K-Mack]

KnightStalker with the Fast Times at Ridgemont High picture ... I see you.

Oh,
Two things I wanted to share. This from Ryan Briggs' column, re: Mount Union:

Strong safety Matt Kostelnik recovered a bad punt snap in the end zone with 6:37 left in the first quarter, giving Mount Union a 14-0 lead. Ten seconds later, Kostelnik intercepted a pass and returned it 24 yards for a touchdown.

Meanwhile, quarterback Mike Jorris threw touchdown passes of 21 and 82 yards to receiver Pierre Garcon. He also threw a 67-yarder to Justin Wray, helping Mount Union assume a 34-7 lead with 13 minutes left in the first half. At that point, the Purple Raiders had executed a grand total of five offensive plays.

I mean jeez. Are you running up the score or getting your players some game action for when a team actually challenges you?

Regarding that Bethany game, I promised in the column more here. Definitely an early nominee for that end-of-the-year column (actually, we should start tallying that stuff here soon while it's fresh)

Straight from Bison SID Brian Rose:

1.  OWU led 21-0 at halftime and we are calling it the biggest comeback in school history. I can't be 100 percent positive about that because our files aren't as good as I wish they were, but we've been putting it in stories since Saturday and no alum has written in to argue it.

2. Trailing 21-14 early in the 4th, Bethany lines up for a 33-yard field goal on
a fourth and three. However, Bethany false starts, moving the ball back to the 21. We pull the field goal unit off the field and go for it on fourth and
eight. QB Brent Owens hits WR T.J. Parker, who set career-highs with 12 catches for 156 yards in the game, with a 20-yard completion down to the one. On the next play, we send in 6-7, 350-pound junior DT Quinn Taylor to play in the backfield. He gets the handoff and plows one-yard into the end zone, ala "Refrigerator" Perry from the '85 Bears.

3. Bethany scores but misses the two-point conversion, leaving the Bison down 28-26 with 46 seconds to play. Bethany then recovers the onside kick and, with the aid of a personal foul on OWU, drives down to the Bishops nine-yard line. Owens then hits freshman WR Matt Cruse with a scoring pass in the right-corner of the end zone on a fade pattern with just one second to play to give Bethany the win. Cruse would also end up falling on the fumble on the ensuing kickoff when OWU was trying their version of Cal-Stanford.

4. Saturday's win was the first time three things happened since 2002: (A)
Bethany wins more than one game in a season (B) Bethany wins a road game, snapping a 16-game losing streak away from their home field and (C) Bethany wins consecutive games in the same season (BC did win their season finale in 2004 and season opener in 2005).

And for anyone that cares, My 26-35 is still stuck on my machine. Will post it here tomorrow.