FB: American Southwest Conference

[trickytroy32]

Going to be a very interesting year this coming season. Landry Turner, 2017 qb starter, is back on the team after missing 2018. He passes better than Hooper and runs like Reed. A big upgrade from last year qbs. Guess who's back.....HEMPHILL and Hammonds in relief if not together or in a slot position. Is it possible WR could be better after losing Childress..... I think so will Milsap and Evans. HSU offense is looking scary as hell if Landry is the same qb if not better as he was his freshman year. It looks like the question this coming year is like all years who wins HSU offense or UMHB defense? 

[Toby Taff]

Going to be a very interesting year this coming season. Landry Turner, 2017 qb starter, is back on the team after missing 2018. He passes better than Hooper and runs like Reed. A big upgrade from last year qbs. Guess who's back.....HEMPHILL and Hammonds in relief if not together or in a slot position. Is it possible WR could be better after losing Childress..... I think so will Milsap and Evans. HSU offense is looking scary as hell if Landry is the same qb if not better as he was his freshman year. It looks like the question this coming year is like all years who wins HSU offense or UMHB defense?

I wouldn't pass up on UMHB's offense. We lose Markieth Miller, but pick up miller brother #3, Montana, as a freshman. Last years NWC offensive player of the year, Chidubem Nnoli, is transferring in to UMHB from Linfield. There have been some very gifted commits, 2 returning quality QB's, and speed all over the place. On the defensive side of the ball, Tevin Jones will be back at LB for his senior season, the whole D-line is back, we lose reggie cole, raylon hickey, roselle barber-harris, but still have jefferson fritz, kieth gipson, jayden smith and a host of underclassmen. UMHB is building a beast for the fall and I can't wait for the season to begin. Hopefully everything falls right and on non-home games for UMHB HSU is at home and I can attend here in Abilene.

[DFWCrufan]

Not to mention a few transfers, one is James Marshall who Transferred from Mt. San Antonio College and is a monster OLB. There are some All conference recipients coming in, plus some buzz about Austin Rolan out of DeSoto HS TE/OLB - has chose UMHB over Baylor and some D2 Schools, and Brandon Smith out of Hightower HS who is a very explosive in the run.

[DFWCrufan]

More talent committing to the Crusaders! Daniel Chiquito - CB-WR -McAllen HS

https://www.hudl.com/video/3/8434700/5c53e694041d9911ac7fdb66

[justafan12]

If UMHB keeps their current status up they may get the St. Thomas treatment.  Just kidding.

[DFWCrufan]

Well to be honest the coach over at Southwestern complained about the recruiting UMHB does.

[Ron Boerger]

Well to be honest the coach over at Southwestern complained about the recruiting UMHB does.

The two schools have significantly different admissions standards and costs.  UMHB gets the kids that meet their standards, SW gets the kids that meet theirs, and everyone wants to play on a perennial national championship contender.  Since SW is only a football associate they went in with their eyes wide open and don't have anything to say about who is and isn't a member of the ASC.   If they don't like it, they can pursue other (limited, admittedly) options.   

I understand the MIAC may have an opening in a couple of years

[crufootball]

You would have to think all "dominant" D3 programs are a little uneasy about the precedent that has now been set in the MIAC.

This whole process has me thinking about wasting some time and figuring out who would win a mythical ASC All-Sports championship. UMHB has had a very good year athletically speaking, winning championships in football, men's soccer, volleyball and women's golf and doing well in other sports. However there are numerous other sports where we were middle of the pack or worse and we don't even sponsor Track.

In contrast St. Thomas won 11 of the 22 conference championships this year in the MIAC and seemingly has been close to that dominant for around a decade.

Crazy issue that was not a good look for D3 since it went viral but I am not sure it will be repeated very often if ever again.

[Ralph Turner]

Well to be honest the coach over at Southwestern complained about the recruiting UMHB does.

The two schools have significantly different admissions standards and costs.  UMHB gets the kids that meet their standards, SW gets the kids that meet theirs, and everyone wants to play on a perennial national championship contender.  Since SW is only a football associate they went in with their eyes wide open and don't have anything to say about who is and isn't a member of the ASC.   If they don't like it, they can pursue other (limited, admittedly) options.   

I understand the MIAC may have an opening in a couple of years

My frustration with the SCAC was that they could not come up with 3 other schools to add football.

Shucks, I would have traded a "football-playing" Concordia-TX to the SCAC and a long term agreement to play intra-conference games with the ASC to fill all but one game on the non-conference schedule, if the SCAC could have added 2 more football schools (? Schreiner?, ?UDallas? We know that Colorado College was not going back there.)  That would have given us 2 Pool A bids in this part of the country.

[Ron Boerger]

Pretty sure the conference office and the schools involved share that frustration, Ralph.  They worked on it for several years, I'm sure they tried luring more schools from the ASC but it became obvious that wasn't going to happen, nor were the other SCAC schools interested in starting a program from scratch.

Back to the original matter at hand - the MIAC situation was a unique set of circumstances.   You had one school not only dominating but markedly outspending everyone else and growing itself overall (e.g. the $1B fundraising campaign that is supposedly about to kick off).   It's been said St Thomas is on a glidepath to D1 and for better or worse there were enough schools unhappy about things to threaten the survival of the conference.   Who knows, maybe the presidents saw what happened to football (and other sports) when the SAA took their ball and left the SCAC and decided they didn't want that to happen to the MIAC.  I don't think so, but it is possible. 

As crufootball points out, we don't have this situation in the ASC, though I have seen UMHB improve some of its other sports it's not doing the quantum leap that St. Thomas started 10-15 years ago. 

[justafan12]

You would have to think all "dominant" D3 programs are a little uneasy about the precedent that has now been set in the MIAC.

This whole process has me thinking about wasting some time and figuring out who would win a mythical ASC All-Sports championship. UMHB has had a very good year athletically speaking, winning championships in football, men's soccer, volleyball and women's golf and doing well in other sports. However there are numerous other sports where we were middle of the pack or worse and we don't even sponsor Track.

In contrast St. Thomas won 11 of the 22 conference championships this year in the MIAC and seemingly has been close to that dominant for around a decade.

Crazy issue that was not a good look for D3 since it went viral but I am not sure it will be repeated very often if ever again.

From the ASC website https://static.ascsports.org/custompages/ASC_Chart_of_Champions.pdf

Conference Championships
School                                    Total
Hardin-Simmons ..................... 79
UT Tyler .................................. 66
McMurry ................................ 44
Mary Hardin-Baylor ................ 41
UT Dallas................................. 26
East Texas Baptist ................... 16
Howard Payne ........................ 11
Concordia Texas ..................... 8
Louisiana College .................... 4
Sul Ross State ......................... 4
Ozarks ..................................... 3
LeTourneau ............................ 1
Mississippi College* ............... 30
Texas Lutheran* ..................... 19
Austin* ................................... 11
Schreiner* .............................. 5
Dallas* ....................................

You could also look up the Learfield rankings from prior years for D3. I think you can sort it by conference and then just look at the conference championship column.

[Ron Boerger]

With Tyler going D2 it will be interesting to see who picks up their spring sports champion mantle, since that's where they've done the most damage recently. 

[crufootball]

You would have to think all "dominant" D3 programs are a little uneasy about the precedent that has now been set in the MIAC.

This whole process has me thinking about wasting some time and figuring out who would win a mythical ASC All-Sports championship. UMHB has had a very good year athletically speaking, winning championships in football, men's soccer, volleyball and women's golf and doing well in other sports. However there are numerous other sports where we were middle of the pack or worse and we don't even sponsor Track.

In contrast St. Thomas won 11 of the 22 conference championships this year in the MIAC and seemingly has been close to that dominant for around a decade.

Crazy issue that was not a good look for D3 since it went viral but I am not sure it will be repeated very often if ever again.

From the ASC website https://static.ascsports.org/custompages/ASC_Chart_of_Champions.pdf

Conference Championships
School                                    Total
Hardin-Simmons ..................... 79
UT Tyler .................................. 66
McMurry ................................ 44
Mary Hardin-Baylor ................ 41
UT Dallas................................. 26
East Texas Baptist ................... 16
Howard Payne ........................ 11
Concordia Texas ..................... 8
Louisiana College .................... 4
Sul Ross State ......................... 4
Ozarks ..................................... 3
LeTourneau ............................ 1
Mississippi College* ............... 30
Texas Lutheran* ..................... 19
Austin* ................................... 11
Schreiner* .............................. 5
Dallas* ....................................

You could also look up the Learfield rankings from prior years for D3. I think you can sort it by conference and then just look at the conference championship column.

Thought about the Learfield Rankings, but I can't find the conference championship column you mentioned. I can say that UMHB will finish with the most points it ever has received with at least 318 which has us at 54th in the country. Other ASC schools include UT Dallas with 175 (104th), HSU 89 (185th) and Concordia 80 (196th).

Again to contract  with St. Thomas they have 753 points, good for 11th in the country, although I will add there are 6 schools (including St. Thomas) in the top 100 from the MIAC so its not like none of the rest of their conference is having success.

[justafan12]

My bad, I thought Learfield gave a breakdown of the points and conference champions but it does not. 

I did find on the ASC website the 18-19 conference championships:

UTD 5
UMHB 4
HSU 3
Concordia 2
McMurry 1
ETBU 1

[Ron Boerger]

I'm really surprised the ASC doesn't have an all-sports championship, to be honest.   Wonder how many other D3 conferences don't (too lazy to look).

Learfield does produce a list that is sorted by conference, such as this one, which includes last week's T&F:  https://nacda.com/documents/2019/5/29//DIIIConfMay30.pdf?id=3630 - baseball is still pending, is there anything else?