FB: American Southwest Conference

[QB Jock Itch]

The biggest thing for me was the offense line, they were phenomenal!!  The push that they had on running plays and protection they gave on passing plays was great to see. All against a very good D-Line. Great job CRU O-Line

In my opinion that was the most complete game the Cru has played all season Defense, Offense, and Special Teams.

Defense had a tough task in holding off Freeman (the kid is dynamic) but held them to no TDs.

Offense moved the ball with long time eating drives and finishing with points (other than the blocked FG n back to back drives ending inside the 5)

Special Teams Fritz w/ a punt inside the 5, Gibson's punt returns, and Anthony Avila!! Let's say it again Avila is the best kicker in the country!!!!

Great win today against a strong opponent.

Prayers for Akeem Jackson the young man has played great all year. Go CRU!!

[Toby Taff]

I really felt TLU would give the Cru a better game.  I wasn't of the opinion that they would have a good chance of winning it, but I did think that, based on the way they have been playing, they would test UMHB.  Really wasn't even the list bit close.  HSU has rebounded nicely.  Howard Payne has quietly put together a nice season considering where they have been the past few years.  Obviously, McMurry has a long way to go.  Coach Neal will get this thing moving forward so long as the admin is doing all that is necessary to support his efforts.  I think if the Cru plays like they did this past weekend, they will have a shot at getting back to the big game.  They looked much better.

Statistically they gave us a better game than HSU. I think the difference is 1) the rivalry factor. HSU wants nothing more than the UMHB victory. No victory over the Cru...No ASC title...No bragging rights. 2) HSU game plan. Run Hemphill, eat clock, keep the ball out of UMHB's hands so they can't get a rhythm 3)UMHB injuries. Injuries limited the offense in the HSU game and the coaches were conservtive. (not the case in the TLU game) 4) TLU skill set. TLU's qb is shifty and was able to make plays, but you can't throw at the UMHB defense that often and not pay a price. Fritz and co are too good, but prop to TLU for trying.

[CruGuy]

Back in 2005, there were rumblings of like minded institutions moving to D-4.  Do the math, 247 divided by 6.5 = 38 bids.

IIRC, the Division IV movement was spearheaded by leaders of institutions that were quite frankly not interested in committing the minimum resources necessary to athletics to be competitive.  Basically, they wanted a club sports division.  They wanted to improve their own win-loss results by convincing some percentage of the division to also not really care.  No thanks. 

I do agree that the Division III tournament is too small for the number of institutions the division has.  I do not agree that we need to find creative ways to carve out access for the schools that we don't think are going to win the championship.  To date, even with the limited number of at-large bids, I don't think anybody can reasonably point to one single instance where the size of the field excluded a team that would be considered a contender to win the tournament.  Good teams do get left out.  But not the best teams.  The best teams are conference champions or have compiled a profile worthy of invitation.

I think the majority of the folks that have watched HSU play feel like this team could beat any team in the country. That is not true of 20 of the teams that will make the tournament. You can argue that they should not lose four fumbles against TLU if they want to win a national championship and that is true. But there about ten teams in the country with the talent necessary to win the tournament. HSU is one of those team. They are a contender. They will not get to contend.

[umhb2001]

You have to win your conference for the best chance to make the playoffs. We want D3 to be about the play on the field and not about talking heads deciding everyone who participates in the playoffs. UMHB has fallen on the short end of this before and that's how it goes.

[wally_wabash]

I think the majority of the folks that have watched HSU play feel like this team could beat any team in the country. That is not true of 20 of the teams that will make the tournament. You can argue that they should not lose four fumbles against TLU if they want to win a national championship and that is true. But there about ten teams in the country with the talent necessary to win the tournament. HSU is one of those team. They are a contender. They will not get to contend.

Which ten? 

[Ralph Turner]

I think the majority of the folks that have watched HSU play feel like this team could beat any team in the country. That is not true of 20 of the teams that will make the tournament. You can argue that they should not lose four fumbles against TLU if they want to win a national championship and that is true. But there about ten teams in the country with the talent necessary to win the tournament. HSU is one of those team. They are a contender. They will not get to contend.

Which ten?

Good question.

[jamtod]

I think the majority of the folks that have watched HSU play feel like this team could beat any team in the country. That is not true of 20 of the teams that will make the tournament. You can argue that they should not lose four fumbles against TLU if they want to win a national championship and that is true. But there about ten teams in the country with the talent necessary to win the tournament. HSU is one of those team. They are a contender. They will not get to contend.

Which ten?

Good question.

I'll start the list, if I have to work towards 10 teams total and I can base it on predictive, not resume:
Mount Union
UMHB
St John's
UW-Whitewater
Wheaton
HSU (following on your assumption)
Bethel (maybe, this feels like a stretch)
Salisbury

[HSUCowboy2015]

You have to win your conference for the best chance to make the playoffs. We want D3 to be about the play on the field and not about talking heads deciding everyone who participates in the playoffs. UMHB has fallen on the short end of this before and that's how it goes.

That's just simply not true lol. But for the question of the 10 teams, I don't necessarily think that HSU is one of them. We have the talent to do it, but we aren't disciplined enough and have not strung out a complete game yet. I do think we are one of the best 32 teams in the D III, but we all know it doesn't work like that. We shot ourselves in the foot against TLU. I think if you replay that game, we win by 3 touchdowns. It is what it is this year. I don't expect us to make the playoffs, but we'll see how the chips fall after Saturday.

[DFWCrufan]

Back in 2005, there were rumblings of like minded institutions moving to D-4.  Do the math, 247 divided by 6.5 = 38 bids.

IIRC, the Division IV movement was spearheaded by leaders of institutions that were quite frankly not interested in committing the minimum resources necessary to athletics to be competitive.  Basically, they wanted a club sports division.  They wanted to improve their own win-loss results by convincing some percentage of the division to also not really care.  No thanks. 

I do agree that the Division III tournament is too small for the number of institutions the division has.  I do not agree that we need to find creative ways to carve out access for the schools that we don't think are going to win the championship.  To date, even with the limited number of at-large bids, I don't think anybody can reasonably point to one single instance where the size of the field excluded a team that would be considered a contender to win the tournament.  Good teams do get left out.  But not the best teams.  The best teams are conference champions or have compiled a profile worthy of invitation.

I think the majority of the folks that have watched HSU play feel like this team could beat any team in the country. That is not true of 20 of the teams that will make the tournament. You can argue that they should not lose four fumbles against TLU if they want to win a national championship and that is true. But there about ten teams in the country with the talent necessary to win the tournament. HSU is one of those team. They are a contender. They will not get to contend.

I do not give the credit to HSU alot may have given them concerning the game the Cru had with them in 2019. While HSU can be formidable, I believe the very conservative play calling by UMHB had quite alot to do with it. I've seen them more formidable in previous seasons and only get to round one, But we'll never know about 2019 so mute point.

[HSUCowboy2015]

Back in 2005, there were rumblings of like minded institutions moving to D-4.  Do the math, 247 divided by 6.5 = 38 bids.

IIRC, the Division IV movement was spearheaded by leaders of institutions that were quite frankly not interested in committing the minimum resources necessary to athletics to be competitive.  Basically, they wanted a club sports division.  They wanted to improve their own win-loss results by convincing some percentage of the division to also not really care.  No thanks. 

I do agree that the Division III tournament is too small for the number of institutions the division has.  I do not agree that we need to find creative ways to carve out access for the schools that we don't think are going to win the championship.  To date, even with the limited number of at-large bids, I don't think anybody can reasonably point to one single instance where the size of the field excluded a team that would be considered a contender to win the tournament.  Good teams do get left out.  But not the best teams.  The best teams are conference champions or have compiled a profile worthy of invitation.

I think the majority of the folks that have watched HSU play feel like this team could beat any team in the country. That is not true of 20 of the teams that will make the tournament. You can argue that they should not lose four fumbles against TLU if they want to win a national championship and that is true. But there about ten teams in the country with the talent necessary to win the tournament. HSU is one of those team. They are a contender. They will not get to contend.

I do not give the credit to HSU alot may have given them concerning the game the Cru had with them in 2019. While HSU can be formidable, I believe the very conservative play calling by UMHB had quite alot to do with it. I've seen them more formidable in previous seasons and only get to round one, But we'll never know about 2019 so mute point.

I mean that's one way to look at it. The other way is to give our defense a little respect seeing as how they are ranked 6th in overall defense, 21st in rushing, and 9th in passing yards allowed.... I didn't go look at all the stats for UMHB, but their overall defense was ranked 5th. So just MAYBE our guys had something to do with UMHBs offensive production back in our game.

[USee]

I think the majority of the folks that have watched HSU play feel like this team could beat any team in the country. That is not true of 20 of the teams that will make the tournament. You can argue that they should not lose four fumbles against TLU if they want to win a national championship and that is true. But there about ten teams in the country with the talent necessary to win the tournament. HSU is one of those team. They are a contender. They will not get to contend.

Which ten?

Good question.

I'll start the list, if I have to work towards 10 teams total and I can base it on predictive, not resume:
Mount Union
UMHB
St John's
UW-Whitewater
Wheaton
HSU (following on your assumption)
Bethel (maybe, this feels like a stretch)
Salisbury

Probably need to add NCC to this list (Though I don't think all of these teams are realistic candidates for the National Title)

[DFWCrufan]

Back in 2005, there were rumblings of like minded institutions moving to D-4.  Do the math, 247 divided by 6.5 = 38 bids.

IIRC, the Division IV movement was spearheaded by leaders of institutions that were quite frankly not interested in committing the minimum resources necessary to athletics to be competitive.  Basically, they wanted a club sports division.  They wanted to improve their own win-loss results by convincing some percentage of the division to also not really care.  No thanks. 

I do agree that the Division III tournament is too small for the number of institutions the division has.  I do not agree that we need to find creative ways to carve out access for the schools that we don't think are going to win the championship.  To date, even with the limited number of at-large bids, I don't think anybody can reasonably point to one single instance where the size of the field excluded a team that would be considered a contender to win the tournament.  Good teams do get left out.  But not the best teams.  The best teams are conference champions or have compiled a profile worthy of invitation.

I think the majority of the folks that have watched HSU play feel like this team could beat any team in the country. That is not true of 20 of the teams that will make the tournament. You can argue that they should not lose four fumbles against TLU if they want to win a national championship and that is true. But there about ten teams in the country with the talent necessary to win the tournament. HSU is one of those team. They are a contender. They will not get to contend.

I do not give the credit to HSU alot may have given them concerning the game the Cru had with them in 2019. While HSU can be formidable, I believe the very conservative play calling by UMHB had quite alot to do with it. I've seen them more formidable in previous seasons and only get to round one, But we'll never know about 2019 so mute point.

I mean that's one way to look at it. The other way is to give our defense a little respect seeing as how they are ranked 6th in overall defense, 21st in rushing, and 9th in passing yards allowed.... I didn't go look at all the stats for UMHB, but their overall defense was ranked 5th. So just MAYBE our guys had something to do with UMHBs offensive production back in our game.

Oh I'm not dis-respecting the defense, not at all, but as a whole on the message the 2019 HSU team does not, in my mind, look like it would be a deep contender. I know it's hard to believe seeing such a close scored game, but the end result is the end result 1 or 100. But to say if this team were in the mix they would take it all is a really really long reach. UMHB has faced UMU, UWW, SJU, ST T Brockport, Wheaton, none of which HSU has ever be on a field with and at no time did HSU even resemble any of those programs. Now will this 2019 Cru do as well as the 2018? We'll see, time will tell. But they are going and this is where the season really starts. In the past each game was a slog upward, it does not go down (maybe game one) and I'm sorry, I didn't see the 2019 HSU program as a team who can punch above their weight. I'm not sure this Cru can in 2019 but again, it's going to be time will tell.

[jamtod]

I think the majority of the folks that have watched HSU play feel like this team could beat any team in the country. That is not true of 20 of the teams that will make the tournament. You can argue that they should not lose four fumbles against TLU if they want to win a national championship and that is true. But there about ten teams in the country with the talent necessary to win the tournament. HSU is one of those team. They are a contender. They will not get to contend.

Which ten?

Good question.

I'll start the list, if I have to work towards 10 teams total and I can base it on predictive, not resume:
Mount Union
UMHB
St John's
UW-Whitewater
Wheaton
HSU (following on your assumption)
Bethel (maybe, this feels like a stretch)
Salisbury

Probably need to add NCC to this list (Though I don't think all of these teams are realistic candidates for the National Title)

Considered that but left them out as I didn't know if they were actually competitive with Wheaton or not in the 20ish point loss.
Agreed that many of these are not "realistic candidates" but I was going with the original proposal of "talent necessary." Beyond the first 4 or 5 (and even a few of those), everything needs to break the right way to have any chance.

[wally_wabash]

We're not going to get to ten, are we?

[HSUCowboy2015]

Back in 2005, there were rumblings of like minded institutions moving to D-4.  Do the math, 247 divided by 6.5 = 38 bids.

IIRC, the Division IV movement was spearheaded by leaders of institutions that were quite frankly not interested in committing the minimum resources necessary to athletics to be competitive.  Basically, they wanted a club sports division.  They wanted to improve their own win-loss results by convincing some percentage of the division to also not really care.  No thanks. 

I do agree that the Division III tournament is too small for the number of institutions the division has.  I do not agree that we need to find creative ways to carve out access for the schools that we don't think are going to win the championship.  To date, even with the limited number of at-large bids, I don't think anybody can reasonably point to one single instance where the size of the field excluded a team that would be considered a contender to win the tournament.  Good teams do get left out.  But not the best teams.  The best teams are conference champions or have compiled a profile worthy of invitation.

I think the majority of the folks that have watched HSU play feel like this team could beat any team in the country. That is not true of 20 of the teams that will make the tournament. You can argue that they should not lose four fumbles against TLU if they want to win a national championship and that is true. But there about ten teams in the country with the talent necessary to win the tournament. HSU is one of those team. They are a contender. They will not get to contend.

I do not give the credit to HSU alot may have given them concerning the game the Cru had with them in 2019. While HSU can be formidable, I believe the very conservative play calling by UMHB had quite alot to do with it. I've seen them more formidable in previous seasons and only get to round one, But we'll never know about 2019 so mute point.

I mean that's one way to look at it. The other way is to give our defense a little respect seeing as how they are ranked 6th in overall defense, 21st in rushing, and 9th in passing yards allowed.... I didn't go look at all the stats for UMHB, but their overall defense was ranked 5th. So just MAYBE our guys had something to do with UMHBs offensive production back in our game.

Oh I'm not dis-respecting the defense, not at all, but as a whole on the message the 2019 HSU team does not, in my mind, look like it would be a deep contender. I know it's hard to believe seeing such a close scored game, but the end result is the end result 1 or 100. But to say if this team were in the mix they would take it all is a really really long reach. UMHB has faced UMU, UWW, SJU, ST T Brockport, Wheaton, none of which HSU has ever be on a field with and at no time did HSU even resemble any of those programs. Now will this 2019 Cru do as well as the 2018? We'll see, time will tell. But they are going and this is where the season really starts. In the past each game was a slog upward, it does not go down (maybe game one) and I'm sorry, I didn't see the 2019 HSU program as a team who can punch above their weight. I'm not sure this Cru can in 2019 but again, it's going to be time will tell.

Ehh I disagree with some of those teams you threw in there. I would agree that this years team doesn't have the offensive line to go to a Stagg Bowl, but I think we could compete well against all of those teams mentioned. I think we would have a great chance beating Brockport, Wheaton, and ST T. The others I wouldn't like our chances as much, but would love an opportunity.