FB: Ohio Athletic Conference

[pradierguy]

Gosh,Purplesuit,I didn't realize you were such an expert on quarterback play and the performance vs expectations of all Mount Union recruits over the past ten years. Your comment about Seaman proves my point. It's a cheap shot.

Completely disagree. I don't think PurpleSuit took a cheap shot at all. As they say "it is what it is."

I think he right on point in terms of expectations. IMO there are kids that came to Mount as QB's, but were switched to other positions that could be as effective as either of the top two QB's were this season. - That is NOT a knock on Neal or Piloto, its just to show Mount does have a lot of options, and if you don't get the job done, you will get passed by.

[PurpleSuit]

I may be an expert on certain (many?) things, but QB play has never been one of my claims.  I saw every Mount game this season and there were times when you expected a three and out from the offense (ie ONU, Capital, Berg).  Has there ever been a time that Mount has experienced that?  I am harder on Neal than Piloto, and I know that.  But Neal came to Mount with a great deal of expectations, though not his fault.  We were led to believe that Neal would replace Rocco and not miss a beat, he was our Louisville savior.  But what we actually got was far less than that.  Subtract the Cecil factor and Neal is an average QB.  He would be fine/great at nearly every D3 program but at Mount neither Neal nor Piloto has cut it.  I'd give the St Ed's kid every chance to win the job this summer. 

Looks like 70's has been surpassed at "cheap shots"

[Raider 68]

I may be an expert on certain (many?) things, but QB play has never been one of my claims.  I saw every Mount game this season and there were times when you expected a three and out from the offense (ie ONU, Capital, Berg).  Has there ever been a time that Mount has experienced that?  I am harder on Neal than Piloto, and I know that.  But Neal came to Mount with a great deal of expectations, though not his fault.  We were led to believe that Neal would replace Rocco and not miss a beat, he was our Louisville savior.  But what we actually got was far less than that.  Subtract the Cecil factor and Neal is an average QB.  He would be fine/great at nearly every D3 program but at Mount neither Neal nor Piloto has cut it.  I'd give the St Ed's kid every chance to win the job this summer. 

Looks like 70's has been surpassed at "cheap shots"

For 2012, Coach Kehres is going to set the QB expectations/requirements higher, given the play in 2011/2012, IMHO, so a newcomer has as good a chance as the returners.

[purple]

 So who led you to believe a freshman QB would be able to replace an All-American QB,Kurt Rocco,and "not miss a beat?" It sure wasn't LK,or any coach or player in a position to know. It defies common sense and it is absurd to hold your expectations as the standard Seaman,or the Mount Union offense, has to meet. LK doesn't answer to your expectations,neither do his players. These kids are his players,not yours. Expect a few "three and outs" from time to time next year.

[reality check]

So I turned in my letter of interest and a 20 page action plan for the head coaching position here at my school.  We will see.  With our administration, it's a crap-shoot if they'll even have the professional courtesy to allow me to interview as a member of the current staff and faculty.

Of course, I was going off this morning because I received a request to cover our head baseball coach's class on 1/20 while he "assisted the admin".  I know that he's on the interview board and it doesn't look good when you're covering for another teacher while they're interviewing candidates for the position you applied for.  It sounds like after talking to the AD that the request to have me cover was an error on the part of an administrative assistant but I wouldn't put anything by our leadership.

Time will tell and we will see.  I know that the next few weeks will be a roller-coaster.

[Blutarsky]

RC:  Anything in your LNA (Local Negotiated Agreement) that requires inside candidates to be interviewed?  Some even go so far as to require the hiring of "qualified" internal candidates prior to going after an outside candidate.

I know this can be a "trying time", but remember that you may want something that isn't actually in your best interest.  I'm a firm believer that the "right job happens at the right time"....call it "divine intervention", or stupid luck.....but it guided my career!

[HScoach]

RC:    Good luck. 

[formerd3db]

RC:

I join the others also in wishing you all the best in your interview and for eventually getting the position.  I'll keep you in prayer for that.  We'll await hearing from you when the appropriate time comes.

Best,
formerd3db

[reality check]

Blutarsky
Check you PM's.


Thanks for the good luck wishes guys.  I really just want to be given a chance to interview for the experience and the right fit a few years down the road.  This would be one of the toughest jobs in the state of Arizonafor whomever gets the call.  If they don't give me the professional courtesy of an interview though, I might have to give former Buckeye Joe Germaine a call since he's five miles down the road running a very solid program. 

[MUC57]

There sure is a lot of talk about the QB situation at dear old UMU! Being overlooked is the play calling by the offensive coordinator (Zac Bruney). I think Joe Montana might have trouble in this situation. After last year's loss in the Stagg Bowl, Coach Kehres said he wanted to get more involved by calling the offensive plays. Guess he had a change of heart. He did not take over the offense in this last Stagg until there were only seven(7) minutes left in the game. Supposedly he made the comment that he should have started sooner. Yeah coach, how about at minute 1? How many points did UMU score in the first three quarters? Of course, there is no guarantee anything would have changed. But I sure like the odds!
It's nice to have the "younger" coaches accept more responsibilty, which is Coach Kehres stated desire, but they need to be better qualified.
If that doesn't change, any discussion about which QB should play becomes moot!

[Raider 68]

Blutarsky
Check you PM's.


Thanks for the good luck wishes guys.  I really just want to be given a chance to interview for the experience and the right fit a few years down the road.  This would be one of the toughest jobs in the state of Arizonafor whomever gets the call.  If they don't give me the professional courtesy of an interview though, I might have to give former Buckeye Joe Germaine a call since he's five miles down the road running a very solid program. 

RC,

Good luck with this opportunity! If not this one another will develop for you!

[formerd3db]

MUC57:
You have a valid point re: perhaps Kehres returning to calling the plays.  Yet, at the same time, younger coaches don't/can't get better (i.e. be "better qualified" to use your own terms ) without getting more experience by doing it themselves, win or lose. I realize you guys (i.e. Mount fans) all want the Stagg Bowl title to return to your campus.  However, if you were a coach (or if you currently are) and you were in that situation, wouldn't you agree that you would want to be and should be afforded the opportunity to get that additional experience? And such experience doesn't happen overnight.  Coach Kehres is great, we all know that, however, he isn't going to be around forever.  The only aspect that I would disagree with you on is that the actual QB play is relevent - whoever it is at that position simply has to play better and make the plays that are called.   Just my additional $0.02 worth from an "outsider".

[HScoach]

Article from AFCA:



Mind That Your Football Program Matters
Mike Podoll, Associate Publisher/Editor-In-Chief – This is AFCA

When Larry Kehres led the University of Mount Union to the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl victory in 1993, which gave the Raiders their first NCAA Division III National Championship in front of a nationally televised audience, the game's color commentator made a rousing statement as the final seconds ticked off the clock, emphatically stating, "And the tiny school in Alliance, Ohio, with an enrollment of 1,000 students ... has just won the national championship!"
Eighteen years later, with more than 300 gridiron victories and 10 national championships under Kehres' belt, the school in Alliance, Ohio, isn't exactly tiny these days. Today, enrollment hovers around 2,200 students, which is a 220% rise in school numbers since Kehres' football program first put its stamp on the national college football landscape.

Looking at college tuition and expenses data for Mount Union as published by the CollegeData.com (the site is run by 1st Financial Bank USA), the difference between 2011 school enrollment numbers of 2,200 as compared to the 1,000-student enrollment in 1993, represents a difference of approximately $42 million more in total gross revenue. Furthermore, those numbers are strictly enrollment related and tied to student tuition and expenses. They do not factor in revenue generated by the football program or financial help the school receives from alumni and boosters. In other words, Mount Union's success is a big deal in every sense of the word.

It's impossible to quantify just what sort of impact that Mount Union's success on the football field – and the national exposure it derives from being an annual college football powerhouse – has had on school enrollment. Or whether there is a tangible correlation between winning football championships and the growth in student numbers. In fact, it would be completely unscientific and inaccurate to attach a "cause-and-effect label" on Mount Union's football success as tied to growth in school enrollment.

But that being said, winning championships, running a clean program, playing games on ESPN, building a rabid Raider fan-base in football hungry Ohio, having former Mount Union players become big-names in the NFL (think Pierre Garcon in 2010 Super Bowl) and earning national notoriety in college football year-in and year out, can't hurt school enrollment numbers, right?

DIDN'T HURT
Kehres, who's also Mount Union's athletic director and a 9-time AFCA Coach of the Year award winner, as being a former AFCA President (who completed his term in 2010), deflects personal credit for the growth in school enrollment and dismisses any insinuated correlation as doing the school administration and school's marketing efforts to recruit new students a severe disservice.
"Mount Union has worked hard to grow the school on its own. We've added new academic programs, built new facilities and raised lots of money," says Kehres. "Just because we won some football championships is not the reason we've done that ... but it certainly didn't hurt."
Rather than a recruiting tool, PR machine or a revenue generator, the true role of a football program, according to Kehres, is to serve as a reflection of the school's big-picture mission statement for educating and preparing students for future success in life, and to cultivate positive, productive members of society.

"If your football program is helping student-athletes to become effective professionals and effective family members, then you are helping your institution achieve its mission," says Kehres. "The degrees to which an institution can demonstrate that it is achieving its mission, offers proof to potential students that the school is a good place to receive an education and that's when the school's enrollment numbers truly begin to rise. As a football program, we're simply a component part of the big picture of the academic institution and we need to remember that."

BE IN LOCK STEP
Kehres adds that football coaches must get in line with the mission and values of their institution. "My job as the athletic director and football coach is to contribute positively to my school's mission statement," he says. "Winning games is one way to do it. But if you're winning games, yet not producing successful graduates, then you're not really contributing to the mission statement of your institution. Whenever you hear of a big-time football program that gets into some sort of trouble, you invariably hear someone say that the program needs to get back into line with the guidelines of the institution."

So then what happens if a football program perfectly mirrors the mission statement of the school and continuously displays a high standard of excellence on the gridiron? Things like Mount Union happen. And that, my friends, is called a win-win scenario.

[theaprof]

We found out some interesting information this afternoon at a faculty meeting.  The Federal government has mandated that all students, at all institutions that receive federal funds (colleges, universities, business schools, for-profit colleges, trade schools, etc.), must now pass at least 2/3 of all attempted classes in a given school year to maintain their federal financial aid (Pell grants, Stafford Loans, Federal work study, etc.) for the following year. 

All courses dropped after the second week of the semester are counted as attempted but "not passed". 

This means that if a student takes 5 classes in the fall semester drops one and fails one, then takes 6 classes in the spring (hoping to make up for the F in the fall semester), drops one and fails another they will have only passed 7 of 11 classes attempted (63.6%).  They will therefore lose all of their federal financial aid for the following year--even if they got B's in all of the classes they did pass.  As far as the school is concerned they passed 7 of 9 classes and would have a 2.33 gpa for the year.  But the feds would still take away their federal financial aid for the next year. 

Summer classes that are sometimes taken to assure satisfactory academic progress (or to pull up a flagging gpa) would not count for the calculations for federal financial aid because they were not taken during the academic year (defined by the Feds as the two consecutive semesters (or three consecutive terms for schools on quarters) following enrollment).

This resets every academic year, so even if they had passed all of their classes for their freshman and sophomore years, but had a bad junior year (or had to withdraw from some courses for health reasons) they could still lose their federal aid for their senior year.  There is an appeals process, but it is pretty strictly limited to things like a death in the immediate family and things like that.

Thanks to all of the "for profit" business schools, diploma mills, and any other institution that abuses the federal financial aid system for this new law that took effect this year.  I wonder how many of our students will be affected by this new law?

[Mr. Ypsi]

theaprof, wow, that is pretty draconian if the appeals process is really that strait-laced.

I taught my whole career at a school where students very often came from rather uncertain backgrounds (Eastern Michigan).  I often had students drop out later than the second week for reasons that I found (usually) quite reasonable (some, of course, just saw the handwriting on the wall and preferred a W to an E), but would fall far short of a death in the immediate family - things like an unplanned pregnancy, loss of job by a parent, etc., which required greatly increasing their work hours.  (For that matter, it was sometimes an unyielding boss simply changing their work hours to a class conflict, and they could not afford to lose the job.)  In fact, I often counseled overly stressed students in over their heads for whatever reasons to drop a class or two (sometimes mine, often some other); since a majority of my students (and probably a large majority of the students in trouble) were on FA, I'm kinda glad I'm now retired!

I will cross my fingers that the appeals boards are actually a bit more humane than described.