FB: Ohio Athletic Conference

[Kira & Jaxon's Dad]

My God, I'm a freaking engineering!   Being able to spell is completely optional in my happy little world.  And I like it that way.

Not sure the proper English to say this, but I was honestly looking forward to hearing P-Suit's great analysis of how JCU was lucky to be within 30 points of Mount.   It's been a rough day at the office and I could use a little humor.

You're a "freaking engineering!?"   

[Craft_Beermeister]

Purplesuit,
I ask this question w all respect to you as a person- why are you so filled with anger?

I'm sure you're a decent person- you don't need to be so harsh in order to make your point.

Fwiw- I think some of your football opinions have merit, but it would be great if you would ease off a bit on personal attacks.

+1

[SaintsFAN]

My God, I'm a freaking engineering!   Being able to spell is completely optional in my happy little world.  And I like it that way.

Not sure the proper English to say this, but I was honestly looking forward to hearing P-Suit's great analysis of how JCU was lucky to be within 30 points of Mount.   It's been a rough day at the office and I could use a little humor.

You're a "freaking engineering!?"   

I know, right?  I think he wore his old glasses to work today.

[Mr. Ypsi]

PurpleSuit - You castigated HS coach with the following:  "you can hardly wait, or can't hardly wait?   not a Mount english major. . . I'm guessing"

And I'm guessing you are not/were not, either, else you would have written something like:  "You can hardly wait, or can't hardly wait?  Not a Mount English major . . . I'm guessing."

Notice your missing capitalization of three words that should have been capitalized.  Please also note that you neglected to place a period at the end of your final sentence.

(People in glass houses and all that, eh?)

To me, the funniest part about this exchange is that HScoach was right in the first place, and PurpleSuit's 'correction' was wrong!  While both phrasings can be heard, the grammatically (and logically) correct phrase is 'can hardly wait'.

[ExTartanPlayer]

My God, I'm a freaking engineering!   Being able to spell is completely optional in my happy little world.  And I like it that way.

Not sure the proper English to say this, but I was honestly looking forward to hearing P-Suit's great analysis of how JCU was lucky to be within 30 points of Mount.   It's been a rough day at the office and I could use a little humor.

You're a "freaking engineering!?"   

I know, right?  I think he wore his old glasses to work today.

He oughta fix the spell check on his typewriter.

[formerd3db]

As someone with a sister, father and grandfather that are engineers I can confirm with complete certainty that proper spelling is not required for the profession.  Some of my sister's papers that I proof read in college...yikes.  She had the last laugh when I was in Calculus though.  That was ugly.   

PurpleSuit - You castigated HS coach with the following:  "you can hardly wait, or can't hardly wait?   not a Mount english major. . . I'm guessing"

And I'm guessing you are not/were not, either, else you would have written something like:  "You can hardly wait, or can't hardly wait?  Not a Mount English major . . . I'm guessing

No. I think he was admitting to not being an English Major and was stating that he was guessing.

In my profession,  you don't need to know how to spell the words correctly because you can't read them-all you have to do is make it look "right" in the penmanship!   Up until recently, we didn't even have Spell Check, however, that is now changing with the EMR requirements!

[Craft_Beermeister]

Former Mount Union star wide receiver Mike Sirianni returns to Alliance Saturday as coach of Washington and Jefferson.  The two teams have a fair amount of familiarity in that they last meet in a scrimmage  back in August.

Mike played on Mount's first championship in 1993 and was a coaching assistance for Mount Union in 1996 & 1997.  LK help Mike get a coaching job at Washington and Jefferson which later led to Mike being promoted to head coach. 

W&J had a 4-0 record against Mount Union when they meet in the first round of the 2009 playoffs where Mount Union was up 41-0 on way to a 55-0 win.

I think the Beermeister had too much ale before posting this...   

Pops I celebrated Mount's win Saturday night with several excellent Belgium ales.

CB

[jaypeter]

-The Mt bracket.  Johns Hopkins, the #2 and Hobart are in the same category- great record but who did they play.  Mt put 55 up on Johns Hopkins last year- that's the #2 team in the Mt bracket.   Perhaps Wesley will show they are back to national contender form.  My darkhorse for the Mt bracket is Wittenberg. 

Curious what you mean by the darkhorse for the bracket being Wittenberg.  Do you mean darkhorse as in they could could make a deep run in the bracket or darkhorse meaning they could give Mount a challenge in the second round? 

I could see them pushing Mount Union harder than most teams have historically done in the second round, but I'm not ready to buy Mount going out that early.  Had you asked me to say that in the first couple weeks of the season, I wouldn't be that confident.  But the team has really come together over the past month or so and I'm grateful that they've had two big games heading into the playoffs with Heidelberg and John Carroll. 

Without those two games in the regular season and the relative experience of the team as a whole, I could have seen this being a year where Mount hadn't been challenged and didn't know how to respond when someone stood toe-to-toe with them.  I think they've learned that here at the close of the season.

I predict Mount heading back to Salem, but for some reason I can't seem to go all-in on the defense yet.  It seems like they have been unable to get that knock-out blow to ice a game before the last few minutes and teams can get back into a game.  Franklin, Heidelberg, and John Carroll could have all been less exciting games if the defense had come up with a timely stop or turnover in the third quarters or even early fourth quarters.  Amazing to think that's my concern given the state of things at the beginning of the year! 

I'm left now saying the team can score with anybody, but wondering if another team will be able to come up with that crucial stop against Mount, instead of Mount coming up with that crucial stop.  Maybe I'm getting caught up in comparing Mount Union present to Mount Union past and not to other teams.

[Kira & Jaxon's Dad]

Question for those who saw the MTU vs. JCU game.

Did Mount Union go vanilla in the second half on Offense as they had the game in hand, or did JCU make adjustments to shut down (as much as giving two more TDs is shutting down) the offense?

I believe LK was apt to not show too much on offense towards the end of the season so playoff opponents had less to work with, so I am wondering if that tradition continued.  Harder to do this year with Heidelberg, BW, and JCU at the end of the season.

[mr_mom]

how can you tell if you've met an extroverted engineer??  If he looks at your shoes instead of his own when he's talking to you.

+k  I could have used that one in the office, today!

[wesleydad]

Question for those who saw the MTU vs. JCU game.

Did Mount Union go vanilla in the second half on Offense as they had the game in hand, or did JCU make adjustments to shut down (as much as giving two more TDs is shutting down) the offense?

I believe LK was apt to not show too much on offense towards the end of the season so playoff opponents had less to work with, so I am wondering if that tradition continued.  Harder to do this year with Heidelberg, BW, and JCU at the end of the season.

Kira, from my vantage point, it looked like Mount went conservative in the second half.  First drive Burke gets crushed on a blitz and fumbles.  Several more 2 runs, pass, and punts in the 3rd quarter, but they were still up 35 - 13.  JCU made some stops in the 4th when Mount was trying to ice the game.  If they went vanilla then they were lucky to get out with a win as JCU could have just as easily scored at the end of the game and with the 2 pt conversion send it into OT.  Despite the score in the first half, the game was pretty close.  JCU actually had more scoring opportunities than Mount did.

[HScoach]

My God, I'm a freaking engineering!   Being able to spell is completely optional in my happy little world.  And I like it that way.

Not sure the proper English to say this, but I was honestly looking forward to hearing P-Suit's great analysis of how JCU was lucky to be within 30 points of Mount.   It's been a rough day at the office and I could use a little humor.

You're a "freaking engineering!?"   

Exactly!  Numbers are my friend.   Words?  Not so much.

[HScoach]

Fingers that are faster than my brain combined with auto-correct doesn't help either.   Oh well.   At least I can fall back on the fact that I have the perfect face for radio.

[bleedpurple]

Question for those who saw the MTU vs. JCU game.

Did Mount Union go vanilla in the second half on Offense as they had the game in hand, or did JCU make adjustments to shut down (as much as giving two more TDs is shutting down) the offense?

I believe LK was apt to not show too much on offense towards the end of the season so playoff opponents had less to work with, so I am wondering if that tradition continued.  Harder to do this year with Heidelberg, BW, and JCU at the end of the season.

Kira, from my vantage point, it looked like Mount went conservative in the second half.  First drive Burke gets crushed on a blitz and fumbles.  Several more 2 runs, pass, and punts in the 3rd quarter, but they were still up 35 - 13.  JCU made some stops in the 4th when Mount was trying to ice the game.  If they went vanilla then they were lucky to get out with a win as JCU could have just as easily scored at the end of the game and with the 2 pt conversion send it into OT.  Despite the score in the first half, the game was pretty close.  JCU actually had more scoring opportunities than Mount did.

From my experience, going conservative is a strategy used by a coach that has faith in his defense to protect a lead, even at the cost of not increasing that lead. It is sort of a "we are going to win if we don't screw it up" mentality.  Fans understandably hate it, but at the end of the day, if that is what happened, it worked. Getting the W is the only thing that mattered for Mount.  Sometimes it backfires. It sounds like if things broke differently, it could have. However, if we play the "if" game, then we have to give VK credit, too. If they take more chances and DO turn the ball over, things may not have ended well. The game did end well for Mount. 

As far as not showing too much on offense, an interview I heard with Andy Kotelnicki (UW'W's new offensive coordinator) opened my eyes to that a little bit. With Mount being a high level program, I'm sure what he said applies to them as well.  The coaches pick a set of plays based on the tendencies of the opponent. The set of plays include the initial script, but a variety of plays that anticipate variances and adjustments that the opponent's defenses may throw at UW-W. They get the offense well versed in the entire group of plays. And then they will be prepared to adjust as the game goes on. He said two things are very impressive (with UW-W's kids, so I'm sure with Mount's as well). One is that during a game a coach can say "do  you remember what Stout threw at us a few weeks ago? That's what they are doing. Do you remember these plays/adjustments?" The kids have great recall and make the adjustment quickly and usually execute it really well.  The second thing he said is that the kids are great at getting new variations and plays each week and executing them with precision by Saturday. 

All that to say, I have no doubt Mount, UW-W, and most other teams have things "in the playbook" we haven't seen yet. It sounds like there are so many changes to routes and schemes,even within the formations they have used all year, that bringing something different in the playoffs doesn't even require much "holding back". It sounds like they could never get to all the things they've got if they played 20 games.

[Raider 68]

Question for those who saw the MTU vs. JCU game.

Did Mount Union go vanilla in the second half on Offense as they had the game in hand, or did JCU make adjustments to shut down (as much as giving two more TDs is shutting down) the offense?

I believe LK was apt to not show too much on offense towards the end of the season so playoff opponents had less to work with, so I am wondering if that tradition continued.  Harder to do this year with Heidelberg, BW, and JCU at the end of the season.

Kira & Jaxon's Dad,

I was at the game, I did think the play calling and approach became conservative. With Mount up
by 22 at one point, it seemed, as Wesleydad pointed out, that the Raiders wanted to ice the game.
I felt the same about  the B-W game. Give credit to a quick scoring JCU team that took advantage
to get back in the game.

Going into the game I thought the Raiders were at a line of 14 points, and for the
most part of the game that was the case. My concern in the playoffs, is that they
cannot afford to back off the game plan of taking advantage of their offense, given the
defense while very good is not at the same level of previous Raider teams. They
have defensed a great running offense in Heidelberg and faced a top passing
offense in JCU, but have yet to face a top running and passing offense.

IMHO, it is likely that that top offensive combination offense will not come to Alliance until the semi's.
I have reviewed all the stats for Wittenberg and they are impressive, but then I looked
at who they played and have to say those teams were not the same caliber as Franklin,
Heidelberg and JCU. At this point however, the focus must be on W & J and the fact they
are playing well going into the playoffs.