FB: Ohio Athletic Conference

[J3FB2BB]

A)  I try not to get ahead of myself when spitting out my opinions.  If I had my druthers Mount would win every game, every year by 100.  Fact is EVERYONE comes to play against Mount.  They bring their best.  Whether they have a shot at winning or not.
B)  BW is/was an underperforming team this year.  Alma was better than expected so that wasn't terrible.  They only lost to JCU by 4 and by 2 to Mount.  They are well coached, they have good athletes, and they always hit hard.  Ain't no shame in playing a close game with them
C)  We finished 10-0 for the 31st time (or something), we captured a #1 seed in the tourney, and probably home field as long as we win. 

Since this is basically the default MTU fan board, I hope there will be some honest reflection on CaptainRed81's thoughts as well as a few other's on here who put down their purple colored glasses. First a quick correction to the Captain's otherwise valid points. BW was underperforming on the year? They played for a share of the championship for the first time in over 20 years. Yes their offense struggled at times, particularly early in the year, but they have a tough defense and hung in for their offense to come back in 5 games where they were down by as many as double digits. They lost to undefeated and #25 Mt St Joes, after taking the lead late, on almost the exact type of fluke tipped ball as the Mount play, just not on the final play. They lost to JCU by 14, not 4, a game that was much closer than the 14. So to Captain Red's point they were a talented, somewhat inconsistent team that was two fluke plays from being 9-1 and most likely in the playoffs. Yeah, I know "if Ifs and Buts were candy and nuts".

But (speaking of buts), the fact is that the top teams in the OAC are not overwhelmed by Mount anymore. And certainly not the perennial top 25 powers either. Champions find a way and MTU did on Saturday, but it wasn't because of their superior coaching, talent or skill level. The "boink" was a once in a lifetime freak play, as admitted as much by Coach Kehres himself, who said and I'm paraphrasing - the single craziest play in his 55 years at Mount, mostly because the ball was so woefully under thrown (by at least 15 yards).  More telling though was the fact that after their opening drive TD, Mount never took control or was dominant on either side of the ball in the first half. BW was stout on D for the remainder of the half and hurt themselves with the late turnover and miscommunications on some third downs when they were otherwise moving the ball each series. In the second half, I was frankly shocked that Mount seemed to play not to lose. BW outplayed them on both offense and defense. BW probably should've had another TD earlier in the third after a long drive, when the ball sailed a little allowing the weak side safety to make a pick in the end zone. If you saw the game and are even somewhat honest, you would acknowledge that yes MTU had the edge statistically, but BW was the better team for most of the game. Mount has been great for 30 years and with that comes some luck. Enjoy it, but realize that nothing lasts forever and this is not the national dynasty it was. JCU and BW aren't dropping off in the near future and you should be glad that it should help make every team in the league stronger.

One final thought, you can take all the pot shots you want at BW fans, but the fact is that nobody in the conference has better fan support. Their attendance is double the next closest school. There were 4400 (supplemented by maybe a hundred MTU faithful) on Saturday in cold wet weather. Mount is 13 X national champs and can't average even 2,000 per game. But still a tad better than the Men Of Carroll. Where the hell are all these MOC? Certainly not at football games. BW has outdrawn JCU at Shula probably the last three times they've travelled over there. A ranked team, with a playoff chance on Senior Day and JCU had all of 1000 people show up. Winless Capital drew almost twice as many for their finale. Pathetic.

Good luck in the playoffs, I'm sincere and will root for the OAC champs, but Mount may need it after the first round.
 

[WRMUalum13]

A)  I try not to get ahead of myself when spitting out my opinions.  If I had my druthers Mount would win every game, every year by 100.  Fact is EVERYONE comes to play against Mount.  They bring their best.  Whether they have a shot at winning or not.
B)  BW is/was an underperforming team this year.  Alma was better than expected so that wasn't terrible.  They only lost to JCU by 4 and by 2 to Mount.  They are well coached, they have good athletes, and they always hit hard.  Ain't no shame in playing a close game with them
C)  We finished 10-0 for the 31st time (or something), we captured a #1 seed in the tourney, and probably home field as long as we win. 

Since this is basically the default MTU fan board, I hope there will be some honest reflection on CaptainRed81's thoughts as well as a few other's on here who put down their purple colored glasses. First a quick correction to the Captain's otherwise valid points. BW was underperforming on the year? They played for a share of the championship for the first time in over 20 years. Yes their offense struggled at times, particularly early in the year, but they have a tough defense and hung in for their offense to come back in 5 games where they were down by as many as double digits. They lost to undefeated and #25 Mt St Joes, after taking the lead late, on almost the exact type of fluke tipped ball as the Mount play, just not on the final play. They lost to JCU by 14, not 4, a game that was much closer than the 14. So to Captain Red's point they were a talented, somewhat inconsistent team that was two fluke plays from being 9-1 and most likely in the playoffs. Yeah, I know "if Ifs and Buts were candy and nuts".

But (speaking of buts), the fact is that the top teams in the OAC are not overwhelmed by Mount anymore. And certainly not the perennial top 25 powers either. Champions find a way and MTU did on Saturday, but it wasn't because of their superior coaching, talent or skill level. The "boink" was a once in a lifetime freak play, as admitted as much by Coach Kehres himself, who said and I'm paraphrasing - the single craziest play in his 55 years at Mount, mostly because the ball was so woefully under thrown (by at least 15 yards).  More telling though was the fact that after their opening drive TD, Mount never took control or was dominant on either side of the ball in the first half. BW was stout on D for the remainder of the half and hurt themselves with the late turnover and miscommunications on some third downs when they were otherwise moving the ball each series. In the second half, I was frankly shocked that Mount seemed to play not to lose. BW outplayed them on both offense and defense. BW probably should've had another TD earlier in the third after a long drive, when the ball sailed a little allowing the weak side safety to make a pick in the end zone. If you saw the game and are even somewhat honest, you would acknowledge that yes MTU had the edge statistically, but BW was the better team for most of the game. Mount has been great for 30 years and with that comes some luck. Enjoy it, but realize that nothing lasts forever and this is not the national dynasty it was. JCU and BW aren't dropping off in the near future and you should be glad that it should help make every team in the league stronger.

One final thought, you can take all the pot shots you want at BW fans, but the fact is that nobody in the conference has better fan support. Their attendance is double the next closest school. There were 4400 (supplemented by maybe a hundred MTU faithful) on Saturday in cold wet weather. Mount is 13 X national champs and can't average even 2,000 per game. But still a tad better than the Men Of Carroll. Where the hell are all these MOC? Certainly not at football games. BW has outdrawn JCU at Shula probably the last three times they've travelled over there. A ranked team, with a playoff chance on Senior Day and JCU had all of 1000 people show up. Winless Capital drew almost twice as many for their finale. Pathetic.

Good luck in the playoffs, I'm sincere and will root for the OAC champs, but Mount may need it after the first round.

Hey now Mount averaged 2100 in attendance last year!

[Kira & Jaxon's Dad]

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then.  Almost happened for the Flaming Pile of Mediocrity last weekend.  Here's to another 32 years of domination.

[bluestreak66]

A)  I try not to get ahead of myself when spitting out my opinions.  If I had my druthers Mount would win every game, every year by 100.  Fact is EVERYONE comes to play against Mount.  They bring their best.  Whether they have a shot at winning or not.
B)  BW is/was an underperforming team this year.  Alma was better than expected so that wasn't terrible.  They only lost to JCU by 4 and by 2 to Mount.  They are well coached, they have good athletes, and they always hit hard.  Ain't no shame in playing a close game with them
C)  We finished 10-0 for the 31st time (or something), we captured a #1 seed in the tourney, and probably home field as long as we win. 

Since this is basically the default MTU fan board, I hope there will be some honest reflection on CaptainRed81's thoughts as well as a few other's on here who put down their purple colored glasses. First a quick correction to the Captain's otherwise valid points. BW was underperforming on the year? They played for a share of the championship for the first time in over 20 years. Yes their offense struggled at times, particularly early in the year, but they have a tough defense and hung in for their offense to come back in 5 games where they were down by as many as double digits. They lost to undefeated and #25 Mt St Joes, after taking the lead late, on almost the exact type of fluke tipped ball as the Mount play, just not on the final play. They lost to JCU by 14, not 4, a game that was much closer than the 14. So to Captain Red's point they were a talented, somewhat inconsistent team that was two fluke plays from being 9-1 and most likely in the playoffs. Yeah, I know "if Ifs and Buts were candy and nuts".

But (speaking of buts), the fact is that the top teams in the OAC are not overwhelmed by Mount anymore. And certainly not the perennial top 25 powers either. Champions find a way and MTU did on Saturday, but it wasn't because of their superior coaching, talent or skill level. The "boink" was a once in a lifetime freak play, as admitted as much by Coach Kehres himself, who said and I'm paraphrasing - the single craziest play in his 55 years at Mount, mostly because the ball was so woefully under thrown (by at least 15 yards).  More telling though was the fact that after their opening drive TD, Mount never took control or was dominant on either side of the ball in the first half. BW was stout on D for the remainder of the half and hurt themselves with the late turnover and miscommunications on some third downs when they were otherwise moving the ball each series. In the second half, I was frankly shocked that Mount seemed to play not to lose. BW outplayed them on both offense and defense. BW probably should've had another TD earlier in the third after a long drive, when the ball sailed a little allowing the weak side safety to make a pick in the end zone. If you saw the game and are even somewhat honest, you would acknowledge that yes MTU had the edge statistically, but BW was the better team for most of the game. Mount has been great for 30 years and with that comes some luck. Enjoy it, but realize that nothing lasts forever and this is not the national dynasty it was. JCU and BW aren't dropping off in the near future and you should be glad that it should help make every team in the league stronger.

One final thought, you can take all the pot shots you want at BW fans, but the fact is that nobody in the conference has better fan support. Their attendance is double the next closest school. There were 4400 (supplemented by maybe a hundred MTU faithful) on Saturday in cold wet weather. Mount is 13 X national champs and can't average even 2,000 per game. But still a tad better than the Men Of Carroll. Where the hell are all these MOC? Certainly not at football games. BW has outdrawn JCU at Shula probably the last three times they've travelled over there. A ranked team, with a playoff chance on Senior Day and JCU had all of 1000 people show up. Winless Capital drew almost twice as many for their finale. Pathetic.

Good luck in the playoffs, I'm sincere and will root for the OAC champs, but Mount may need it after the first round.

I respectfully disagree with this point. The fact that this year's BW was playing for a share of the OAC championship seems more like a fluke than anything. Look at some of their games:

1 point win over 3-7 Wilmington
4 point win over 3-7 Ohio Northern
1 possession loss to Mt. St. Joseph, who while undefeated, had similar results against 2-8 Alfred and 4-6 Franklin.

Admittedly, BW did seem to improve as the year went on, this still feels like a game past Mount teams would have won by a comfortable margin.

As a non Mount fan but someone who obviously closely follows OAC football, i personally get the feeling that things are changing. I would never assume Mount is about to fall way back. I don't see any 7-3 seasons in their future. But I do think the complete domination they've enjoyed for the past 3 decades or so is done.

With Larry Kehres, they were literally an unstoppable force. When his son took over, they still dominated, but it seemed as though there were teams on a national level that had caught up.

Under Dartt, maybe they took other step back to the pack.

My concern for Mount is how this will translate in the playoffs. Their last two games were close wins over a team that lost to the conference champ in one of the weaker conferences, and a team that lost to the runner up in a mid-level conference. How will that translate against Salisbury? The NJAC obviously had a down year, so I suspect Mount should find a way to win. It'll be very interesting to see that potential second round with Susquehanna though. By the end of that game, we'll probably know much better about the kind of team Mount is.

I do wish Mount well in the playoffs though! I've always thought that having a team of that caliber does help the conference as a whole. And maybe discussing the demise of Mount is too hasty.

We'll know that for sure in the next few weeks

[D3fanboy]

the problem is that Mount is still dominating the OAC.  Both the JCU and BW games were 3 score games in the 4th quarter, only to need a last minute/sec play to get the W.  Kudos to both of those teams for continuing to fight, but a team with National Championship expectations should not simply shut down.  It showed up first against Capital and we dismissed it as a team losing focus with a large lead, but it nearly cost Mount the past two weeks.  Hopefully the miraculous win on Saturday can build some momentum and the team can right the ship.  They have the ability to make a Stagg run, but something has been missing over the past month

[hsbsballcoach7]

I was curious what that 2015 team looked like talent wise and rewatched some of the UWW game. Dartt was the OC and they even mentioned that he liked to create "conflict of assignment" for the defense. IMO, this is what needs to be brought back, but maybe it doesn't fit the talent scheme wise. It also doesn't hurt to catch the balls that are there for easy first downs. I'm not a coach, so I don't see the everyday practices though. I think the defense is in a good place, but can't continously be put it tough situations and expect to shut teams out.

[WRMUalum13]

Yeah I mean Dartt coached some really good mount union offenses. 2014 was my favorite but 2015 was probably a bit better.

I just don't think 2021-2022 mount offenses are at the same level of creativity or unpredictability. They mostly seem like a west coast offense.

Honestly I thought the zone read rushing schemes were a perfect fit for the type of athletes mount has. I understand Plunk isn't really a runner but I think taking away the QB run threat just makes this such an easier team to defend

[s e 76]

Dart is 25 and 1 and they need changes

[Kira & Jaxon's Dad]

Dart is 25 and 1 and they need changes

Some of us are a bit spoiled over here.  LOL

I would like to see some more Read/Option with Plunk.  He's not a statue back there and it would help with the Run Game and also RPO options.

[WRMUalum13]

Dart is 25 and 1 and they need changes

Dartt is 25 and 1 and his team failed to advance to the national championship last year

Every fan base adjusts expectations accordingly and the expectation over here is to make it to Salem the Stagg Bowl. North Central and UMHB aren't going to view these seasons as successes unless  they make the title game and neither do we.

I'm Happy that we're OAC champs and undefeated, but it doesn't mean it's time to kick back and declare this a successful year.

[Desertraider]

As happens from time to time - sometimes coaches just forget the plan. Maybe Coach Dartt forgot the plan? I was doing what I often do before the playoffs begin the other night: looking for video on an unknown opponent. In this case the Seagulls (Is that really the mascot? Gotta love D3!). However, I quickly found that...well there isn't much out there. So I did the next best thing something way better and watched some previous Mount teams. I rewatched the 12-0 triumph over UMHB with Justin Hill's miracle catch, Lou Berry's blatant beat down theft against JCU, and my favorite recent game: the 2015 Semi-final against UWWWWWWWWW (Logan goes full on beast mode).

Thing is in the UW game the announcers were talking about the meetings during the week with the coaches and coordinators. Michael Reghi was talking about a RPO with Taurice Scott and he said that Taurice could "hand it here, run it, throw to outlet, or throw here" (all on the same side of the field). And then he said "Coach Dartt calls this 'conflict of assignment'". He continued, "We try to have that on every play because it makes the defense think about their assignment and when they think they play slow".

Attention Coach Dartt (in case you forgot): THERE IS NO CONFLICT IN THESE PLAYS!

I am going to the game on Saturday with a friend who has never been to a game. I hope to see some "conflict" other than I'm a vegetarian, but the sausage and bacon really look good

Roll Raiders ~ Roll!

BTW - The catch by Ruby was karma for BW celebrating with the "camera" scoreboard thing. Sorry but when you have lost (what is it 26 in a row?) you don't celebrate until the clock reads 00:00. That also includes running through pregame exercises (a few years back) or the "tunnel altercation" in pregame before that one, or ridiculous unsportsmanlike conduct penalties, or the equipment thrown on the field to protest a call (at Mount...wow like 10 years ago?) or, or, or, or. BW always seems to do "BW things". Fine, but I like it when Mount does MOUNT THINGS that lead to MOUNT RINGS.

Go Everybody -

[D3fanboy]

and here I thought Mount was disappointing, at least we're not a Wisconsin school....

not a bad showing by the Raiders today, keep it rolling

[hsbsballcoach7]

and here I thought Mount was disappointing, at least we're not a Wisconsin school....

not a bad showing by the Raiders today, keep it rolling

And this is why you always hear coaches say they want to be 1-0 each week! Wow,  what a Saturday! UWW and UWL go down!

Mount looked much more prepared scheme wise and play calls flowed well. I like Echelverry at RB. He's a nice change of pace and must be gaining more trust with the staff. Ruby looked more fluid as well. Gets to being healthy, winning and moving onto round 2!

[Raider 68]

Very good 1st round win for the Raiders:

- they were sharp today, the O line looked better than previous games
- the play calling improve and Tyler #25 looked very quick
- Plunk and Ruby had great games.

Next up is Utica, not sure if they have ever been to Alliance.

[Desertraider]

A win is a win. Win and advance as they say. However I thought the plays were coming in late. Mount burned a couple timeouts with a play clock at 3, 2... When the QB is looking at sidelines with 10 seconds on the clock that isn't good. Run game looked better...mostly because Plunk pulled it down and ran it a few times. More later. My fingers have not thawed out yet.

Btw..I know Utica is the Pioneers but there mascot seems to be a Moose unlike the Pioneer that the Pios use. I'm just going to call them the Mooses.