FB: Presidents' Athletic Conference

[WRMUalum13]

ExTartan, nice writeup.

Agreed on Thiel, who has seemingly been the biggest surprise as it relates to preseason projections.  Although being 0-2, to be 2-3 scores away for both Westminster and Case Western Reserve is certainly worth taking a second look.   That Bethany game will be the first real litmus test to see if they have in fact turned the corner.

I've followed Thiel since 2021, and  the biggest difference between this year's team and past squads is their ages. This year all the starters except 1 or 2 are upperclassmen where in 2021 most of the starters where freshmen and sophomores. From what I've heard that's been the major issue in recent years. It's very difficult to win with 18-19-year-olds in college football.

I've been very impressed with the coaching staff's ability to retain players.

[ADL70]

A couple of cliches come to mind for the Spartans. The positive one is that teams improve most between game one and game two. Is that even more likely if the is an open date between the two? The other is, when you have two QBs, you have none.

Against Thiel, both QBs were sub par. Fromberg really showed nothing, while Kipp had some positives, two long runs and two TD passed, but had two ints.

Since both QBs had to scramble often and the team only averaged 3.2 yds/rush, the OL has to bear some of the responsibility. Due to an injury to Thivener, three SO linemen made their first ever starts. Thivener is shown as starting in the Game Notes, so that should help as hopefully two weeks of practice will.

[E.115]

I do not want to jinx it for Thiel, but they are currently up in the 4th ... with a 16 to 5 first down differential stat!

https://thielathletics.com/sidearmstats/football/summary;team=away

[WashJeff68]

W&J scorched Westminster today 49-3. As the score suggests W&J dominated both sides of the ball with a well balanced offense and a swarming defense. In the first three games they have outscored their opponents 141-10.
Still have CWRU, CMU and Grove City left, but Sirianni and his staff have this machine running on all cylinders

[ADL70]

I do not want to jinx it for Thiel, but they are currently up in the 4th ... with a 16 to 5 first down differential stat!

https://thielathletics.com/sidearmstats/football/summary;team=away

Thiel got the W 22-14. Bethany was the only W they had last season.

[WRMUalum13]

I do not want to jinx it for Thiel, but they are currently up in the 4th ... with a 16 to 5 first down differential stat!

https://thielathletics.com/sidearmstats/football/summary;team=away

Thiel got the W 22-14. Bethany was the only W they had last season.

Our new coach now has more Ws at Thiel in his first two seasons than the previous 4 combined. Big test will be to see if we can beat an opponent besides Bethany. The Defense is probably above average for our conference but we just can't seem to get much going on offense.

[mikefln]

Exciting week of football.  PAC Games that I watched On Demand were W&J vs Westminster and Allegheny vs St Vincent. I watched a few D1 games and Slippery Rock on demand also.  Still deciding what I watched with Pitt vs WVU.  I feel confident in saying that every PAC QB could have done better than Phil did for Pitt.  Not sure how someone so talented and good can be so bad within 2 seasons. 

Anyways the focus of the week needs to be on Special Teams. Westminster got behind due to special teams.  Not saying they would have been able to handle W&J otherwise, but it was Special Teams that started the downward spiral.  There were also big Special Team plays in that St Vincent and in the PSAC world the Slippery Rock game also.  Coaches need to put more focus there.  I have no sympathy for coaches who do not put the needed focus there.

My Power Rankings after week 3 -A few minor changes.

1) CMU - Still at the top, 1st test of the season this coming week.
2) W&J- Handled business against a solid Westminster team.
3) Grove City- They are making this a 3-team race. Huge game for them this week against CMU
4) Case- Close lost to a team who is clearly in the top 3 in the conference.
5) Westminster- A tough loss.  I think they are better than the score showed. 
6)  Geneva- Off this week.
7) Allegheny- Lost to Theil which is worse than any of Waynesburg's loses but they beat Waynesburg and Waynesburg is winless.
8) Waynesburg- Despite being winless, they lost to 2 of the 3 best teams and that Allegheny game was down to the wire.  They are scrappy and I think they will be a middle of the pack team when it is all said and done. This week will tell a lot about them.
9) SVC- A nice win against a decent opponent in a hard-fought game.
10) Thiel- Nice win against Bethany
11)  Bethany- Tough season so far and I do not see them getting more than 1 win this season.

ATTENDANCE: taken from the box score of the PAC web site.

W&J Attendance: 3163
St Vincent Attendance: 1920
Carnegie Mellon Attendance: 913
Theil Attendance: 607
Case Western Reserve Attendance: 0 not sure why this is the reported number.

2023 Total attendance

Allegheny- 2281 (1 game)
Bethany- 1096 (1 game)
Carnegie Mellon- 2150 (2 game)
Case Western Reserve- 0 (1 game)
Geneva- 5155 (1 game)
Grove City- 5400 (1 game)
St. Vincent- 3250 (2 game)
Theil- 1453 (2 game)
W&J- 3163 (1 games)
Waynesburg- 1350 (2 games)
Westminster- 1727 (1 game)

[WRMUalum13]

Exciting week of football.  PAC Games that I watched On Demand were W&J vs Westminster and Allegheny vs St Vincent. I watched a few D1 games and Slippery Rock on demand also.  Still deciding what I watched with Pitt vs WVU.  I feel confident in saying that every PAC QB could have done better than Phil did for Pitt.  Not sure how someone so talented and good can be so bad within 2 seasons. 

Anyways the focus of the week needs to be on Special Teams. Westminster got behind due to special teams.  Not saying they would have been able to handle W&J otherwise, but it was Special Teams that started the downward spiral.  There were also big Special Team plays in that St Vincent and in the PSAC world the Slippery Rock game also.  Coaches need to put more focus there.  I have no sympathy for coaches who do not put the needed focus there.

My Power Rankings after week 3 -A few minor changes.

1) CMU - Still at the top, 1st test of the season this coming week.
2) W&J- Handled business against a solid Westminster team.
3) Grove City- They are making this a 3-team race. Huge game for them this week against CMU
4) Case- Close lost to a team who is clearly in the top 3 in the conference.
5) Westminster- A tough loss.  I think they are better than the score showed. 
6)  Geneva- Off this week.
7) Allegheny- Lost to Theil which is worse than any of Waynesburg's loses but they beat Waynesburg and Waynesburg is winless.
8) Waynesburg- Despite being winless, they lost to 2 of the 3 best teams and that Allegheny game was down to the wire.  They are scrappy and I think they will be a middle of the pack team when it is all said and done. This week will tell a lot about them.
9) SVC- A nice win against a decent opponent in a hard-fought game.
10) Thiel- Nice win against Bethany
11)  Bethany- Tough season so far and I do not see them getting more than 1 win this season.

ATTENDANCE: taken from the box score of the PAC web site.

W&J Attendance: 3163
St Vincent Attendance: 1920
Carnegie Mellon Attendance: 913
Theil Attendance: 607
Case Western Reserve Attendance: 0 not sure why this is the reported number.

2023 Total attendance

Allegheny- 2281 (1 game)
Bethany- 1096 (1 game)
Carnegie Mellon- 2150 (2 game)
Case Western Reserve- 0 (1 game)
Geneva- 5155 (1 game)
Grove City- 5400 (1 game)
St. Vincent- 3250 (2 game)
Theil- 1453 (2 game)
W&J- 3163 (1 games)
Waynesburg- 1350 (2 games)
Westminster- 1727 (1 game)

FYI Thiel hasn't played Allegheny yet.

[mikefln]

FYI Thiel hasn't played Allegheny yet.

I meant to say SVC, my bad

[ADL70]

I don't see GCC as a clear #3. The CWRU game was tied at the end of regulation.

I see big 2, middle 3, and bottom 6.

[ExTartanPlayer]

Happy for Thiel.  Hope they can nab another one or two this year.

Surprised by the big margin in W&J - Westminster game. The Presidents mean business.

Tartans have an excellent defense but I'd still like to see more consistency from the offense. Their defense will keep them in games against anyone, and I mean anyone, but I do worry about offense having enough juice to pull away from better teams.

CMU's Joey McGinnis IV continues his incredible streak as the "1 yard touchdown" specialist: 5 rushes, 6 yards, 5 touchdowns this season. Hope I haven't jinxed him by saying this...dating to last season he has 12 rushes for 14 yards and 10 touchdowns.

[mikefln]

I don't see GCC as a clear #3. The CWRU game was tied at the end of regulation.

I see big 2, middle 3, and bottom 6.

We will find out this Saturday if GCC are contenders or pretenders.  If they win or lose within 7, I will say they are contenders, if they lose by 2 or more TDs they are pretenders.  CWRU is a solid program and GCC played them away.  Finding a way to win is what good teams are supposed to do, so I do not fault them for going into OT against them.  If it was SVC/Thiel/Bethany, then I would agree with you.  Hell, South Florida just hung with Bama for 3 Qtrs and a final score of 17-3, I bet there is way more talent and coaching disparity between Bama and S FL then there is between the top 8 programs in the PAC. 

I guess I am just arguing schematics with you but I see it more like:

The Big 2, 1 TBD of Big 3 status or 3rd upper middle, 2 upper middle, 3 lower middle, then the bottom 3.

A lot of football left this season to work itself out, we never know who catches fire and who stops performing.  It will be fun see where everyone is when the dust settles.

[mikefln]

Surprised by the big margin in W&J - Westminster game. The Presidents mean business.

W&J was clearly the better team, but if you watched the game, they benefited by Westminster's bad special teams play early on in the game.  W&J would have won but it would not have been a blowout if the Titans eliminated those ST mistakes.   

CMU's Joey McGinnis IV continues his incredible streak as the "1 yard touchdown" specialist: 5 rushes, 6 yards, 5 touchdowns this season. Hope I haven't jinxed him by saying this...dating to last season he has 12 rushes for 14 yards and 10 touchdowns.

Those are 2 awesome stats. 

[E.115]

One thing that has not been mentioned, CWRU lost its Kent State-transfer, and local Mentor boy, QB Ian Kipp in the first quarter to a broken foot.  Like Nick Chubb...out for the season : (

https://www.news-herald.com/2023/09/16/case-western-reserve-loses-to-grove-city-qb-ian-kipp-breaks-foot-and-will-miss-the-season/

In Fromberg we trust.

[ExTartanPlayer]

I don't see GCC as a clear #3. The CWRU game was tied at the end of regulation.

I see big 2, middle 3, and bottom 6.

We will find out this Saturday if GCC are contenders or pretenders.  If they win or lose within 7, I will say they are contenders, if they lose by 2 or more TDs they are pretenders.  CWRU is a solid program and GCC played them away.  Finding a way to win is what good teams are supposed to do, so I do not fault them for going into OT against them.  If it was SVC/Thiel/Bethany, then I would agree with you.  Hell, South Florida just hung with Bama for 3 Qtrs and a final score of 17-3, I bet there is way more talent and coaching disparity between Bama and S FL then there is between the top 8 programs in the PAC. 

I guess I am just arguing schematics with you but I see it more like:

The Big 2, 1 TBD of Big 3 status or 3rd upper middle, 2 upper middle, 3 lower middle, then the bottom 3.

A lot of football left this season to work itself out, we never know who catches fire and who stops performing.  It will be fun see where everyone is when the dust settles.

Of course I hope CMU wins 62-3, but until then count me firmly in Grove City are contenders camp.  GCC has been very solid the last five years and has played several close ones with the other top dogs in the league.  Heck, Grove City beat CMU in 2021 when CMU was the conference champ.  Really amazing how quickly DiDonato turned that program around and has placed them on firm footing.  If you look at Grove City 2018-2022, it looks a lot like CMU's rise that started in 2015.  Once you're firmly entrenched with winning seasons every year and 7-8 wins being the baseline, it's just a matter of whether you can take that final step to the top.