FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Pat Coleman]

96,

Rowan played a Top 25-ranked team.
W&J played a team we ranked 193.

[Ryan Tipps]

I know Rowan had 600 and something yards but only scored 21 pts and W & J won their game 42 -0. How does this justify Rowan going from being ranked 7 and moving up to 6 and W & J dropping to 7th. In my book winning 42 zip is a good case to keep your spot.

Rowan played a Top 25-ranked team.
W&J played a team we ranked 193.

This is an offshoot of a scenerio that I brought up several months ago in the Daily Dose regarding the Quality of Wins Index.

Although I'm asking a couple of questions, I'm not really fishing for an answer, just making an observation: Sure, Wash&Jeff could/should have scheduled a tougher team in '05, but they did wind up rolling to a whopping 42-0 win. Are they being "punished" with a drop in the rankings for not running up the score? Had they routed Tri-State by 55 points, would the voters have been persuaded to keep W&J at 6th? How about 65 points? What does it take for a team to keep its standing during the occasional weeks that it has a cupcake on its schedule?

I think these are essentially just retorical questions, but insight into the scope or strategy of the poll is welcome.

However, if you'd ask me, the Profs without a doubt deserve to jump a spot on the poll. I was at the Rowan-CNU game, and it was a treat to see both of those teams (it was my first time seeing either squad play). Rowan earned a big victory that day, and should be rewarded as such.

[redman04]

Darrin C

Did you make it to the game on sat. night?  I will be at next week's home opener

[Mugsy]

      Elmhurst 52-6 over Benedictine-- 3rd and 4th string played last qtr and a half---lost shutout with 50 seconds to go. Only 9 total yds given up by Jay D in 1st half. It's going to be an interesting year. 

Jaybacker,
They played Benedictine!  One of the worse teams in D3 last year.  Let's not get too excited just yet.  Wait until they at least play someone decent.  In the past few years how many times has Elmhurst started out 2-1 or even 3-0, only to come back to reality during the conference play?

Other than Millikin, which I had as my darkhorse in the CCIW, my overall impressions of the first week are not real positive.  CCIW teams need to kick it up a notch!

[Mugsy]

Couchqb,

You've got it wrong when you talk about augies defense.  The defense has not been bad at augie the last 5 years.  4 years ago Ricketts was DC and he had a great defense.  He took a better job at Hope and that's where DeGeorge came in.  His defense was not bad either.  The fact that he kept the same defensive principles from his days at North Central might have been the downfall there.  The conference teams were used to his style of defense and that showed in the loss to NCC last year.  Their sidelines just watched the calls DeGeorge made and the offense for NCC just adjusted to beat the calls.  It was that simple.  The last two years Augie lost to Wheaton by 1 pt each time.  I'm not sure it had anything entirely to do with defense but offense has to be able to execute and get a 2 pt conversion when needed.  But back to defense, to say that augie hasnt had a good defense in the last 5 years is ignorant.  How many games have you seen augie play in the last 5 years? 

Hugh,
Augie only lost by a 1pt to Wheaton, but they've given up 35+ pts!  That is not the dominate defenses of old from Augie.  You don't need to see ANY games to question that Augie's D is not at the same level it used to be.  I don't know why it needs to be said again, because many Augie alum have already mentioned it, but during Augie's dominate years their D gave up less than 8pts a game.  While their D the past few years has been good, it is NOT to the same level as it used to be.  A majority of posters on this topic agree that this is one of the primary reason why you haven't seen CCIW championships at Augie recently.

[Mugsy]

BashDad,
Thanks for your assessment on the Wheaton/Wabash scrimmage.  I appreciate your taking time to give your view, especially based on the perceived strengths and weakness expressed by myself and others.

It'll be interesting to hear from others who saw the scrimmage.

Best of luck to Wabash during the season and here's hoping we get the chance to see you in the playoffs (but there is a lot of football to play against tough competition).

[Mugsy]

NPU QB Haehn is probably the best passing QB in the CCIW...

Pretty bold statement when you've got Kniss of NCC and Chupp of Wheaton, both All-Conference selections last year, returning this year.  I'm not questioning whether or not he is a good QB, but to say he is the best is hard to support at this point.  I personally won't comment on his ability until I see him play.

[HughJass]

mugsy,

Point taken...I dont remember any games from too far back, I started watching augie in the early 90's and I've never seen an augie defense consistently hold a team to 8pts a game.  Personally, its just something I'm not used to though it would be nice to see Augie get to that point

[RedmenFB44]

Hey couchqb,
I was on the Redmen team last year and now I graduated. I got to see them play sat. @Carroll. You asked if any Redmen fans thought that this years team was as good as last years team. After watching Saturday's game, right now Carthage is not nearly as good as last years team. But it is still early. Our team last year didnt really breakout until confernce play against Millikin last season. Yes we did beat Carroll and Benidictine easily last season but Carroll was was terrible last season and is much improved this year and we all know about Benidictine. Our other non-confernce game last year was Lakeland who we almost lost to. We scored late in a hard fought game last year. It was good that we had those non-confernce games last year because it really helped us learn the new west coast offense. We were ready just in time for conference play after  that and the rest is history!

As for Carthage this year, they still have their defense who looked good in the first game. Besides a few breakdowns they only gave up 10 points and got a safety late in the game. The offense stuggled through out the game but the freshman showed that he can play QB. I dont know if he is the answer right now but unless Sharp gets healthy or shows something this freshman might HAVE to be the answer. Namon Johnson (Tailback) was soild all game. Hes a strong powerful runner and he had a couple of big runs late. The offense of line needs to be more stable. Yes they did lose 3 starters on the line but they have to do their job if they want to protect their young QB's. Dont get me started on the fullback position. Lets just say they might be better off running 1 back sets. Receivers and tight ends will be fine once they get their confidence and dont drop 10 balls throughout the game.

Overall, the Redmen have a ways to go but thats what these non-confernce games are for. The Redmen will be ready. They will be jacked and ready for confernce. I know that for a fact!!!

GO REDMEN!!!

[redman04]

To all Redmen football alumni

Me and a couple of other "old guys" who love to relive their glory years have talked about and would like to start a Carthage Football Alumni Group.  I am starting to put together a list of guys who I know and played with, but need help.  I would like to gather as many people as possible, for our first get-together at the IWU game at home on November 5th at 1:00.  This will be nothing more than a group of has beens getting together to watch our beloved Redmen and have some fun!  More specific details will come as I start to put this all together and see who would all be interested.

I will be sending out more details as they are ready.

Right now I need as many names, numbers, and addresses as possible.  All ages!.  It would be great to get people from all years and generations.

If this sounds like something you would like to join and have the names of others please E-mail me your name, class and address.
Joebear6464@yahoo.com
Thanks
GO REDMEN!!!

[BashDad]

usee:

What have you heard of the scrimmage last Saturday?
I would like to hear a Wheaton evaluation--E-mail me if you prefer.

[Redmen96]

Pat
  I understand about the teams being ranked but what score would W & J have to put up in order to keep their ranking?  Or were they doomed by the cupcake schedule to loose ranking no matter what?  They were unscored upon and still put up a respectable number of points.  It should at least be a wash.

[couchqb]

RedmenFB44,

That's about what I thought.  Good info.  Speculation is only speculation, but your team with its offensive weapons impressed me a lot, and I just think this year's team doesn't have quitre the same capability.  Who knows how far theyll develop, and who knows how far\ theyll go.  Ill I can say is it looks like the CCIW is up for grabs. 

Vike fans- good points.  One thing I would bet is that the championship teams had stability and knew what they were doing, but the Augie HC seems to go through defensive schemes pretty quick.  5 coordinators in 5 years?  How can a team live up to an 8 ppg benchmark with that?  From the stats I see the offense is dominant.  Like I said, I'd never want to play in that offense, but it's deadly.  The only thing I see that has really changed about Augie is the defense-- especially when they yield 200 RY vs a passing team. 

Will be interesting to see if they improve or have a real bad year.  I'll guess the offense is great but the defense is poor- the opposite of Carthage.

[DarrinC]

Joe,
Yeah we made it to the game.
I am pretty sure I will be there again this weekend.
Have to see what the boss decides. Call me Friday.

I think the Carthage Alumni Office can help you get a list of names together. It is at least worth a try.

And no Reidy, I was not talking about Jeff tess!! Too funny. I actually meant my comment as a compliment noting a slight comparison to IRISH21 Junior.
Although, it is way to soon to be throwing around compliments like that. Junior was the real deal.

[robertgoulet]

The Rockford Regents got a mention on ESPN.com in "The Biggest College Football Blowouts." They made #1!

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=list/050906

Don't know which rock I was under when this happened, I figured I'd remember hearing about it, being from near Rockford, and all.