FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[New Tradition]

Please don't misinterpret my post.  I am by NO MEANS complaining.  Just surprised. I didn't mean NCC should be upset.  I meant that some of those undefeated TX teams that had to play in round 1 should be upset. 

[NCF]

Yes, but travel for smaller market teams is much worse than Chicago to LA. If  you were travelling from Wisconsin, MN, IN, or OH to LA it would be even worse for fans. Chicago to LA is one of the most popular flight routes in the country. Many, many more direct flights.

For you fans make sure you check www.kayak.com which is a search engine for flights. Also check southwest and use multiple airports like Orange County, Burbank, LAX, etc. Midway, O'hare and Milwaukee should all be considered from here. Looks like to me flights are around $500. Car and hotel puts you up around 1k. thanksgiving in California!! I would do it. you can stay out there all week and drive up Hiway 1 to Oregon for round 2!   Hey, its 38 degrees today, LA sounds like a good place to be!

A. there is no way I can take one week off work and my daughter cannot miss more than five days either.
B. The cost for two of us for the two days will be 1200
C. been to Disneyland twice already 
D. If Jr. was a junior, i'd stay home and watch with the rest of the NC fans. The worst flights would be next week to Linfield.

[USee]

Yes, but travel for smaller market teams is much worse than Chicago to LA. If  you were travelling from Wisconsin, MN, IN, or OH to LA it would be even worse for fans. Chicago to LA is one of the most popular flight routes in the country. Many, many more direct flights.

For you fans make sure you check www.kayak.com which is a search engine for flights. Also check southwest and use multiple airports like Orange County, Burbank, LAX, etc. Midway, O'hare and Milwaukee should all be considered from here. Looks like to me flights are around $500. Car and hotel puts you up around 1k. thanksgiving in California!! I would do it. you can stay out there all week and drive up Hiway 1 to Oregon for round 2!   Hey, its 38 degrees today, LA sounds like a good place to be!

A. there is no way I can take one week off work and my daughter cannot miss more than five days either.
B. The cost for two of us for the two days will be 1200
C. been to Disneyland twice already 
D. If Jr. was a junior, i'd stay home and watch with the rest of the NC fans. The worst flights would be next week to Linfield.

Next week is Thanksgiving so its really only 3 days off work! I wish I could feel sorry for you but I would be happy to have your problems right now. 

FWIW, I think NCC wins this game fairly easily so you may want to save your bullets for next week vs Linfield (or possible home game vs PacLU if a huge upset happens).

[NCF]

Yes, but travel for smaller market teams is much worse than Chicago to LA. If  you were travelling from Wisconsin, MN, IN, or OH to LA it would be even worse for fans. Chicago to LA is one of the most popular flight routes in the country. Many, many more direct flights.

For you fans make sure you check www.kayak.com which is a search engine for flights. Also check southwest and use multiple airports like Orange County, Burbank, LAX, etc. Midway, O'hare and Milwaukee should all be considered from here. Looks like to me flights are around $500. Car and hotel puts you up around 1k. thanksgiving in California!! I would do it. you can stay out there all week and drive up Hiway 1 to Oregon for round 2!   Hey, its 38 degrees today, LA sounds like a good place to be!

A. there is no way I can take one week off work and my daughter cannot miss more than five days either.
B. The cost for two of us for the two days will be 1200
C. been to Disneyland twice already 
D. If Jr. was a junior, i'd stay home and watch with the rest of the NC fans. The worst flights would be next week to Linfield.

Next week is Thanksgiving so its really only 3 days off work! I wish I could feel sorry for you but I would be happy to have your problems right now. 

FWIW, I think NCC wins this game fairly easily so you may want to save your bullets for next week vs Linfield (or possible home game vs PacLU if a huge upset happens).

I'm a teacher, and parent-teacher conf are monday and tuesday. no way would i be free

[CardinalAlum]

This year's Jays remind me a lot of Thorne's NC squads that first broke the playoff ribbon.  There is a chance Elmhurst can continue to build and create something like the NC juggernaut.  It starts Saturday with their first playoff game. 

This thought is something i actually made reference to in mid-September.  The path of NCC and EC's programs certainly share similarities.  In both cases, a shift in culture, in their mental and emotional approach, each program needed to shape and embrace have been the most influential and impactful factor in the rise of both Thorne and Lester's birds, respectively.  Add to that an upgrade in facilities (although NCC certainly has a huge advantage here), increased size of the full-time coaching staff, and ramping up depth-building recruiting efforts to deepen the talent pool for sustained success - and the two programs have taken similar roads.  Granted, the Redbirds have half a dozen rings and banners to show for their success...but the Jays, under Lester and his staff, have been built to compete long-term, and can hopefully continue their growth as a program, just as the Cards have.

If anyone has payed attention to the NCC EC games for the past three years....they haven't even been close. I think EC has come a long way, but they do not have the same kind of athletes that NCC, IWU or wheaton have.  Maybe I'll eat my words..but the odds of EC making the playoffs are not that great. They would have to go 9-1 and beating two out of three of those teams just is a tall order...

Completely disagree!  They DO have the same kind of athletes.  Scottie Williams could be the best player in the conference.   Lester has done a great job of recruiting the same types of kids that NCC has now and is a great coach.  I think Elmhurst has as good a shot as they have had in many years.

It takes time to build a program.  Coach Lester and is staff are now in their 5th year, and this year's senior group is Lester's first recruiting class and a REALLY good one (Furco, Williams, Tuckson, Lane, Homoky, and others).  That means 4 years in the system, developing themselves as athletes and students of the game, becoming completely in sync with the coaching staff and the expectations of the Head Ball Coach.  And yes, the talent gap has shrunk considerably since Lester arrived.  EC has had a long run of talented skill players, but the depth and ability of the entire roster is tremendously improved.

How soon we forget where NCC was before Thorne arrived.  3-7 in 2001, 5-5 in 2000, 2-7 in '99, 3-6 in '98 - an "also-ran" in the CCIW.  And it didn't happen overnight for the Cards under Thorne either...6-4 in 2002, 7-3 in '03 and '04 before climbing to the top of the conference in '05. 

This is not all that dis-similar a pattern from the 'Jays current path.  6-4 (3-4) from '05 to '07 under Journell, then 3 out of 4 winning seasons under Lester from '08 on (including two seasons at 4-3 in the conference).

Building a successful program takes time, talent, consistency, and support - check, check, check, and check under the Lester regime.  Is NCC still the class of the conference?  Absolutely they are.  But just as NCC had to overtake Augie and Wheaton to get to where they are, EC will have their chance.

Just to be clear on which quote above is mine.....MY quote begins with, " Completely disagree...". In case anyone is looking for words to be eaten, check with CardAlum. 

[kiko]

That changes the economic equation a bit.  I don't know the cost of a charter flight, but if you assume $300 per seat for a commercial flight (and that is almost certainly overly-optimistic), you're looking at a minimum $30,000-40,000 expense for flying commercial depending on how many people you're transporting and how much the fares would be.  And that's *if* you can find seats for everyone.  So the question becomes: we'll need a charter between two cities; one will be West Coast and one will be Central Time Zone.  At that point, it doesn't really matter who they send on the road.

There's a lot of moving pieces as they set the bracket.  I don't expect that the handful of potential traveling fans are a big factor in the decision process.

I actually am happy to see this bracket.  The travel is tough, but it will be interesting to see how the Cards fare against a different cast of characters.

The air travel is discussed in the Bankston interview. It likely will be a charter at a cost - $30-40,000.

Your assumption of $300 for a commercial flight isn't even close. At this point, airfare from Chicago to the game site is more than double that number. And, there is only a small number of seats available on the most convenient commercial flights.

Personally, I think that traveling fans should be a consideration.  NCC is working on package deals for parents, alumni, and other supporters, but it likely will be $1000 per person.

Oh, I know the flight estimate is low.  I'd called that out above but wanted a very conservative estimate of what the cost of commercial flights would be in the highly unlikely event that this option was logistically feasible.  I fly ORD-LAX several times per month and the best you can get is in the $250 range, and that presumes purchasing more than two weeks out.  Any time I look with just a week's notice it is in the $500 range or more.  I'm sure that is magnified during Thanksgiving weekend, and that finding any critical mass of available seats would essentially be mission impossible.

I don't know how you can make traveling fans a consideration when there are three West Coast teams in the draw.  Somebody's fans are going to have to travel -- it just becomes a question of who gets the nod.

[coocooforcoekohawk]

Has anyone on here seen Coe play or know anything about them?

The Bluejays have two chances to win their playoff game, slim and none.

[79jaybird]

Coocoo- I think your post is a little out of line.  I think the stats are not that lopsided and (i.e. the Bears game yesterday) the elements and "possibiilties" can alter the landscape of a game.  I agree that Coe would get the edge and Elmhurst would have to play exceptionally well to win.  However just say Elmhurst has "no chance", ah you are not Mt. Union or one of the perennial juggernauts.

[USee]

Has anyone on here seen Coe play or know anything about them?

The Bluejays have two chances to win their playoff game, slim and none.

Any actual reasonable thought for your prediction or are you just trying to stir it up?

BTW, I'll take the other side of that bet Mr. Cocoapuffs. Not that I am much of a betting man, but I'll take slim and above for as much as you can afford losing. 

[mr_b]

Has anyone on here seen Coe play or know anything about them?

The Bluejays have two chances to win their playoff game, slim and none.

Any actual reasonable thought for your prediction or are you just trying to stir it up?

BTW, I'll take the other side of that bet Mr. Cocoapuffs. Not that I am much of a betting man, but I'll take slim and above for as much as you can afford losing. 

He's not leaving himself much margin for an over/under.

[79jaybird]

I would say the line is Coe by 10 pts, but given those odds, I would say let's go (EC) and prove the odds makers wrong.  Still Elmhurst has as good a shot as anybody vs. Coe.  Now St. Thomas, Linfield, or a Purple school... that might be a different story.

[USee]

I actually think Coe (-3.5) is a better line.

[wheels81]

If Wheaton doesn't get in, and I agree it looks bleak, they have no one to blame but themselves and their is plenty to go around. Their decision to water down their schedule gives then a .517 SOS when a .560 or better makes then a much stronger candidate. Their decision to not play for the pt spread against NCC is another reason they may well be on the outside looking in. And any better result on 1 of 4 select plays during the Albion, Elmhurst and NCC game would have changed their plight.  Those plays were a combination o mental, execution or coaching errors.

It's disappointing for Thunder fans and players but this one is not on the NCAA committee process.

What was the coaching error(s) in the NCC game?   The decision to go for field goal on 4th and goal to go up 3 scores, (high percentage) that was missed?  Remember the Elmhurst game?  Or the inability to stop NCC on their last drive?   I think they made the right choices to win the game period.  You go for the win first and if not for that 72 yard fumble recovery TD then we could be talking about a tie game given that NCC was driving at the time.  No I don't blame the missed playoffs on any coaching decision in the NCC game.

[blue_jays]

Has anyone on here seen Coe play or know anything about them?

The Bluejays have two chances to win their playoff game, slim and none.

Remember that time when Wheaton ate Coe's lunch in the fourth quarter of the 2010 playoffs? You'll meet Scottie Williams soon enough.

[wheels81]

Has anyone on here seen Coe play or know anything about them?

The Bluejays have two chances to win their playoff game, slim and none.

That was one of the sweetest playoff wins for WC.  cohawk, duhawk, whatever.   Go jays!

Remember that time when Wheaton ate Coe's lunch in the fourth quarter of the 2010 playoffs? You'll meet Scottie Williams soon enough.