FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[wally_wabash]

Why does there have to be fault?   Is anybody aggrieved here other than far away spectators that have attached their own narratives to that game and score?  There are a lot of people that I see are all riled up about this, but none of them seem to be CSS Saints. 

The scheduling thing is low hanging fruit.  It's easy to say CSS just shouldn't put a team like St. John's on their schedule- but if not St. John's then who?  NCC has had their own difficulty filling out a schedule and they don't have the geographic obstacle that CSS does.  Scheduling is hard.  Not everybody is going to wind up with perfect matchups. 

[79jaybird]

AndOne- I like your points.   This is also why during the Journell era at Elmhurst he was hesitant to schedule any UW schools.  Tom wanted to play WIAC opponents, but he also knew the ability levels of his teams.   When it was the Big 4/Little 4 era   Augie would always play the perennial stalwarts (WIAC/Central IA etc.)  when EC/NC/NPU would play the weaker teams like Benedictine, Concordia (IL) etc. 

St. John's I mean let's face it,  they are one of those schools can even when hearing the name, screams football prowess.   

[AO]

Your description of the CSS @ SJU game is in error. The third- and fourth-string Saints did not play in that game. While CSS does have 78 players listed on the roster, according to the box score only 42 Saints saw action in the game.

I doubt the stats crew was keeping up, according to the box score only 98 Johnnies played whereas Fasching said 160.

The 3rd string after the half was taken from Ramler's comments in an article that came out today.

Ramler: I say it was a perfect storm. We made a decision to play our freshmen in the second half and keep our first- and second-stringers out of the game and continue our pursuit of a conference championship. We were looking at a next-game mentality once we got to a certain point.

Also, just taking a quick look at the CSS tacklers in the 2nd half that aren't on the 2-deep leads me to believe many were at best 3rd stringers.

[Gregory Sager]

All of these "facts that you were not aware of" were readily available in the box score (admittedly, awareness of the offer to play the second half with a running clock required some inside information,

It's down towards the bottom of this article from SJU's local newspaper. Coach Fasching of SJU actually made the offer at the start of the fourth quarter, not at halftime.

I'm not sure I understand how you lose 96-0 at the collegiate level without completely giving up. 

I think sometimes people forget how big the gap is between the top and the bottom of Division III.  The gap between the top 10-15 programs in D3 and the bottom 10-15 programs is probably the same distance as the gap between those top 10-15 D3 programs and a quality FCS team, probably bigger.  I started for three-plus years on what probably passed for an upper-middle-class Division III team and probably would never have cracked the two-deep at the Mount / UWW / UST / Wesley stratum of things.  The guys on the end of the SJU bench would all be starting for CSS.

Thing is, I'm not convinced that St. Scholastica is among the bottom 10-15 teams in D3. The Saints went 7-3 last season and finished in a second-place tie in the UMAC with a 7-2 record. Over the past seven seasons CSS has never had worse than a 7-3 season, and on a couple of occasions during that stretch the Saints actually went into the playoffs undefeated.

If we're just talking about the UMAC -- a very low-caliber league, but certainly not the only one in D3 football -- the league's scores from last weekend are very instructive:

Millikin 76, Greenville 3
Gustavus Adolphus 38, Westminster (MO) 0
St. John's 98, St. Scholastica 0
Hamline 51, Crown 0
Augsburg 42, Northwestern 7
Cornell 62, Iowa Wesleyan 25
Knox 28, Eureka 21
MacMurray 22, Rockford 14
Martin Luther 14, Minnesota-Morris 7

I'll bet that by season's end St. Scholastica is well about the bottom fifteen in the Massey Ratings.

Another viewpoint................

Rather than focusing on arguments centered on questions such as sportsmanship or lack thereof, or the need to protect tired or undersized athletes, what about placing some of the "blame" on the St. Scholastica coach for scheduling a game against such a traditionally strong opponent? And yes, I do know that contracts are sometimes let fairly far in advance of the contracted date. But what did he think was going to happen? Was there any rational expectation that his team would be able to compete with St. John's on an equal or even a nearly equal basis? Certainly there was a traditionally weaker MIAC team he could have scheduled, or even possibly a team of a somewhat equal skill level in neighboring state. I place some of the "blame" for such a lopsided loss on the Scholastica coach.
You go in the lions den and you're likely to get mauled. A rather stupid move IMHO.

Come on, Mark. Do you honestly think that scheduling is always done on a "somewhat equal skill level" basis?

There are several very sound reasons why CSS head coach Kurt Ramler signed a two-year contract with his SJU counterpart Gary Fasching:

1) SJU makes everybody else on the sked look easy. As has been amply documented, the UMAC is a dismal football league in the overall D3 scheme of things. The UMAC is a large league, so its teams only get one shot at a non-conference game every year. Why not schedule a powerhouse? Even if you get your lunch handed to you -- as SJU has done to CSS for the past two seasons -- it won't count against you in the UMAC standings, and you're never going to win an at-large berth from out of the UMAC, anyway. On the other hand, every UMAC team that the Saints face for the rest of this season will look like it plays in slow motion in comparison to what the Saints saw last Saturday. Scheduling up in non-con play is always a good idea for an aspiring contender from a bad league, regardless of sport. You saw this yourself firsthand two years ago when Benedictine's basketball team played five CCIW schools in non-con play and then cruised through the NACC en route to Salem.

2) Ramler's a former Johnnie. He was a quarterback for SJU in the mid-'90s under the legendary John Gagliardi, and was a Gagliardi Trophy finalist in '96. In 2013 he left a head coaching job at Carleton to come back to his alma mater and serve for a year as the OC. Nobody in the UMAC knows better than him how the Johnnies work and how they do things the right way. He wants to expose his players and coaches to that, which I think is laudable.

3) Location. Duluth is off the beaten track. It's not easy to get from Duluth to the campuses of other D3 schools that have football programs, and you have to put in an awful lot of hours on a bus. SJU is actually one of the closest D3 football schools to CSS with regard to mileage.

4) Payday. St. John's is not like other D3 schools, where gate receipts are either negligible or a completely irrelevant topic in terms of splitting the money, or both. SJU draws somewhere between 7,000 and 9,000 fans each and every game. That means a fairly hefty share for the visiting team by D3 standards, and that's not an inconsiderable issue in the nickel-and-dime world of D3 football.

Last year's game between the two schools resulted in a 49-7 win for the Johnnies. Tellingly, like this year's game, it was played in Collegeville. Coach Ramler decided to forego playing one of the two games in the contract on his home field in Duluth, because he knew that his program would get a good gate from playing two games on the home field of a program that has led D3 football in attendance for the past five seasons and for eleven of the twelve seasons that the NCAA has been tracking this category.

This was not a stupid move by Kurt Ramler.

[AO]

Thing is, I'm not convinced that St. Scholastica is among the bottom 10-15 teams in D3. The Saints went 7-3 last season and finished in a second-place tie in the UMAC with a 7-2 record. Over the past seven seasons CSS has never had worse than a 7-3 season, and on a couple of occasions during that stretch the Saints actually went into the playoffs undefeated.

Indeed, out of the 240-250 D3 teams, Scholastica has never finished in the bottom 15 of Massey.  They've averaged a final ranking of 184 since the program began in 2008, closer to 160 in the last 6 years.  This is truly a big division.

4) Payday. St. John's is not like other D3 schools, where gate receipts are either negligible or a completely irrelevant topic in terms of splitting the money, or both. SJU draws somewhere between 7,000 and 9,000 fans each and every game. That means a fairly hefty share for the visiting team by D3 standards, and that's not an inconsiderable issue in the nickel-and-dime world of D3 football.

Last year's game between the two schools resulted in a 49-7 win for the Johnnies. Tellingly, like this year's game, it was played in Collegeville. Coach Ramler decided to forego playing one of the two games in the contract on his home field in Duluth, because he knew that his program would get a good gate from playing two games on the home field of a program that has led D3 football in attendance for the past five seasons and for eleven of the twelve seasons that the NCAA has been tracking this category.

This was not a stupid move by Kurt Ramler.

I have heard it's only about a $10k guarantee, which would be about 2% of their $500k football expenses.  Maybe Pat can come in here and correct me if he's heard otherwise. So a wise move because nobody in D3 is paying more, but not a budget maker like the guarantee games are for G5 teams going to P5 teams.

[Gregory Sager]

Your description of the CSS @ SJU game is in error. The third- and fourth-string Saints did not play in that game. While CSS does have 78 players listed on the roster, according to the box score only 42 Saints saw action in the game.

I doubt the stats crew was keeping up, according to the box score only 98 Johnnies played whereas Fasching said 160.

That was probably hyperbole on his part. Anyway, your point is irrelevant, since we're talking about tracking CSS participation, not SJU participation.

The 3rd string after the half was taken from Ramler's comments in an article that came out today.

Ramler: I say it was a perfect storm. We made a decision to play our freshmen in the second half and keep our first- and second-stringers out of the game and continue our pursuit of a conference championship. We were looking at a next-game mentality once we got to a certain point.

Ramler's statement does not match the box score, unless his two-deep consists of doubled-up players (e.g, one player backing up both guards and the center, or one LB backing up both outside linebackers). That could conceivably bring the two-deep down to perhaps 34 or 35 players, which would make Ramler's statement only slightly hyperbolic.

Also, just taking a quick look at the CSS tacklers in the 2nd half that aren't on the 2-deep leads me to believe many were at best 3rd stringers.

All of the players listed in the play-by-play for CSS are also listed in the participation section of the box score.

I have heard it's only about a $10k guarantee, which would be about 2% of their $500k football expenses.  Maybe Pat can come in here and correct me if he's heard otherwise. So a wise move because nobody in D3 is paying more, but not a budget maker like the guarantee games are for G5 teams going to P5 teams.

I didn't say it was a budget-maker, but $10K is, as you pointed out, worthy of consideration as a factor in scheduling. Again, I don't think it's an accident that CSS chose to play both games of the two-year contract on SJU's home field.

[Gregory Sager]

Why does there have to be fault?   Is anybody aggrieved here other than far away spectators that have attached their own narratives to that game and score?  There are a lot of people that I see are all riled up about this, but none of them seem to be CSS Saints. 

Wally, your devotion to logic and common sense can sometimes be a real buzzkill.

The scheduling thing is low hanging fruit.  It's easy to say CSS just shouldn't put a team like St. John's on their schedule- but if not St. John's then who?  NCC has had their own difficulty filling out a schedule and they don't have the geographic obstacle that CSS does.  Scheduling is hard.  Not everybody is going to wind up with perfect matchups.

This. In a big way, this.

[AO]

Your description of the CSS @ SJU game is in error. The third- and fourth-string Saints did not play in that game. While CSS does have 78 players listed on the roster, according to the box score only 42 Saints saw action in the game.

I doubt the stats crew was keeping up, according to the box score only 98 Johnnies played whereas Fasching said 160.

That was probably hyperbole on his part. Anyway, your point is irrelevant, since we're talking about tracking CSS participation, not SJU participation.

The 3rd string after the half was taken from Ramler's comments in an article that came out today.

Ramler: I say it was a perfect storm. We made a decision to play our freshmen in the second half and keep our first- and second-stringers out of the game and continue our pursuit of a conference championship. We were looking at a next-game mentality once we got to a certain point.

Ramler's statement does not match the box score, unless his two-deep consists of doubled-up players (e.g, one player backing up both guards and the center, or one LB backing up both outside linebackers). That could conceivably bring the two-deep down to perhaps 34 or 35 players, which would make Ramler's statement only slightly hyperbolic.

Also, just taking a quick look at the CSS tacklers in the 2nd half that aren't on the 2-deep leads me to believe many were at best 3rd stringers.

All of the players listed in the play-by-play for CSS are also listed in the participation section of the box score.

You can view the two-deep here. http://csssaints.com/documents/2017/8/29//FB_Game_Notes_SaintJohns.pdf?id=1916

Early in the 3rd quarter there are a couple tackles by 2nd teamers but later on, they're almost all off the 2-deep. Andy Lakmann;Jordan Jaster,Evan Smith.

Everybody that gets a tackle will obviously make it to the participation section, but that also means you might have to get a tackle to get noticed by the stat crew to get on the participation list.  Fasching said he only missed a few linebackers out of the 170 healthy players he had.  There also wasn't many plays in the 2nd half.

[AndOne]

Why does there have to be fault?   Is anybody aggrieved here other than far away spectators that have attached their own narratives to that game and score?  There are a lot of people that I see are all riled up about this, but none of them seem to be CSS Saints.

The scheduling thing is low hanging fruit.  It's easy to say CSS just shouldn't put a team like St. John's on their schedule- but if not St. John's then who?  NCC has had their own difficulty filling out a schedule and they don't have the geographic obstacle that CSS does.  Scheduling is hard.  Not everybody is going to wind up with perfect matchups.

Perhaps the explanation why none of those that seem to be riled up are CSS fans is that there just aren't any or many CSS fans who read/post here? 

As far as NCC having scheduling problems--different case altogether. This was most often a case of teams not wanting to play NCC for fear of getting a likely loss as opposed to CSS willingly allowing itself to be led to slaughter! 

Hope you didn't bump your head on that low hanging fruit. 

[Gregory Sager]

AO, you're making your case based upon the assumption that the SJU game staff is incompetent, and I'm not buying into it. Every year there are plenty of blowouts at Clemens Stadium. Last season the Johnnies won home games by these scores:

St. Scholastica, 49-7
St. Olaf, 44-0
Carleton, 62-0
Hamline, 42-6

... and, in the previous season:

Dubuque, 45-9
Buena Vista, 56-7
Augsburg, 42-14
St. Olaf, 49-7
Dubuque, 51-7

Trust me, blowouts have been common occurrences at Clemens Stadium for many, many years. I'm more than certain that the people who work in the press box know how to handle them, because they've certainly had enough experience.

I've been a D3 football broadcaster for seven years now. I work both home games and road games for North Park, which means that I've worked in dozens of D3 press boxes and have had a chance to see and hear how each of them operates. I know what I'm talking about when I cite how game staffs work when tracking a ballgame's participation.

What I'm pretty sure happened is this:

1) I don't have the foggiest idea why you even brought up SJU in the first place in this topic, but in all likelihood the game staff simply ran out of the capacity to track all of the Johnnies who were entering the game. Pat might be aware of which software SJU uses, but perhaps there simply isn't room beyond the 98 players listed in the participation report. I do know that it's a big headache just entering more than a hundred dressed players into Stat Crew before the game, because you have to account for doubled-up numbers by using letters as part of a player's uniform number. My guess is that Fasching probably exaggerated the number of players he got into the game, but it definitely conceivable that 160 did play if SJU's software ran out of capacity in the participation report.

2) Tracking CSS participation is another thing entirely. And the fact that, as you yourself put it, there weren't that many plays run in the second half (54 in all), thanks to SJU's insistence upon keeping the ball on the ground (and probably running down the play clock as a further courtesy) means that it would've been even simpler than usual to track CSS participation. The relative paucity of second-half plays, and the slowness with which they were run due to what I'm pretty sure was the sportsmanlike milking of the play clock by Gary Fasching, would've made it even easier to track which Saints were on the field.

Again, I can't stress enough that the SJU game staff is used to this sort of thing. Well, perhaps not used to the Johnnies putting somewhere well beyond 100 players on the field on a given Saturday, but used to the tenor of tracking a blowout. I'm taking the view that the SJU game staff is competent and thus accurately tracked CSS participation.

[AndOne]

Another viewpoint................

Rather than focusing on arguments centered on questions such as sportsmanship or lack thereof, or the need to protect tired or undersized athletes, what about placing some of the "blame" on the St. Scholastica coach for scheduling a game against such a traditionally strong opponent? And yes, I do know that contracts are sometimes let fairly far in advance of the contracted date. But what did he think was going to happen? Was there any rational expectation that his team would be able to compete with St. John's on an equal or even a nearly equal basis? Certainly there was a traditionally weaker MIAC team he could have scheduled, or even possibly a team of a somewhat equal skill level in neighboring state. I place some of the "blame" for such a lopsided loss on the Scholastica coach.
You go in the lions den and you're likely to get mauled. A rather stupid move IMHO.

Come on, Mark. Do you honestly think that scheduling is always done on a "somewhat equal skill level" basis?

There are several very sound reasons why CSS head coach Kurt Ramler signed a two-year contract with his SJU counterpart Gary Fasching:


4) Payday. St. John's is not like other D3 schools, where gate receipts are either negligible or a completely irrelevant topic in terms of splitting the money, or both. SJU draws somewhere between 7,000 and 9,000 fans each and every game. That means a fairly hefty share for the visiting team by D3 standards, and that's not an inconsiderable issue in the nickel-and-dime world of D3 football.

Last year's game between the two schools resulted in a 49-7 win for the Johnnies. Tellingly, like this year's game, it was played in Collegeville. Coach Ramler decided to forego playing one of the two games in the contract on his home field in Duluth, because he knew that his program would get a good gate from playing two games on the home field of a program that has led D3 football in attendance for the past five seasons and for eleven of the twelve seasons that the NCAA has been tracking this category.

This was not a stupid move by Kurt Ramler.

So CSS collects and goes home with a check for approximately $10,000.00, and the CSS kids go home humiliated and feeling like crap. Very nice. 

[wally_wabash]

Why does there have to be fault?   Is anybody aggrieved here other than far away spectators that have attached their own narratives to that game and score?  There are a lot of people that I see are all riled up about this, but none of them seem to be CSS Saints.

The scheduling thing is low hanging fruit.  It's easy to say CSS just shouldn't put a team like St. John's on their schedule- but if not St. John's then who?  NCC has had their own difficulty filling out a schedule and they don't have the geographic obstacle that CSS does.  Scheduling is hard.  Not everybody is going to wind up with perfect matchups.

Perhaps the explanation why none of those that seem to be riled up are CSS fans is that there just aren't any or many CSS fans who read/post here? 

As far as NCC having scheduling problems--different case altogether. This was most often a case of teams not wanting to play NCC for fear of getting a likely loss as opposed to CSS willingly allowing itself to be led to slaughter! 

Hope you didn't bump your head on that low hanging fruit. 

Was using North Central as a familiar example of a team that has or has had trouble scheduling games.  For different reasons sure, but it illuminates the point that scheduling is hard- for a lot of different reasons.  For CSS, there just aren't a lot of teams around Duluth.  And maybe they tried to find games against teams closer to their competitive level and couldn't get a dance partner (without having to incur the immense expense of a flight game).  We don't really know what options were explored before they came to an agreement with St. John's. 

So my earlier question- if not St. John's, then who?- doesn't have to be rhetorical.  If you've got an alternative, I think it is constructive to hear it.  Most Division III coaches would love to hear how to solve the scheduling problems that they nearly all encounter. 

[79jaybird]

blowouts are part of the game from pros to pee-wees.   At Elmhurst we have seen both sides of blowout games.
My two cents (and original point) is just that there is a line between a blowout and (then) running up the score, just to be a pill.

7 years already Greg!  Wow!  Congrats.  I remember doing the game with you at Aurora when things were just starting up.  Wish you all continued success.  Nice tenure. 

[Gregory Sager]

Another viewpoint................

Rather than focusing on arguments centered on questions such as sportsmanship or lack thereof, or the need to protect tired or undersized athletes, what about placing some of the "blame" on the St. Scholastica coach for scheduling a game against such a traditionally strong opponent? And yes, I do know that contracts are sometimes let fairly far in advance of the contracted date. But what did he think was going to happen? Was there any rational expectation that his team would be able to compete with St. John's on an equal or even a nearly equal basis? Certainly there was a traditionally weaker MIAC team he could have scheduled, or even possibly a team of a somewhat equal skill level in neighboring state. I place some of the "blame" for such a lopsided loss on the Scholastica coach.
You go in the lions den and you're likely to get mauled. A rather stupid move IMHO.

Come on, Mark. Do you honestly think that scheduling is always done on a "somewhat equal skill level" basis?

There are several very sound reasons why CSS head coach Kurt Ramler signed a two-year contract with his SJU counterpart Gary Fasching:


4) Payday. St. John's is not like other D3 schools, where gate receipts are either negligible or a completely irrelevant topic in terms of splitting the money, or both. SJU draws somewhere between 7,000 and 9,000 fans each and every game. That means a fairly hefty share for the visiting team by D3 standards, and that's not an inconsiderable issue in the nickel-and-dime world of D3 football.

Last year's game between the two schools resulted in a 49-7 win for the Johnnies. Tellingly, like this year's game, it was played in Collegeville. Coach Ramler decided to forego playing one of the two games in the contract on his home field in Duluth, because he knew that his program would get a good gate from playing two games on the home field of a program that has led D3 football in attendance for the past five seasons and for eleven of the twelve seasons that the NCAA has been tracking this category.

This was not a stupid move by Kurt Ramler.

So CSS collects and goes home with a check for approximately $10,000.00, and the CSS kids go home humiliated and feeling like crap. Very nice. 

It's the way of the world, Mark. It works that way in other levels in NCAA football and basketball, too. And it certainly works that way whenever a D3 team travels to a D1 or D2 gym in basketball. You take your lumps, and you pick up your check at the end of the beatdown.

It is what it is in a world of budgetary haves and have-nots.

[Gregory Sager]

7 years already Greg!  Wow!  Congrats.  I remember doing the game with you at Aurora when things were just starting up.  Wish you all continued success.  Nice tenure.

Thanks, Mark! Much appreciated!