FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[markerickson]

Because the glass is always half-empty when the subject concerns North Park football, during the Viking winless season (0-3), the team netted 20 rushing yards on 81 attempts for an avg of less than one quarter of a yard per attempt.  Eliminate the program.

[CardinalAlum]

Because the glass is always half-empty when the subject concerns North Park football, during the Viking winless season (0-3), the team netted 20 rushing yards on 81 attempts for an avg of less than one quarter of a yard per attempt.  Eliminate the program.

It's really only the 2nd year of this coach's tenure.  He needs a chance to build his roster and culture. 

[Gregory Sager]

Because the glass is always half-empty when the subject concerns North Park football, during the Viking winless season (0-3), the team netted 20 rushing yards on 81 attempts for an avg of less than one quarter of a yard per attempt.  Eliminate the program.

Mark, NPU didn't go a winless 0-3. The Vikings beat Elmhurst, 30-21, at Langhorst Field on March 20. For crying out loud, it's right there on the NPU schedule page. There's even a recap for that game.

Elmhurst didn't live-stat the game, but the NPU coaching staff did a postgame statistical breakdown via film, and they determined that Michael Soracco rushed for 86 yards and two TDs on 16 carries; Nick Del Nodal rushed for 29 yards on four carries; and A.J. Harris rushed for 18 yards on eight carries.

Look, you and I and everybody else are keenly aware that North Park will never be a first-division football team in the CCIW, due to the school's location and the demographics of the sport at the youth-league and high-school levels. And that's fine, as long as the coaching staff is working hard to recruit and train the best possible team it can, and the players are putting in the best effort that they possibly can. The bottom line is that North Park needs to field a football team because: a) a team that large produces a lot of revenue for a tuition-driven school; and b) football sponsorship is a requirement for CCIW member schools.

I'm sorry, but your continued insistence that North Park would be better off jettisoning football and moving to the NAIA makes no sense whatsoever. Somewhere between a fifth and a quarter of North Park undergrads are student-athletes, and the chance to compete in one of America's premier small-college leagues is for most of them one of the primary draws that brought them to NPU. Do you honestly think that leaving the NCAA for the NAIA, and the CCIW for the CCAC, would hold that same attraction? Do you really want to saddle NPU with even more of an uphill battle in recruiting suburban student-athletes than it already has? And do you realize what the public perception of the NAIA is in terms of the academic caliber of its schools as opposed to those within NCAA D3?

Winning football games is not a valid prerequisite for North Park's continued membership in the CCIW. The Vikings dominate this league in men's soccer, a sport in which the Park is a national power on this level. I don't want to see that fall by the wayside for no good reason. Even more importantly, there are other sports in which NPU is certainly capable of achieving that status as well, given the right coaching staff and the right set of circumstances. Football is not one of those sports. But it doesn't have to be. The national mindset that football is somehow the be-all and end-all of college athletics is irrelevant on this level. Heck, it's not even the mindset anymore at the one school on this level in which it could be the be-all and end-all, Mount Union.

If Kyle Rooker can win at least two (but preferably three) games a year, field a team of 80 or more guys who work hard on and off the field; who give it their all every Saturday, keep their noses clean, contribute to the campus community, and mostly come back as a group every year; and who graduate and move on to live lives of significance and service (to use the school's current marketing slogan), then he's doing a good job, irrespective of his team's rushing yardage per attempt. And if Kyle happens to win four games some magical season, then yours truly will be trumpeting to this entire section of d3boards.com that he ought to win CCIW Coach of the Year, hands down, even if Jeff Thorne takes NCC to another national title.

[Next Man Up]

GS,
I'm sure that if Jeff Thorne could lead NCC to another National Championship in the same year Kyle Rooker won 4 games, he wouldn't mind for one second seeing the CCIW COY award handed to Coach Rooker. He might not even object to listening to you blow your trumpet, as painful as that might be. 🎺 

[CardinalAlum]

GS,
I'm sure that if Jeff Thorne could lead NCC to another National Championship in the same year Kyle Rooker won 4 games, he wouldn't mind for one second seeing the CCIW COY award handed to Coach Rooker. He might not even object to listening to you blow your trumpet, as painful as that might be. 🎺 

Jeff Thorne didn't win the COY or the conference in 2019.  I'm pretty sure he would take another National championship over either!  This Fall should be real interesting as far as what players actually return for each team in the conference.

[Pat Coleman]

Because the glass is always half-empty when the subject concerns North Park football, during the Viking winless season (0-3), the team netted 20 rushing yards on 81 attempts for an avg of less than one quarter of a yard per attempt.  Eliminate the program.

Mark, NPU didn't go a winless 0-3. The Vikings beat Elmhurst, 30-21, at Langhorst Field on March 20. For crying out loud, it's right there on the NPU schedule page. There's even a recap for that game.

The NCAA doesn't count exhibition games and we don't either, fwiw.

[Gregory Sager]

The NCAA doesn't count exhibition games and we don't either, fwiw.

Given the circumstances of this bizarre mini-season, it's not worth much of anything.

The only difference between the Elmhurst game and the other three games that NPU played was that the Elmhurst game didn't have live stats, which means that they weren't compiled automatically within North Park's interactive stats upon downloading by the host school. But even the interactive stats page on the football section of North Park's athletics site shows that the Vikings' record was 1-3, despite the fact that the stats that the Vikings coaching staff compiled after the fact were never retroactively entered in. That's because the game itself was played under identical conditions as the other three, and is thus reflected as such in that posted 1-3 record.

(Don't blame North Park's SID for those NPU @ EU stats not being entered in, either. As I'm sure you're well aware, every sports information director in D3 whose school played fall sports on top of spring sports over the past couple of months deserves both combat pay and a bonus vacation.)

The league office really kind of washed its hands of the responsibility of determining legitimacy with regard to which games "count" and which ones didn't. It was entirely left up to the individual schools. The CCIW website doesn't even list standings for this spring's football season on the football page. Call up the CCIW football page, and you'll get the CCIW women's volleyball standings. Nor has the CCIW website entered this spring season into the Past Seasons or CCIW Football History pages to this point.

The CCIW did post stats, but they seem pretty arbitrary. I have been told by more than one member of the North Park athletic department that, per agreement with North Park's four opponents, only one football game was going to count for the school's permanent record purposes this season, and that was the Augustana game. But the CCIW stats page lists North Park as having played two games (neither one nor three, mind you ... two), with the NPU @ IWU game counting as well, even though North Park apparently didn't agree to that arrangement.

Like I said, Pat, the distinction you're making isn't worth much. The only logical way to view the CCIW's 2021 spring football season is as an extended dress rehearsal. Statistical quibbles for the sake of posterity aside, you can't assign any real-world value to a season in which teams played only one to four games, while three of the ten programs didn't even bother to field teams at all.

[Pat Coleman]

The NCAA doesn't count exhibition games and we don't either, fwiw.

Given the circumstances of this bizarre mini-season, it's not worth much of anything.

The only difference between the Elmhurst game and the other three games that NPU played was that the Elmhurst game didn't have live stats, which means that they weren't compiled automatically within North Park's interactive stats upon downloading by the host school. But even the interactive stats page on the football section of North Park's athletics site shows that the Vikings' record was 1-3, despite the fact that the stats that the Vikings coaching staff compiled after the fact were never retroactively entered in. That's because the game itself was played under identical conditions as the other three, and is thus reflected as such in that posted 1-3 record.

Highly disagree. An exhibition is a contest which doesn't count, and that is determined beforehand and cannot be counted after the fact.

But it's cool to know that how the NCAA views a contest is not worth much of anything.

[Gregory Sager]

I should add that what I mean by value is assigned value, i.e., numbers entered into the record books of the school, the league, the NCAA, d3football.com, etc. But in terms of intrinsic value, there is a great deal of it to be found in those four games North Park played. That's four games' worth of CCIW experience that a very young Vikings team otherwise wouldn't have had, to say nothing of the benefit inherent in allowing a handful of seniors who will never again put on the pads get a few last cracks at playing the game that they love.

As any good actor or director will tell you, dress rehearsals have their place.

[Gregory Sager]

The NCAA doesn't count exhibition games and we don't either, fwiw.

Given the circumstances of this bizarre mini-season, it's not worth much of anything.

The only difference between the Elmhurst game and the other three games that NPU played was that the Elmhurst game didn't have live stats, which means that they weren't compiled automatically within North Park's interactive stats upon downloading by the host school. But even the interactive stats page on the football section of North Park's athletics site shows that the Vikings' record was 1-3, despite the fact that the stats that the Vikings coaching staff compiled after the fact were never retroactively entered in. That's because the game itself was played under identical conditions as the other three, and is thus reflected as such in that posted 1-3 record.

Highly disagree. An exhibition is a contest which doesn't count, and that is determined beforehand and cannot be counted after the fact.

But it's cool to know that how the NCAA views a contest is not worth much of anything.

Under normal circumstances I'd agree with you. But nothing about this season was normal. The distinctions between games were both fluid and completely arbitrary, because they were in name only -- and, as I said, they weren't even dictated by the league office, but by the schools themselves.

[Pat Coleman]

I'll agree they were definitely fluid and arbitrary, but that doesn't make them irrelevant.

[Gregory Sager]

C'mon, Pat. You can't even parse this out for the sake of your own website. Your d3football.com standings have North Park's record as 0-3. But, as I just explained to you, North Park's record wasn't 0-3 at all.

Here are your choices:

* 1-3 -- This is what North Park actually achieved on the football field this spring.

* 0-1 -- This is North Park's record, according to what was mutually agreed upon between the schools involved.

* 0-2 -- This is North Park's record according to CCIW statistics.

As you can see, your website posted the only option that isn't possible.

[Pat Coleman]

Show me games marked as exhibitions on team websites and we will change them. North Park's own website lists one exhibition and three non-exhibitions, and not coincidentally, so does D3football.com.

[Pat Coleman]

Show me games marked as exhibitions on team websites and we will change them. North Park's own website lists one exhibition and three non-exhibitions, and not coincidentally, so does D3football.com.

And in addition: Carthage, Illinois Wesleyan and Augustana's websites do not list their contests with North Park as an exhibition.

[Gregory Sager]

Show me games marked as exhibitions on team websites and we will change them. North Park's own website lists one exhibition and three non-exhibitions, and not coincidentally, so does D3football.com.

North Park's own website also shows the team's record as 1-3, so you're going around in circles with that what's-on-the-website argument.

And in addition: Carthage, Illinois Wesleyan and Augustana's websites do not list their contests with North Park as an exhibition.

OK, so if your preferred yardstick is whether or not there's fine print on the schedule posted on the website, if I ask Tyler to put the word "exhibition" in the other two games on the schedule page that NPU is not counting for permanent statistical purposes, that will satisfy you?