FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Mugsy]

Yet another good article on Andy Studebaker... really positive outlook.

http://www.kcchiefs.com/news/article-2/The-Next-Step/3ca144d9-9b90-4207-9859-6dca82477a8d

[Mugsy]

Cardinals will be reporting on Saturday, football is upon us.

The team looked BIG and STRONG. Each year more and more NCC players are looking like the Hulk!  I heard only 40 or so freshmen showed up.

Only 40 freshmen?  I wouldn't sweat it too much.  If the quality is there (and I'm sure it is), NCC will be fine with only 40 incoming recruits.

Besides... in a very real way it is the number of junior & seniors returning that is more important.  You win with juniors and seniors.  There is a huge difference in maturity (physically and emotionally) been 18 year olds and 21 or 22 year olds.

[ncc58]

NCC still opened camp with ~130 players. The plan was to only bring in 40 quality players. I think that's close to the number that Wheaton brings in.

NCC scrimmages Aurora next Thursday (at Aurora). We know the NCC offense will be explosive. It will be interesting to see what Coach Ponx does on defense.

Cardinals will be reporting on Saturday, football is upon us.

The team looked BIG and STRONG. Each year more and more NCC players are looking like the Hulk!  I heard only 40 or so freshmen showed up.

Only 40 freshmen?  I wouldn't sweat it too much.  If the quality is there (and I'm sure it is), NCC will be fine with only 40 incoming recruits.

Besides... in a very real way it is the number of junior & seniors returning that is more important.  You win with juniors and seniors.  There is a huge difference in maturity (physically and emotionally) been 18 year olds and 21 or 22 year olds.

[cardinaldad]

Cardinals will be reporting on Saturday, football is upon us.

The team looked BIG and STRONG. Each year more and more NCC players are looking like the Hulk!  I heard only 40 or so freshmen showed up.

Only 40 freshmen?  I wouldn't sweat it too much.  If the quality is there (and I'm sure it is), NCC will be fine with only 40 incoming recruits.

Besides... in a very real way it is the number of junior & seniors returning that is more important.  You win with juniors and seniors.  There is a huge difference in maturity (physically and emotionally) been 18 year olds and 21 or 22 year olds.

Very true Mugsy. I couldn't agree with you more! However, the key will be how many of those 40 will still be around as juniors and seniors. Every year you hope you have quality recruits. Coach Thorne's goal is to have at least 20 seniors on the roster. Time will tell.

[Mugsy]

Cardinals will be reporting on Saturday, football is upon us.

The team looked BIG and STRONG. Each year more and more NCC players are looking like the Hulk!  I heard only 40 or so freshmen showed up.

Only 40 freshmen?  I wouldn't sweat it too much.  If the quality is there (and I'm sure it is), NCC will be fine with only 40 incoming recruits.

Besides... in a very real way it is the number of junior & seniors returning that is more important.  You win with juniors and seniors.  There is a huge difference in maturity (physically and emotionally) been 18 year olds and 21 or 22 year olds.

Very true Mugsy. I couldn't agree with you more! However, the key will be how many of those 40 will still be around as juniors and seniors. Every year you hope you have quality recruits. Coach Thorne's goal is to have at least 20 seniors on the roster. Time will tell.

cardinaldad,
You covered part of what I was implying, but failed to point out explicitly.  If a good percentage of the 40 freshmen players are still on the team in 4 years, you have a better chance of fielding a competitive team.

Wheaton typically only brings in 25-35 players a year, but 90% are still there as seniors.  Some CCIW teams bring in 50+ freshman year in and year out, but only 10-20 (or even less for some teams) remain as seniors.  This presents a significant challenge to building a winning progam year after year.

[Mr. Flynn]

I think the D3 DPOY poll is lacking a few names.

[usee]

Such as?

[Pat Coleman]

Well, he's made 14 posts and more than half have mentioned Matt Wenger. Of course, it's taken him a couple years to get to 14 posts!

[lakeshore]

Mugsy, Usee any update on the Thunder QB battle?  Cardinal posters is Tassio the real deal or is Stanek holding him off?  Maybe to early to tell yet.

[usee]

Well, he's made 14 posts and more than half have mentioned Matt Wenger. Of course, it's taken him a couple years to get to 14 posts!

I was being facetious Pat! Of course he thinks Wenger should be mentioned. And if he had an All-American year last year he likely would have been. Do I think Matt Wenger is on a par with some of those in the poll? Yes. Do I think he should be mentioned when he is coming off major knee surger and hasn't played a down of football in a year compared with guys whose teams played deep into the playoffs and they dominated?

If Matt Wenger does what he is capable of doing the accolades and awards will take care of themselves. As I have said before, pre-injury he was as talented as any LB I have seen in D3. Let's see how he comes back and what he does before we crown him POY. It's no knock on Matt but there are just too many talented players who have been working on getting better off of last season (vs working on recovering from a major injury).

[usee]

Mugsy, Usee any update on the Thunder QB battle?  Cardinal posters is Tassio the real deal or is Stanek holding him off?  Maybe to early to tell yet.

Nothing that I know. Won't know anything until after the Wabash scrimmage is my guess. And that scrimmage is in Crawfordsville so many of us won't be seeing it live.

These guys won't win the battle until they get a shot at some pseudo-live action. SOme of these battles won't be won until some of the non-conference games have been played.

[Mr. Flynn]

I was just pointing out that the opinion poll was lacking a few names that could become DPOY having a "someone else" option (like today's poll) would have solved the problem.  Never mentioned crowning anyone just trying to give my opinion.

[matblake]

Just a heads up that me and Mrs. matblake will be at the Wheaton v Albion game on Sept. 11.  If any of you are there, we'd be happy to say hello!

[Pat Coleman]

I was just pointing out that the opinion poll was lacking a few names that could become DPOY having a "someone else" option (like today's poll) would have solved the problem.  Never mentioned crowning anyone just trying to give my opinion.

There are 2,618 defensive starters in Division III and the poll has a maximum of eight slots. Sorry if we left anyone out.

[Mugsy]

I was just pointing out that the opinion poll was lacking a few names that could become DPOY having a "someone else" option (like today's poll) would have solved the problem.  Never mentioned crowning anyone just trying to give my opinion.

There are 2,618 defensive starters in Division III and the poll has a maximum of eight slots. Sorry if we left anyone out.

Not to speak for Mr. Flynn, but from what I interpreted from the posts, I'm guessing he was suggesting that there could have been 7 players listed and then a catch all "Others" option.

From there it is a matter of opinion... some would feel a good poll question includes a "all the rest" option (i.e. who will win the Masters? Tiger, Phil, Stricker, Furyk, or "The Field").  Others would suggest it is ok, so long as there is a means to specify, who you would pick from the "all the rest" option.  Still others feel only a poll with 4-8 explicit options is the correct format for a poll.

My opinion on whether Wenger should have been included in such a poll falls very much in line with Usee.  I can see why he wasn't included since he missed all of 2009 with a serious knee injury.  But if Wenger's knee is close to 100%, he remains injury free this year and NCC has a very strong showing this year, I don't see why he couldn't win the DPOY.