FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[cardinaldad]

Carthage will be a great test for the Card defense. We'll see how Ponx's defense will perform against the pass. They had good pressure on the qb today.

[hyrooster]

Another issue that no one mentioned that really should concern the NCC coaching staff was the management of time outs! Horrible to say the least! They used 2 unnecessary time outs before the end of the 1st and 3rd periods. I believe they were out of all their TO's in both halves with at least 10 minutes left on the clock.

All this debate on playing a good or weaker team in the non-conference games can sometimes expose more than statistics or wins and losses. In this situation I believe the NCC Coaching Staff will have learned a lot about themselves and how prepared is this team when it hits the field. Someone, whether it's the Coaches or Players, needs to look in the mirror and decide they are ready for the next game!

As for the penalties you are all correct that it is a concern but still sometimes let's get real. I know this is a real "homer" statement but lets look at a couple of them. The one for "aggressively throwing an opponent off the pile" during a fumble scuffle. Oh please! How many times have we seen 10 times worse. AND let's talk about the "Horsecollar" call. I don't believe the rule was created for a 180lbs running back chasing down a 310lbs D-Lineman, jumping on his back and holding on for dear life. The biggest fear of injury wasn't to the D-Lineman but to the NCC player if the D-Lineman fell backwards on him.

Big game next week for NCC and Carthage. Great way to start the CCIW conference games and could decide if there is a change at the top! Top "O" vs the top "D". Gonna be a good one!               

[Son of Tailgater]

Congrats to the CCIW as a conference for finishing the non-conference season at 22-2. As a conference we only lost two games and they were both close. North Park lost to Aurora 9-7 and Aurora is now 2-1 only losing to IWU last week by 7. Augustana lost to Central two weeks ago and Central is now 3-1 with just losing this week to #9 Coe. Their current rank is #7 but will change after the loss yesterday.

This is very impressive as a whole and reflects very highly in that our conference is one of the elite ones in Division 3. With that being said, I will now move from rooting for the entire conference to just Carthage 

Best of luck to all CCIW teams and I am looking forward to over analyzing and a very competitve conference season. It would be great to have 2-3 teams in the playoffs this year.

Any thoughts on the Wheaton vs Olivet or Millikin vs Greenville games this week? Great analysis on the NCC game yesterday.  I was surprised to see the Millikin game as close as it was with a now 1-3 Greenville squad and thought Wheaton gave up more points than expected but that could have been with second units in late.

[ncc_fan]

The only aspect of the NCC vs UWEC match-up that UWEC won was the BAND play.   UWEC brought their entire marching band which appeared to out-number their fans and players combined. They sounded GREAT and certainly out-performed their team.  A little humiliating for NCC's "Red Noise" band that made their marching debut at half time. While their performance was entertaining they couldn't match the volume and quality of UWEC. What's a College football game without the sound of a good band?  

I'll agree Taigater, their band was tremendous. They had 13 sousaphones! It was fun having them at the game. They sounded like a D1 band. I guess you can have a band like that with an enrollment of over 10,000.

I, too, thought the UWEC band was great and added a lot to the atmosphere of the game.  I was impressed not just by their sound but also by their behavior - they supported their team, applauded the NCC band and even sang along with the NCC band's first postgame tune.  

You may need an enrollment of 10,000 to have a band the size of the UWEC band, but you don't need a WIAC-sized student population to have a band of that quality.   Several of the OAC schools have shown that you can have a pretty damn good marching band at a small, private college.   If a CCIW school can compete with the WIAC in football, then a CCIW school could choose to have competitive a marching band, too.  It wouldn't be cheap, but it could pay off by helping to attract & retain students who played in high school marching bands and want to continue.

[Mugsy]

Any thoughts on the Wheaton vs Olivet or Millikin vs Greenville games this week? Great analysis on the NCC game yesterday.  I was surprised to see the Millikin game as close as it was with a now 1-3 Greenville squad and thought Wheaton gave up more points than expected but that could have been with second units in late.

It was 47-0 after the first drive of the 3rd quarter, when Wheaton started playing all of the 2nd and 3rd string players.  From what the broadcasters stated, Olivet kept most of their starters in until the 4th quarter.  The game was obviously not in question at that point.  The 14 points came against the 2nd & 3rd teams.

[Stagg Again!!]

Congrats to the CCIW as a conference for finishing the non-conference season at 22-2. As a conference we only lost two games and they were both close. North Park lost to Aurora 9-7 and Aurora is now 2-1 only losing to IWU last week by 7. Augustana lost to Central two weeks ago and Central is now 3-1 with just losing this week to #9 Coe. Their current rank is #7 but will change after the loss yesterday.

This is very impressive as a whole and reflects very highly in that our conference is one of the elite ones in Division 3. With that being said, I will now move from rooting for the entire conference to just Carthage 

Any historians out there know what the best out-of conference record is in CCIW history?  Any better winning percentages by other conferences in their out-of-conference schedules historically (recent era)?  If only Auggie hadn't been hampered by injuries when they played Central!!

[sflzman]

Any thoughts on the Wheaton vs Olivet or Millikin vs Greenville games this week? Great analysis on the NCC game yesterday.  I was surprised to see the Millikin game as close as it was with a now 1-3 Greenville squad and thought Wheaton gave up more points than expected but that could have been with second units in late.

It was 47-0 after the first drive of the 3rd quarter, when Wheaton started playing all of the 2nd and 3rd string players.  From what the broadcasters stated, Olivet kept most of their starters in until the 4th quarter.  The game was obviously not in question at that point.  The 14 points came against the 2nd & 3rd teams.
[/quote]

Olivet will definately be experienceing another 0-10 season....

[usee]

Wheaton 61 Olivet 14
Millikin 27 Greenville 17

Millikin's Dion Wilson ran for 254 yds and over 7.0 yds per carry. He is averaging over 200 yds a game so far. Hockaday was 11-17 for 111 yds.

Wheaton led 23-0 with 7 minutes left in the 1st quarter. They led 40-0 at the half and Olivet had 57 yds offense at that point. They played the 2nd and 3rd team starting midway through the 2nd quarter. Olivet had 2 long pass plays against backup's in the 3rd and 4th quarter that accounted for 145 of their 223 total yds. Wheaton's defense scored 16 points (2 td's and a safety). Wheaton quarterbacks were 14-18 191 yds 3 tds at halftime.

They are tuned up and ready for the conference season. Opener at Wheaton is homecoming game against IWU. Despite the hoopla over Carthage/NCC the game in Wheaton will be the game of the week.  Millkin hosts Augie and NPU hosts Elmhurst.

[hyrooster]

If North Central had played Olivet or Cornell it would have taken a big hit to the strength of schedule and there's no guarantee that gets them in at 9-1.

North Central would have gone from .572 to .535 if it had scheduled Cornell instead of Ohio Northern.

All I will say Pat is that I respectfully disagree with that assessment. I believe that the CCIW is one of the top 4 conferences in D-III and at the end of the day a 6-1 conference record, with your only loss to the conference champion, would have been enough for a Pool C bid. Once again just my opinion.

[Tailgater]

They are tuned up and ready for the conference season. Opener at Wheaton is homecoming game against IWU. Despite the hoopla over Carthage/NCC the game in Wheaton will be the game of the week.  Millkin hosts Augie and NPU hosts Elmhurst.

Because...............USee, you're a man of much insight and deep thought. I would expect a comment like the one in bold above to be followed by thoughtful reasoning and comparison. I'm not disputing your statement as the IWU vs Wheaton match-up is indeed noteworthy, but what makes that game more intriguing then the Carthage vs NCC game which matches a top producing offense against a top defending defensive?

[usee]

Tailgater-

Wheaton v IWU features 2 top 25 teams facing off.

Carthage v NCC is just a conference game.Carthage is merely the top passing offense. They are not the top rushing offense, the top scoring offense or even the top overall offense. Evan Jones is the best QB but that's it for now. IWU v Wheaton is a better game of interest for the majority I would think.

[usee]

22-2 for the non-conference schedule. To put this in perspective the CCIW's opponents for those games are a combined 23-47. Only 5 of the 19 different opponents have winning records and the CCIW is 3-2 against those schools. Good but not great.

[Gregory Sager]

Any historians out there know what the best out-of conference record is in CCIW history?

season	W-L	win pct	teams that lost
2010	22-2	.917	Augustana & North Park
1980	8-1	.889	Carroll
1965	12-2	.857	Millikin & North Park
1983	9-2	.818	Illinois Wesleyan & Millikin
1978	7-2	.778	Carthage & North Park
1991	7-2	.778	Elmhurst & North Park

Keep in mind, though, that the 2010 season is still in progress. How the CCIW's representative(s) fare(s) in the postseason will affect these numbers.

Interesting thing about the 1983 season: Carroll did not play a non-conference game that year, for whatever reason. At that time, the format was that each team played nine games, eight in the CCIW round-robin plus one non-conference game. Carroll's lone non-conference game was apparently canceled, which was good news for the league because the Pioneers stunk. They went 0-8 for the season (and, thus, 0-8 in the CCIW) and in only two games did they hold down the final margin to single digits. The Pioneers lost by over 18 ppg that season. If they had played that non-conference game, chances are good that they would've lost it. Augustana won all three post-season games en route to the D3 national title that year; hence, the eleven total non-conference games played by the league in 1983.

In 1965 the CCIW was down to seven members: Augustana, Carroll, Carthage, Illinois Wesleyan, Millikin, North Central, and North Park. Each team played eight games, consisting of the six-game CCIW round-robin plus two non-conference games. Since no CCIW team made a postseason appearance that year (as also was the case in '78, '80, and '91), it added up to fourteen non-conference games played by the circuit as a whole.

[Mugsy]

Looks like Andy Studebaker had another solid game for the Chiefs.  2 tackles, 1 sack and 2 QB hits.

[Tailgater]

Tailgater-

Wheaton v IWU features 2 top 25 teams facing off.

Carthage v NCC is just a conference game.Carthage is merely the top passing offense. They are not the top rushing offense, the top scoring offense or even the top overall offense. Evan Jones is the best QB but that's it for now. IWU v Wheaton is a better game of interest for the majority I would think.

Point taken.....and good point at that!