FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[NCF]

I agree with Q, Wally. The first thing is, I wouldn't expect much from the opposing side's board except analysis of that team's performance. I think it's a bit of an unwritten rule that you talk about the team who's board you are on at the time. I also think you have a mix of posters and our board is fairly concentrated, and probably not as analytically diverse as the NCAC board. Most posters are emotionally aligned with their team and their posts will reflect that allegiance. There aren't many who can analyze a game irrespective of their rooting interests and they come on here to vent about their team. Some have the view this board is like a newspaper where you should be diplomatic and appropriate to both sides, not giving in to your rooting interest. Other's clearly think this board is like the locker room where you can yell at your teammates and fellow fans, not guarding your emotions. To each his own.

That's why it's called a message board. People who post here are allowed to call it as they see it. Noone has to like it or agree with it. I would say the majority of posters on the board are fiercely loyal to their team. Instead of berating someone else's point of view-just post your own and move on. Certain posters think their viewpoint is the only one that's acceptable and try to beatdown anyone who dares disagree. Everyone is entitled to their point of view. Post and let post!:)

[CardinalAlum]

Back from Wabash and had a lot of time to gather my thoughts about the game.  Definitely the most disappointing game I have ever been associated with and I wasn't even playing or coaching.  Tyler Burke, I can't begin to talk about the guts that guy showed.   He was beaten and kicked around and kept getting up and actually got stronger.  It was like something out of a Rocky movie, except it didn't have a happy ending for NCC.  I don't understand how people were running wide open all of a sudden for Wabash in that last quarter.   Wabash coaches made some great adjustments that made a difference.  NCC took some bad penalties in that last quarter.  The officiating was awful.  One of the worst crews I have seen.  Not at all making an excuse, just an observation as they were awful both ways.   Wabash has a great facility and a great team.  Good luck next week against Mt. Union.  As for my beloved Cardinals, I hope there are many lessons learned about finishing a game.  We can't get past that 2nd round game and have to find a way to do that before anyone starts talking about competing with the Top 2!  We will return a bunch of people with lots of experience but have a lot of Seniors to replace on defense.   To all of the Cardinal seniors that played your last game today....Thank you!  It has been a pleasure being able to enjoy everything you have done to make us a top program.

Wally,

Here's what I wrote after the playoff game as a NORTH CENTRAL GUY......sure seems like I gave credit to Wabash and their coaches.   

[AndOne]

Follow up question. Does North Central ever lose a game because they just got beat by a team that didn't get the memo that North Central isn't supposed to lose? I read a lot of reasons why NCC loses games (long road trips, fluky plays, turnovers that I guess don't get forced by a team trying to defend the Cardinals) but never ever does North Central seem to lose because somebody else was better.  I'm just trying to understand this so that I can stop being annoyed by it.

Wally---

Sure, North Central sometimes loses a game because the other team is better. Just like ALL teams that don't go undefeated do. However, an underdog team that earns a win can often be said to have been the better team that day, which does not necessarily mean they are the better team. LaCrosse was definitely the better team yesterday. They took advantage of the opportunities NCC presented them and earned the victory. However, is LaCrosse a better team than North Central? While I am certainly biased, I really don't think so. If they played each other X amount more times, I honestly think NCC would win a very high percentage of those games. However, yesterday, when it counted, LaCrosse was definitely the better team. While NCC played like chumps, UNL played like champs, and deservedly earned the victory. JMHO 

Just wondering--What was the basis of your question? Just trying to understand where you are coming from. Thanks

He may be having flashbacks to a last December discussion on the North Region Fan Poll thread.  I kept NCC ahead of Wabash on the final ballot; he (and others) took great umbrage that I would do that with CLEAR h-to-h evidence to the contrary.  I responded that a 1-point win on one's own field is not CLEAR evidence, and that I honestly felt that NCC (except for a brain fart by the coaches in the second half that brought essentially zero blitzes against their qb), NCC was still a tad better.

Wally, imho, whenever NCC loses to IWU, they were losing to the better team!   (Though, if forced into it, I'll admit that in 2009, both NCC and Wheaton at full strength were almost certainly better than IWU - injuries are a bitch!)

"You guys" are the North Central guys, not the CCIW guys in general. Should have been specific there. AndOne gave a little credit to UW-L, albeit somewhat backhanded, down below but that's all I've seen.  Apologies to the IWU and Wheaton types that are always reasonable with their analysis. 

Back from Wabash and had a lot of time to gather my thoughts about the game.  Definitely the most disappointing game I have ever been associated with and I wasn't even playing or coaching.  Tyler Burke, I can't begin to talk about the guts that guy showed.   He was beaten and kicked around and kept getting up and actually got stronger.  It was like something out of a Rocky movie, except it didn't have a happy ending for NCC.  I don't understand how people were running wide open all of a sudden for Wabash in that last quarter.   Wabash coaches made some great adjustments that made a difference.  NCC took some bad penalties in that last quarter.  The officiating was awful.  One of the worst crews I have seen.  Not at all making an excuse, just an observation as they were awful both ways.   Wabash has a great facility and a great team.  Good luck next week against Mt. Union.  As for my beloved Cardinals, I hope there are many lessons learned about finishing a game.  We can't get past that 2nd round game and have to find a way to do that before anyone starts talking about competing with the Top 2!  We will return a bunch of people with lots of experience but have a lot of Seniors to replace on defense.   To all of the Cardinal seniors that played your last game today....Thank you!  It has been a pleasure being able to enjoy everything you have done to make us a top program.

Wally,

Here's what I wrote after the playoff game as a NORTH CENTRAL GUY......sure seems like I gave credit to Wabash and their coaches.   

Wally--

1. You said I gave credit to UWL, but that it was a little backhanded. I said UNL was definitely the better team Sat, that they took advantage of the opportunities NCC presented them (and created some of their own), that NCC played like chumps. that UWL played like champs, and that UWL "deservedly earned the victory."
Did you feel my giving credit was "backhanded" because I didn't say UWL was caviar and NCC was dogmeat? Or was it because I expressed my honest opinion that UWL was the better team Sat, but that I think if they played X number of additional times, NCC would win a very high percentage of those games?

2. I sensed you felt not enough groveling was done by NCC fans after their defeat by Wabash in last year's playoffs, and not enough credit was given Wabash by other CCIW fans, such as Mr Ypsi keeping NCC above Wabash in his final fan poll. Thats why I asked as to what was the basis of your question as to whether NCC just sometimes loses to a better team.

3. With regard to #2, TQ demonstrated several instances of CCIW fans paying homage to Wabash's talents. And USee did a very credible job of explaining the thought process of many posters when "criticizing" their teams.

4. Football wise, you won't find a more loyal or ardent NCC fan than CardinalAlum (a former NCC player). Is his statement that "Wabash has a great facility and a great team" not both high and ample praise?

5. Do not take this as a criticism, but don't doubt that when Wabash loses a future game that you felt sure they would win, that you also aren't at least a little "backhanded" in your complementary comments about the opposing team. Its a pretty natural thing to do

6. Lastly, I take great exception with your comment "IWU and Wheaton types that are always reasonable with their analysis."           

[USee]

Personally I have no problem with a mix of reasonable and unreasonable analysis.

[wally_wabash]

Fair enough fellas. Thanks for clearing things up there.  You should be fine this weekend...Redlands can't have the same dumb luck two years in a row. 

[NCF]

Fair enough fellas. Thanks for clearing things up there.  You should be fine this weekend...Redlands can't have the same dumb luck two years in a row.

Touche-+K

[robertgoulet]

Boy, step away for a holiday weekend and come back to a mild crisis at the alma mater. I can't say it's surprising that they will enter conference play with a loss (hopefully only 1 loss), as it has happened to NCC before...but I was hoping they'd be able to avoid it this year. Oh well.

Congrats to the school from the cheese land.

[NCF]

Boy, step away for a holiday weekend and come back to a mild crisis at the alma mater. I can't say it's surprising that they will enter conference play with a loss (hopefully only 1 loss), as it has happened to NCC before...but I was hoping they'd be able to avoid it this year. Oh well.

Congrats to the school from the cheese land.

Miss a day-miss alot

[New Tradition]

Follow up question. Does North Central ever lose a game because they just got beat by a team that didn't get the memo that North Central isn't supposed to lose? I read a lot of reasons why NCC loses games (long road trips, fluky plays, turnovers that I guess don't get forced by a team trying to defend the Cardinals) but never ever does North Central seem to lose because somebody else was better.  I'm just trying to understand this so that I can stop being annoyed by it.

Differences in polling philosophies aside, what grinds my gears here is that you won't give any credit to a team that beats North Central.  It's like you think North Central is playing against tackling dummies and if they lose you treat it like they had a bad practice or something.  That other team has good players and good coaches and they are trying their damnedest to cause fumbles, intercept passes, score touchdowns of their own, and ultimately win a football game.  They aren't necessarily there to follow the script that NCC wrote during their morning walkthrough.  It wouldn't kill you guys to give somebody else some credit once in a while.  Hell,  you're still using injury as an excuse for a game in 2009!  It's ok to acknowledge that somebody else was better, even if it was just one day.

Boy, you sure are something else.

I had a long trip back from Crawfordsville to jot down some ideas about the game on my iPhone.  Here they are:

4 Quarters: The bottom line is that Wabash played a full game for 4 quarters and NCC did not.  Wabash Always Fights?  You bet your @$$ they do.  NCC came out and played a marvelous first half.  Admittedly, that's how I expected the entire game to go coming into the thing.  The entire team, coaches and players alike, took their foot off the gas after the opening 2 drives of the second half.  I still wasn't worried when NCC answered right back to make it 28-7 after Wabash broke the shut out.  Then NCC got complacent.  At least in some areas.  The entire second half, Wabash had wide open receivers down the field.  It really seemed that the NCC defense was not playing with the same enthusiasm that they did in the first half.  Also, credit the Wabash coaching staff for finding weaknesses and exploiting them.  I don't know enough about secondary play to say whether or not the NCC coaches made adjustments (I'm sure that they had to) but they clearly did not work.  NCC had no answer for the Wabash passing attack in the second half.

#12: The Wabash quarterback, Tyler Burke, has already been talked about, but he deserves to get a shout in here too.  I've never ever seen a quarterback take a beating like he took.  Ever.  NCC out "Pain Trained" Wabash in this one.  The odd thing is that IT DIDN'T MATTER!  This kid shook it off, and as others have pointed out ACTUALLY GOT BETTER as the game went on and he took more punishment!  I've never seen anything like it.  What a display of guts and balls and gumption and moxy and mojo and whatever else you want to throw in there.  That is a REAL football player and, from what I saw, every bit the embodiment of Wabash's motto.  Tyler Burke most certainly Always Fights.

     A very good assessment. We have to give Wabash a lot of credit for playing all four quaters, especially their quarterback. We did pound him and he kept getting up. They won the game for all the reasons you listed. We can't take that from them. We didn't make the plays when we had to. The way the ball bounced, yesterday was their day. We did get complacent on offense. We couldn't stop the pass as we couldn't in some playoff games in previous years. If you remember, that was our knock, defensively, a few years ago.

All the chatter about NCC being ready for the purple powers can be put to rest.  This terrible loss proves that.  National championship contenders don't blow 21pt leads in the 4th quarter.  National championship contenders put you away! This loss is tough swallow.  Hats off to Wabash for the heart they displayed this afternoon.

Back from Wabash and had a lot of time to gather my thoughts about the game.  Definitely the most disappointing game I have ever been associated with and I wasn't even playing or coaching.  Tyler Burke, I can't begin to talk about the guts that guy showed.   He was beaten and kicked around and kept getting up and actually got stronger.  It was like something out of a Rocky movie, except it didn't have a happy ending for NCC.  I don't understand how people were running wide open all of a sudden for Wabash in that last quarter.   Wabash coaches made some great adjustments that made a difference.  NCC took some bad penalties in that last quarter.  The officiating was awful.  One of the worst crews I have seen.  Not at all making an excuse, just an observation as they were awful both ways.   Wabash has a great facility and a great team.  Good luck next week against Mt. Union.  As for my beloved Cardinals, I hope there are many lessons learned about finishing a game.  We can't get past that 2nd round game and have to find a way to do that before anyone starts talking about competing with the Top 2!  We will return a bunch of people with lots of experience but have a lot of Seniors to replace on defense.   To all of the Cardinal seniors that played your last game today....Thank you!  It has been a pleasure being able to enjoy everything you have done to make us a top program.

NCC fans,

I was curious what you guys thought of CJ Gum on Saturday?  Just curious especially since he got a lot of pre-game hype.  Hopefully Horn and Chamblee were also as good as advertised.

I was most impressed with your defensive front 4 as well as Kukuc and Antonacci...

BB16

Gum reminded me a lot of former NCC MLB Lenny Radtke from a few years ago (made the Aztec Bowl in 2006, and is now playing for the Chicago Slaughter). Big and fast.

Horn actually impressed me more than Chamblee, Horn's size and hands were really good.

NCC fans,

I was curious what you guys thought of CJ Gum on Saturday?  Just curious especially since he got a lot of pre-game hype.  Hopefully Horn and Chamblee were also as good as advertised.

I was most impressed with your defensive front 4 as well as Kukuc and Antonacci...

BB16

He brought the lumber and got a few tremendous hits in early. Not so many as the game went on, though. When he puts someone in his sights, he's out to blow them up. For a while I was expecting some Cardinal(s) to be taken off of the field. He woke us up. He covered the field real well too. A pretty darn good linebacker for sure. I was expecting more from the rest of them though. I wasn't too impressed with the "Pain Train". As was posted a few times since the game, the "Pain Train" got out "Pain Trained". We at NCC appreciate good linebacker play as we have had the fortune of having some excellent backers for a lot of years. I'm going to step out and attribute a lot of that to our former D coordinator and linebackers' coach Bill Wienke. As the younger lb's come up, it will be interesting to see if we can keep that tradition going as Coach Wienke's players graduate. Hopefully, Coach Ponx can recruit and develop that corp as Coach Wienke did for years.

Every single quote above is from an NCC supporter about YOUR TEAM giving them credit for playing an excellent game.  With this much recent evidence, I regard your comments as borderline trolling.  Please stop.

I'm sure there were plenty of posts about NCC giving that one away but I think you may be painting with too broad of a brush here.

Understatement of the year. 

[robertgoulet]

New Tradition you know there is no place for legitimate proof on this board. Stop yourself!

[NCF]

New Tradition you know there is no place for legitimate proof on this board. Stop yourself!

Hahahaha! He's on a roll, let him run with it!

[NCF]

Follow up question. Does North Central ever lose a game because they just got beat by a team that didn't get the memo that North Central isn't supposed to lose? I read a lot of reasons why NCC loses games (long road trips, fluky plays, turnovers that I guess don't get forced by a team trying to defend the Cardinals) but never ever does North Central seem to lose because somebody else was better.  I'm just trying to understand this so that I can stop being annoyed by it.

Differences in polling philosophies aside, what grinds my gears here is that you won't give any credit to a team that beats North Central.  It's like you think North Central is playing against tackling dummies and if they lose you treat it like they had a bad practice or something.  That other team has good players and good coaches and they are trying their damnedest to cause fumbles, intercept passes, score touchdowns of their own, and ultimately win a football game.  They aren't necessarily there to follow the script that NCC wrote during their morning walkthrough.  It wouldn't kill you guys to give somebody else some credit once in a while.  Hell,  you're still using injury as an excuse for a game in 2009!  It's ok to acknowledge that somebody else was better, even if it was just one day.

Boy, you sure are something else.

I had a long trip back from Crawfordsville to jot down some ideas about the game on my iPhone.  Here they are:

4 Quarters: The bottom line is that Wabash played a full game for 4 quarters and NCC did not.  Wabash Always Fights?  You bet your @$$ they do.  NCC came out and played a marvelous first half.  Admittedly, that's how I expected the entire game to go coming into the thing.  The entire team, coaches and players alike, took their foot off the gas after the opening 2 drives of the second half.  I still wasn't worried when NCC answered right back to make it 28-7 after Wabash broke the shut out.  Then NCC got complacent.  At least in some areas.  The entire second half, Wabash had wide open receivers down the field.  It really seemed that the NCC defense was not playing with the same enthusiasm that they did in the first half.  Also, credit the Wabash coaching staff for finding weaknesses and exploiting them.  I don't know enough about secondary play to say whether or not the NCC coaches made adjustments (I'm sure that they had to) but they clearly did not work.  NCC had no answer for the Wabash passing attack in the second half.

#12: The Wabash quarterback, Tyler Burke, has already been talked about, but he deserves to get a shout in here too.  I've never ever seen a quarterback take a beating like he took.  Ever.  NCC out "Pain Trained" Wabash in this one.  The odd thing is that IT DIDN'T MATTER!  This kid shook it off, and as others have pointed out ACTUALLY GOT BETTER as the game went on and he took more punishment!  I've never seen anything like it.  What a display of guts and balls and gumption and moxy and mojo and whatever else you want to throw in there.  That is a REAL football player and, from what I saw, every bit the embodiment of Wabash's motto.  Tyler Burke most certainly Always Fights.

     A very good assessment. We have to give Wabash a lot of credit for playing all four quaters, especially their quarterback. We did pound him and he kept getting up. They won the game for all the reasons you listed. We can't take that from them. We didn't make the plays when we had to. The way the ball bounced, yesterday was their day. We did get complacent on offense. We couldn't stop the pass as we couldn't in some playoff games in previous years. If you remember, that was our knock, defensively, a few years ago.

All the chatter about NCC being ready for the purple powers can be put to rest.  This terrible loss proves that.  National championship contenders don't blow 21pt leads in the 4th quarter.  National championship contenders put you away! This loss is tough swallow.  Hats off to Wabash for the heart they displayed this afternoon.

Back from Wabash and had a lot of time to gather my thoughts about the game.  Definitely the most disappointing game I have ever been associated with and I wasn't even playing or coaching.  Tyler Burke, I can't begin to talk about the guts that guy showed.   He was beaten and kicked around and kept getting up and actually got stronger.  It was like something out of a Rocky movie, except it didn't have a happy ending for NCC.  I don't understand how people were running wide open all of a sudden for Wabash in that last quarter.   Wabash coaches made some great adjustments that made a difference.  NCC took some bad penalties in that last quarter.  The officiating was awful.  One of the worst crews I have seen.  Not at all making an excuse, just an observation as they were awful both ways.   Wabash has a great facility and a great team.  Good luck next week against Mt. Union.  As for my beloved Cardinals, I hope there are many lessons learned about finishing a game.  We can't get past that 2nd round game and have to find a way to do that before anyone starts talking about competing with the Top 2!  We will return a bunch of people with lots of experience but have a lot of Seniors to replace on defense.   To all of the Cardinal seniors that played your last game today....Thank you!  It has been a pleasure being able to enjoy everything you have done to make us a top program.

NCC fans,

I was curious what you guys thought of CJ Gum on Saturday?  Just curious especially since he got a lot of pre-game hype.  Hopefully Horn and Chamblee were also as good as advertised.

I was most impressed with your defensive front 4 as well as Kukuc and Antonacci...

BB16

Gum reminded me a lot of former NCC MLB Lenny Radtke from a few years ago (made the Aztec Bowl in 2006, and is now playing for the Chicago Slaughter). Big and fast.

Horn actually impressed me more than Chamblee, Horn's size and hands were really good.

NCC fans,

I was curious what you guys thought of CJ Gum on Saturday?  Just curious especially since he got a lot of pre-game hype.  Hopefully Horn and Chamblee were also as good as advertised.

I was most impressed with your defensive front 4 as well as Kukuc and Antonacci...

BB16

He brought the lumber and got a few tremendous hits in early. Not so many as the game went on, though. When he puts someone in his sights, he's out to blow them up. For a while I was expecting some Cardinal(s) to be taken off of the field. He woke us up. He covered the field real well too. A pretty darn good linebacker for sure. I was expecting more from the rest of them though. I wasn't too impressed with the "Pain Train". As was posted a few times since the game, the "Pain Train" got out "Pain Trained". We at NCC appreciate good linebacker play as we have had the fortune of having some excellent backers for a lot of years. I'm going to step out and attribute a lot of that to our former D coordinator and linebackers' coach Bill Wienke. As the younger lb's come up, it will be interesting to see if we can keep that tradition going as Coach Wienke's players graduate. Hopefully, Coach Ponx can recruit and develop that corp as Coach Wienke did for years.

Every single quote above is from an NCC supporter about YOUR TEAM giving them credit for playing an excellent game.  With this much recent evidence, I regard your comments as borderline trolling.  Please stop.

I'm sure there were plenty of posts about NCC giving that one away but I think you may be painting with too broad of a brush here.

Understatement of the year.

This is a masterpiece!!

[New Tradition]

New Tradition you know there is no place for legitimate proof on this board. Stop yourself!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF6SNxNIV08

[NCF]

New Tradition you know there is no place for legitimate proof on this board. Stop yourself!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF6SNxNIV08

Darn school internet doesn't let me on youtube

[79jaybird]

Taken off the NC website Game Recap

"I'm sure there will be a lot of things on tape that we can take out of this game," said North Central head coach John Thorne. "Our guys played really hard, but most every segment of the game is still a ways away from where we need to play. We knew we were really beat up going into the game and we knew it was going to be a terrible battle being able to survive four quarters and pull out a victory.

"Hats off to them, they played really well and didn't turn the ball over much. They did what they needed to do to win the game."

A) Coach Thorne is a class act congratulating UW-L and motivating his team to get better.
B) "really beat up?"  Can someone closer to the NC program fill me in?  Did NC get roughed up in their scrimmage?  I would expect a comment like this mid season but going into opening day?