FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[79jaybird]

I never saw a picture of the goldenrod logo and/or uniform (in any sport).  Likewise, I'd be curious what kind of an image that would have portrayed.  Keep in mind that was probably 20's-30's era, and graphics/data was probably limited. (sign of the times).  Thank goodness somebody was wise enough to adopt the Bluejays.

Another fun trivia-  Elmhurst used to give out letterman blankets with their letter sewn into the blanket.  I have seen old photos of these blankets and you see these athletes (male/female) with a big block letter E and strung around their bodies like a scarf. 

Usee- My point is that until Elmhurst beats the upper eschilon teams consistently, IMO you cannot call them a first tier CCIW team.  They were lucky to get past Augie and Carthage this year, (+ the loss at Loras), and I think we all would consider AC/CC as middle of the pack teams this year.

[AndOne]

Wally did a halfway report in the NCAC board and I thought it was insightful so I put together some thoughts on the CCIW halfway through:

IWU - D+.  You hit the reason right on the head -- their QB issues aside, the Albion and Simpson results were well below what I think was expected of the Titans this year.

Thank goodness you weren't one of my teachers.  Beating a team whose only other loss is at #13 Stevens Point by 11 is well below what was expected?  I don't know what you thought IWU would be at the outset of the season, but I was thinking it would be a major rebuilding year for a team who lost by 34 in round 1 of the playoffs, lost 30+ seniors and was starting a freshman QB.

To me, so far, the Carthage loss is the big disappointment.  I put that one on the defense as much or moreso than the offense.  They needed to step up and completely shut down a team but didn't.  The Simpson loss?  Doesn't look great now, but again, I think most realistic Titan fans thought this was going to be a rebuilding season coming in and going on the road to play a mid-tier IIAC team was going to be a challenge.

I snuck a look at USee's grade book for IWU's 5 games so far to see exactly how each game was graded:

Franklin--82 (B-)---> Only a 7 point win, but against a team well regarded in the pre-season.
Albion----70 (C)----> Another slim 7 point win against a very average team.
Simpson-42 (F)---->  Playing WITH the starting QB, an unexpected loss to another average team.
Carthage-54 (F+)--> Another unexpected loss, but a few more points for playing WITHOUT the starting QB.
Millikan---92 (A-)--> A dominant win while playing with a NEW QB.

That's a total of 340 points. Divided by 5 is 68 which is equivalent to USee's D+ 

[TitanPride]

Wally did a halfway report in the NCAC board and I thought it was insightful so I put together some thoughts on the CCIW halfway through:

IWU - D+.  You hit the reason right on the head -- their QB issues aside, the Albion and Simpson results were well below what I think was expected of the Titans this year.

Thank goodness you weren't one of my teachers.  Beating a team whose only other loss is at #13 Stevens Point by 11 is well below what was expected?  I don't know what you thought IWU would be at the outset of the season, but I was thinking it would be a major rebuilding year for a team who lost by 34 in round 1 of the playoffs, lost 30+ seniors and was starting a freshman QB.

To me, so far, the Carthage loss is the big disappointment.  I put that one on the defense as much or moreso than the offense.  They needed to step up and completely shut down a team but didn't.  The Simpson loss?  Doesn't look great now, but again, I think most realistic Titan fans thought this was going to be a rebuilding season coming in and going on the road to play a mid-tier IIAC team was going to be a challenge.

I snuck a look at USee's grade book for IWU's 5 games so far to see exactly how each game was graded:

Franklin--82 (B-)---> Only a 7 point win, but against a team well regarded in the pre-season.
Albion----70 (C)----> Another slim 7 point win against a very average team.
Simpson-42 (F)---->  Playing WITH the starting QB, an unexpected loss to another average team.
Carthage-54 (F+)--> Another unexpected loss, but a few more points for playing WITHOUT the starting QB.
Millikan---92 (A-)--> A dominant win while playing with a NEW QB.

That's a total of 340 points. Divided by 5 is 68 which is equivalent to USee's D+ 

Only at North Central is a 54 an F+ 

[USee]

JayBird,

I am not equating the grades at the halfway point of the season with tiers of teams in the conference. If Elmhurst beats the 3 teams you indicate, that is an A+ on the test. Beating them consistently is a diploma.

[kiko]

Wally did a halfway report in the NCAC board and I thought it was insightful so I put together some thoughts on the CCIW halfway through:

IWU - D+.  You hit the reason right on the head -- their QB issues aside, the Albion and Simpson results were well below what I think was expected of the Titans this year.

Thank goodness you weren't one of my teachers.  Beating a team whose only other loss is at #13 Stevens Point by 11 is well below what was expected?  I don't know what you thought IWU would be at the outset of the season, but I was thinking it would be a major rebuilding year for a team who lost by 34 in round 1 of the playoffs, lost 30+ seniors and was starting a freshman QB.

To me, so far, the Carthage loss is the big disappointment.  I put that one on the defense as much or moreso than the offense.  They needed to step up and completely shut down a team but didn't.  The Simpson loss?  Doesn't look great now, but again, I think most realistic Titan fans thought this was going to be a rebuilding season coming in and going on the road to play a mid-tier IIAC team was going to be a challenge.

Yes, well below what was expected.  The Titans were supposed to be rebuilding/reloading this year, but the expectation was still that they were closer to NCC/Wheaton than the rest of the conference.  Hard to judge that going forward given their QB situation, but they weren't playing at that level in their nonconference schedule.  Teams playing at the level that the top-tier CCIW team typically perform at don't lose games to Albion and Simpson.  (And note that I didn't exactly place the Cardinals or Thunder on the honor roll either.)

Re: Albion: their other wins are over winless Kalamazoo, a mid-tier or maybe a little better Hope team, and a Concordia team that barely beat North Park and gives up a lot of points.  I don't necessarily read that as a string of quality victories.  And the Titans gave up nearly 500 yards of offense in that game.  From my perspective, that's not the level that was expected going in this year.

[kiko]

Wally did a halfway report in the NCAC board and I thought it was insightful so I put together some thoughts on the CCIW halfway through:

IWU - D+.  You hit the reason right on the head -- their QB issues aside, the Albion and Simpson results were well below what I think was expected of the Titans this year.

Thank goodness you weren't one of my teachers.  Beating a team whose only other loss is at #13 Stevens Point by 11 is well below what was expected?  I don't know what you thought IWU would be at the outset of the season, but I was thinking it would be a major rebuilding year for a team who lost by 34 in round 1 of the playoffs, lost 30+ seniors and was starting a freshman QB.

To me, so far, the Carthage loss is the big disappointment.  I put that one on the defense as much or moreso than the offense.  They needed to step up and completely shut down a team but didn't.  The Simpson loss?  Doesn't look great now, but again, I think most realistic Titan fans thought this was going to be a rebuilding season coming in and going on the road to play a mid-tier IIAC team was going to be a challenge.

I snuck a look at USee's grade book for IWU's 5 games so far to see exactly how each game was graded:

Franklin--82 (B-)---> Only a 7 point win, but against a team well regarded in the pre-season.
Albion----70 (C)----> Another slim 7 point win against a very average team.
Simpson-42 (F)---->  Playing WITH the starting QB, an unexpected loss to another average team.
Carthage-54 (F+)--> Another unexpected loss, but a few more points for playing WITHOUT the starting QB.
Millikan---92 (A-)--> A dominant win while playing with a NEW QB.

That's a total of 340 points. Divided by 5 is 68 which is equivalent to USee's D+ 

Only at North Central is a 54 an F+ 

It's a gentleman's C in Bloomington.

[Gregory Sager]

NORTH PARK: Everyone is talking about why the Chicago Vikings are winless when they won 3 conference games last year. Rome was not built in a day and I can see NPU has made some strides. Scoring 7 pts and losing by 24 @Alma was some serious cold water on their resurgence. They have inserted a lot of new players this year and you win games not just with better players but with consistency. This team will win more than 3 games but probably not this year. TD Conway has the makings of an all american occasionally and other times you wonder what he is thinking. The reality is he is that good, I have seen him make throws no QB in the North Region can make. He just doesn't do it consistently. It's part him, part his supporting cast but NPU will win when he can do that conistently. Right now, NPU has no running game (72 yds per game and last in rushing offense) and they aren't stopping anybody ranking last in both total defense and scoring defense. they play the other bottom 4 the next four weeks before finishing @IWU. I think they can win their home games against Millikin and Carthage and might be able to pull off a win either @Carthage or @Elmhurst but I would guess they will finish 2-8. Grade D

I won't argue either the grade or the assessment, but part of the problem with North Park's rushing game is the fact that the NCAA counts sacks as running plays. NPU has given up 14 sacks thus far this season, tied for worst in the league along with Elmhurst, and the 104 yards surrendered on those sacks has dropped what would be a sucky-but-not-horrendous 3.1 ypc average for the Vikings to a truly horrendous 2.2 ypc. Yeah, the rushing game has been a disappointment, but some of that's on the relatively young NPU O-line. The Park has definitely missed Marquis Magwood -- no doubt about that at all -- but it hasn't helped that the kid who's probably the most talented RB on the roster, freshman John Wilkinson from San Jose, CA, tore his Achilles tendon in the preseason scrimmage against Olivet Nazarene and is out for the year.

NPU has to step up the running game in order to both create some balance on offense and to manage the clock better.

North Park - D feels right.  If the Park is to make progress, it won't necessarily be linear.  The question is whether this is a temporary step back that is part of some growing pains, or if it is a return to the prior baseline.  My money is on the former, but that is as much on faith as on evidence from the field.

I think that that's a realistic observation. If you were to ask any of the NPU coaches to compare this year's team to last year's, they'd tell you to a man that this season's Vikings are more talented. But they aren't necessarily more experienced, even though this year's senior class is bigger (although it's certainly not big by the standards of other CCIW programs), because the sophomore and junior classes are so thin in terms of numbers. Scott Pethtel's last recruiting class (this year's juniors) was tiny, and last year the late start after Mike Conway's hire in January meant more or less that the NPU coaching staff was looking for warm bodies to fill out the 2013 roster as much as anything, which meant that attrition hit this year's sophomore class hard.

This year's freshman class is both deep and talented, and if the Park can retain these guys -- always a big "if" where NPU football is concerned -- and pull in another class that's just as good or better (and the early read on recruiting is that that just might happen), then the program will make forward progress. But there's no guarantees whatsoever.

The results on the field weren't what was expected of this team in non-conference play. The Vikings did play CUW and Wash U right down to the wire, but they lost both of those games -- and Wash U has turned out to not be very good, which makes the loss look worse. The Alma game was a disaster and a massive disappointment, as the Park played like crap against a team that even the eighth-place CCIW team most years ought to beat.

The Wheaton and NCC results were pretty much what everybody expected, although the coaching staff is not happy with the way that NPU started both of those games. The Vikings played very poorly early in both contests, and by the time that they snapped out of it and started executing properly, for all intents and purposes the games were already decided. That's one more thing that the Vikes need to do tomorrow at Langhorst Field: Come out and start the game like a football team rather than like a deer caught in the headlights.

All in all, I think that among the braintrust at Foster & Kedzie the optimistic take on the first half of the season would've been 2-3 and the realistic take would've been 1-4. So 0-5 is short of expectations, but not tremendously so.

I never saw a picture of the goldenrod logo and/or uniform (in any sport).  Likewise, I'd be curious what kind of an image that would have portrayed.  Keep in mind that was probably 20's-30's era, and graphics/data was probably limited. (sign of the times).  Thank goodness somebody was wise enough to adopt the Bluejays.

Could've been worse. Elmhurst could've been nicknamed the Boy Beauties, as was the case with another CCIW school that shall remain nameless. (And, no, it's not my alma mater.)

They were lucky to get past Augie and Carthage this year, (+ the loss at Loras), and I think we all would consider AC/CC as middle of the pack teams this year.

Not necessarily.

I snuck a look at USee's grade book for IWU's 5 games so far to see exactly how each game was graded:

Franklin--82 (B-)---> Only a 7 point win, but against a team well regarded in the pre-season.
Albion----70 (C)----> Another slim 7 point win against a very average team.
Simpson-42 (F)---->  Playing WITH the starting QB, an unexpected loss to another average team.
Carthage-54 (F+)--> Another unexpected loss, but a few more points for playing WITHOUT the starting QB.
Millikan---92 (A-)--> A dominant win while playing with a NEW QB.

That's a total of 340 points. Divided by 5 is 68 which is equivalent to USee's D+ 

"F+"? That's a weasel grade, dude. I'm with Titan Pride on this one. An F is an F. Failure has no silver lining.

[AndOne]

Titan Pride,

You have to remember, this is US ee's grade book. I was just peeking. 

As a 54 is creeping toward 60 which is traditionally the lowest D, I think the teacher was trying to infuse a little encouragement by adding the + to the F. 

And, as far as "only at NCC............," you have to remember that not every institution can climb to the very pinnacle of academic perfection. 

[79jaybird]

Usee- That diploma cracked me up. 

[Gregory Sager]

Wally did a halfway report in the NCAC board and I thought it was insightful so I put together some thoughts on the CCIW halfway through:

IWU - D+.  You hit the reason right on the head -- their QB issues aside, the Albion and Simpson results were well below what I think was expected of the Titans this year.

Thank goodness you weren't one of my teachers.  Beating a team whose only other loss is at #13 Stevens Point by 11 is well below what was expected?  I don't know what you thought IWU would be at the outset of the season, but I was thinking it would be a major rebuilding year for a team who lost by 34 in round 1 of the playoffs, lost 30+ seniors and was starting a freshman QB.

To me, so far, the Carthage loss is the big disappointment.  I put that one on the defense as much or moreso than the offense.  They needed to step up and completely shut down a team but didn't.  The Simpson loss?  Doesn't look great now, but again, I think most realistic Titan fans thought this was going to be a rebuilding season coming in and going on the road to play a mid-tier IIAC team was going to be a challenge.

Yes, well below what was expected.  The Titans were supposed to be rebuilding/reloading this year, but the expectation was still that they were closer to NCC/Wheaton than the rest of the conference.  Hard to judge that going forward given their QB situation, but they weren't playing at that level in their nonconference schedule.  Teams playing at the level that the top-tier CCIW team typically perform at don't lose games to Albion and Simpson.

We didn't hear much of anything about the Titans in the preseason, but the one preseason post about IWU that we did receive was pretty interesting:

Valid concerns Mr. Ypsi. Here are a few reasons to go into the season with your glass half full:

1) The Titans actually have a 2nd team All-CCIW receiver returning in Artie Checcin. He led the team in receptions last season.
2) Losing Gallik is a huge blow no doubt; however, the other QB you referenced appeared to have benefitted from getting the majority of reps in spring practice. They also have some stud QB recruits coming in; including a kid from Willowbrook who made some all-state teams and set a state passing record last year and a kid from Hersey who was their conference's Player of the Year. They have some other options as well, but this will be the first time in several years  that the position won't be locked up heading into training camp.
3) They actually have several good RB's who were "waiting in the wings" last year backing up the two great seniors (Jones and Stinde) returning. This includes a kid named Roberts who averaged 7.7 yards per carry in limited duty last season, who showed real improvement this spring.

Hopefully this is a reload instead of a rebuild year. They have two lockdown cornerbacks coming back, a stud linebacker in Klein returning and what might be the best d-line in the conference, so hopefully the defense can keep them in games while the offensive skill position players adjust to their roles, similar to the 2011 season when they made the play-offs. 

The Titans have 5 CCIW All-Conference position players returning, as well as the 1st Team All-CCIW kicker, punter and return specialist, so hopefully the cupboard isn't too bare.       

I'm not throwing GJS under the bus here, because by dint of tradition and human nature a very large percentage of fans tend to wax hyperbolic about their teams in the preseason. And he did say that "hopefully this is a reload instead of a rebuild year." But it's hard to paint a pretty picture in retrospect on the first half of IWU's season.

(Interestingly, the freshman QB to whom GJS referred as the "kid from Willowbrook who made some all-state teams," Brian Johnson, has yet to play for the Titans this season in spite of their quarterback woes. But one of his favorite receivers at Willowbrook, Devin Childress, is tearing it up for NPU as a freshman this year.)

[79jaybird]

" Could've been worse. Elmhurst could've been nicknamed the Boy Beauties, as was the case with another CCIW school that shall remain nameless. (And, no, it's not my alma mater.) "

In the 1950's Elmhurst was not very good and Oliver M. Langhorst's teams were known as "Uncle Pete's Puny Ponies"

[AndOne]

Does anyone know anything about the Laible kid at IWU?
Nothing was mentioned about him after Warner got sick, and he seemed to come out of nowhere to play great in directing the W over Millikin.
Surprising nothing has been heard about Johnson who, as stated above, was great in HS, or Haeffner who led his team to the 7A state championship.

[USee]

Augie 7
IWU 2

Final

Ugly game in Bloomington.

[USee]

I am hearing Wheaton will start their 3rd different QB of the season tonight in Decatur. Johhny Peltz will get the nod at QB for the Thunder.

[iwu70]

Indeed ugly and disappointing for Homecoming here in Bloomington.

The Titans played poorly, especially on offence, couldn't contain the AC QB scrambling around on defence, threw several picks, just couldn't get much going, and had way way way to many key and other penalties.  Yes, a big loss to AC, 7-2.  AC has a nice offence, controlling the ball and TOP, making few TOs or other mistakes, and played the Titans pretty well on D.   Titans blocked a FG attempt, but I don't think AC had any other TOs.   The IWU 3rd string QB played a bit more like a 3rd stringer today, again very ineffective Titan running game.  Not sure if this is poor O line blocking or ineffective vision and power of Robrts.  In any case, only about 100 yards in total rushing offence.  Not going to get it done.   AC did just enough to get the win on a cold, overcast day.  The score sounds more like a baseball game than a CCIW football score.

Disappointing.  6-4 for the season is going to be very difficult playing like this.  5-5 looks more like it.

Great Homecoming, overall, esp. the Gala Concert for the 150th of the School of Music.  So much talent, so many genres and types of music, so many talented faculty, students and alums.  Just great.  My warm congrats to all those associated with the School of Music -- a great legacy and tradition.  Keep going. 

Football, not so much today.  Big crowd, good atmosphere, but the Titans just not playing consistently or strongly this season, now at 3-3.

IWU'70