FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[USee]

Your defensive secondary can't cover.  They had trouble all night with coverage.  You could see the frustration in their body language.  The pass interference calls were spot on.

To the victor goes the spoils.....usually. I couldn't let this comment slide. This just isn't born out in the numbers. Broc Rutter had his worst outing (statistically) of the season (which was still pretty good) and the Thunder defense held him to 10-19 in the second half. And if our secondary can't cover what does that say about yours? We had more yards on less completions and completions of 56 and 45 yds. NCC's longest completion was 21 yds.

Again, congratulations on the victory, and don't let the facts get in the way of a good story. 

[ExTartanPlayer]

New poll out. NCC remains 6th but is only 5 points out of 5th. Wheaton drops 1 spot from 11th to 12th.

Any thoughts on why a 5-1 Carthage team isn't getting any recognition in the poll.

There are 64 zero or one loss teams, not to mention a handful of strong two-loss teams in the E8, NJAC, IIAC, MIAC, and WIAC.  That's a lot of teams for just 25 open spots.

Don't you love it when some flavor-of-the-year team, usually having their first really good year in awhile, gets off to a halfway decent start and suddenly their fans all want to know why they're not getting any poll respect?

Yes, at 5-1, Carthage looks pretty good.  But remember, in Division III with 240ish teams, the top 25 is the top 10 percent of the division, unlike FBS where the "top 25" is only the top 20ish percent; the playoffs will include several teams NOT ranked in the top 25 at season's end.  Carthage appears to be at best the third-best team in their conference, with several close wins against not-in-the-top-25 teams, and while the CCIW is a good conference that certainly might have three top 25 teams in a good year, Carthage's overall profile is not there right now.  I know people get all sensitive about this stuff, and start to use crazy leaps of logic (no offense to Mr. Ypsi, but I once remember him defending his decision to keep Illinois Wesleyan in the top 25 after an early loss to Simpson because he thought "Simpson was probably a top 50 team") and we're all homers for our own team.  But let's take a look and see how much meat is on this particular bone.

Beating Bethel on the road is a pretty good win most years...but Bethel is currently 3-4, and Carthage needed overtime to close the deal.  Three other teams have beaten Bethel without going to overtime this year; Concordia-Moorhead currently is receiving just five votes, despite CM's loss [23-20 vs St. Thomas] being better than Carthage's loss.  Dubuque is currently receiving just three votes.  An overtime win over Bethel isn't going to get you ranked this year without more meat.

Playing Wheaton close is good...except that now we know Wheaton is "only" the second-best team in the CCIW.  It's still a very good result.  It's also still a loss, and lots of teams can claim a "close loss" against a middle-of-the-top-25 team.

Beating Augie by 3 points and Elmhurst by 9 are decent results, but not fabulous.  Augie is 2-5 with a blowout loss to the third best team in the IIAC.  Elmhurst lost to Olivet.  Neither of these carries the sort of cachet that gets you ranked.

Basically, Carthage has a classic "pretty good" team resume.  Not a top-25 resume.  There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it's just funny to see fans of mediocre teams off to their first 5-1 start wondering when the top 25 votes will start rolling in, kind of like when the perennial high-school underachievers win three straight to start the season and the town denizens start talking state title.  If they want to wear the big-boy pants, they'll have another shot to prove it when they play North Central.

[NCC26]

Yet, you give USEE a pass for his view of a call...nice.

These were my observation of what was going on during the game.  Wee ton's tackles are slow, if they play a team with speed rushers, they are going to be in trouble.  The hold was as blatant as could be.  No flag.  What do you want me to say?  The play ended up leading to a TD.   

Oh, I'm sure we got away with a couple hold calls too.  Never said we did or didn't did I.

So, remember, never ass ume anything right.

[Mugsy]

Yet, you give USEE a pass for his view of a call...nice.

These were my observation of what was going on during the game.  Wee ton's tackles are slow, if they play a team with speed rushers, they are going to be in trouble.  The hold was as blatant as could be.  No flag.  What do you want me to say?  The play ended up leading to a TD.   

Oh, I'm sure we got away with a couple hold calls too.  Never said we did or didn't did I.

So, remember, never ass ume anything right.

Says the former NCC soccer player from 1987.   

[Gregory Sager]

Beating Bethel on the road is a pretty good win most years...but Bethel is currently 3-4, and Carthage needed overtime to close the deal.  Three other teams have beaten Bethel without going to overtime this year; Concordia-Moorhead currently is receiving just five votes, despite CM's loss [23-20 vs St. Thomas] being better than Carthage's loss.  Dubuque is currently receiving just three votes.  An overtime win over Bethel isn't going to get you ranked this year without more meat.

Signature wins don't need more meat.

[wally_wabash]

Yet, you give USEE a pass for his view of a call...nice.

USee's analysis was, emphasis added on the important notes:

I thought the pass interference call on Marcus Smith was a good call which was a 3rd down conversion and prolonged a NCC scoring drive. Likewise a subsequent pass interference call against Blazek on 3rd down  was horrible and led to the other score in the second half for NCC. The officials, by and large, were not a factor in the outcome and made some calls good and bad both ways.

Basically I think there's a Grand Canyon's amount of space between talking about pass interference calls made or missed and talking about holding calls made or missed.  And USee's take was balanced and ended with a punctuation that calls got missed both ways.  That's a key thing when you travel down the road of MMQBing Division III game officials. 

That's a long, long way from calling Wheaton's guys serial holders that will get torched in the tournament by game officials that will call such things more closely (don't hold your breath on that either...the record is long and storied of playoff official crews making bad calls, missing calls, not controlling the clock properly...all kinds of stuff) without even the slightest whiff of "hey, maybe my guys held a little (or a lot) too."  I didn't see a single snap of this game Saturday night and yet I'm more than comfortable saying North Central held on the interior line, probably a lot, without being penalized.  It happens ALL.  THE.  TIME. 

Oh, I'm sure we got away with a couple hold calls too.  Never said we did or didn't did I.

Then say so in the first place, that's all I'm saying. 

[NCC26]

Yet, you give USEE a pass for his view of a call...nice.

USee's analysis was, emphasis added on the important notes:

I thought the pass interference call on Marcus Smith was a good call which was a 3rd down conversion and prolonged a NCC scoring drive. Likewise a subsequent pass interference call against Blazek on 3rd down  was horrible and led to the other score in the second half for NCC. The officials, by and large, were not a factor in the outcome and made some calls good and bad both ways.

Basically I think there's a Grand Canyon's amount of space between talking about pass interference calls made or missed and talking about holding calls made or missed.  And USee's take was balanced and ended with a punctuation that calls got missed both ways.  That's a key thing when you travel down the road of MMQBing Division III game officials. 

That's a long, long way from calling Wheaton's guys serial holders that will get torched in the tournament by game officials that will call such things more closely (don't hold your breath on that either...the record is long and storied of playoff official crews making bad calls, missing calls, not controlling the clock properly...all kinds of stuff) without even the slightest whiff of "hey, maybe my guys held a little (or a lot) too."  I didn't see a single snap of this game Saturday night and yet I'm more than comfortable saying North Central held on the interior line, probably a lot, without being penalized.  It happens ALL.  THE.  TIME. 

Oh, I'm sure we got away with a couple hold calls too.  Never said we did or didn't did I.

Then say so in the first place, that's all I'm saying.

I'll try to be clearer in my response next time.  Just responding to Usees complaint about a pi call that he felt led to a td.  I agree the zebras didn't change the game.  Just stating my opinion on the line play and in particular the missed holding on the 45 yd pass play.

[NCC26]

Yet, you give USEE a pass for his view of a call...nice.

These were my observation of what was going on during the game.  Wee ton's tackles are slow, if they play a team with speed rushers, they are going to be in trouble.  The hold was as blatant as could be.  No flag.  What do you want me to say?  The play ended up leading to a TD.   

Oh, I'm sure we got away with a couple hold calls too.  Never said we did or didn't did I.

So, remember, never ass ume anything right.

Says the former NCC soccer player from 1987.   

And your point is?

[HoosierRedMan]

New poll out. NCC remains 6th but is only 5 points out of 5th. Wheaton drops 1 spot from 11th to 12th.

Any thoughts on why a 5-1 Carthage team isn't getting any recognition in the poll.

There are 64 zero or one loss teams, not to mention a handful of strong two-loss teams in the E8, NJAC, IIAC, MIAC, and WIAC.  That's a lot of teams for just 25 open spots.

Don't you love it when some flavor-of-the-year team, usually having their first really good year in awhile, gets off to a halfway decent start and suddenly their fans all want to know why they're not getting any poll respect?

Yes, at 5-1, Carthage looks pretty good.  But remember, in Division III with 240ish teams, the top 25 is the top 10 percent of the division, unlike FBS where the "top 25" is only the top 20ish percent; the playoffs will include several teams NOT ranked in the top 25 at season's end.  Carthage appears to be at best the third-best team in their conference, with several close wins against not-in-the-top-25 teams, and while the CCIW is a good conference that certainly might have three top 25 teams in a good year, Carthage's overall profile is not there right now.  I know people get all sensitive about this stuff, and start to use crazy leaps of logic (no offense to Mr. Ypsi, but I once remember him defending his decision to keep Illinois Wesleyan in the top 25 after an early loss to Simpson because he thought "Simpson was probably a top 50 team") and we're all homers for our own team.  But let's take a look and see how much meat is on this particular bone.

Beating Bethel on the road is a pretty good win most years...but Bethel is currently 3-4, and Carthage needed overtime to close the deal.  Three other teams have beaten Bethel without going to overtime this year; Concordia-Moorhead currently is receiving just five votes, despite CM's loss [23-20 vs St. Thomas] being better than Carthage's loss.  Dubuque is currently receiving just three votes.  An overtime win over Bethel isn't going to get you ranked this year without more meat.

Playing Wheaton close is good...except that now we know Wheaton is "only" the second-best team in the CCIW.  It's still a very good result.  It's also still a loss, and lots of teams can claim a "close loss" against a middle-of-the-top-25 team.

Beating Augie by 3 points and Elmhurst by 9 are decent results, but not fabulous.  Augie is 2-5 with a blowout loss to the third best team in the IIAC.  Elmhurst lost to Olivet.  Neither of these carries the sort of cachet that gets you ranked.

Basically, Carthage has a classic "pretty good" team resume.  Not a top-25 resume.  There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it's just funny to see fans of mediocre teams off to their first 5-1 start wondering when the top 25 votes will start rolling in, kind of like when the perennial high-school underachievers win three straight to start the season and the town denizens start talking state title.  If they want to wear the big-boy pants, they'll have another shot to prove it when they play North Central.

All good points on where the RedMen are right now.  They just need to keep playing well. 

[thunderdog]

Beating Bethel on the road is a pretty good win most years...but Bethel is currently 3-4, and Carthage needed overtime to close the deal.  Three other teams have beaten Bethel without going to overtime this year; Concordia-Moorhead currently is receiving just five votes, despite CM's loss [23-20 vs St. Thomas] being better than Carthage's loss.  Dubuque is currently receiving just three votes.  An overtime win over Bethel isn't going to get you ranked this year without more meat.

Signature wins don't need more meat.

You can keep going to the well with this all u want, but the fact of the matter is... Carthage controls its own destiny. If they win out, they'd need to beat NCC by 16+, they win the CCIW and earn the automatic bid. Signature or not, Carthage's win over Bethel was huge for that program and big for whoever finishes 2nd in conference (as far as a pool C bid).

If Wheaton can finish 9-1, I think they are a virtual lock for a pool C bid. The one scenario that throws a serious wrinkle into that statement is if Carthage beats NCC (especially if they beat them by 16+) and finishes 9-1. Yes, that's a tall task, beginning this weekend when Carthage travels to B-Town to take on a IWU squad that seems to have found its groove with the Frosh QB Bauer at the helm. If Carthage can pull one off this weekend, that will force me to root for SoDup (ARGHHH!) on Nov 5th when Carthage hosts the SoDupers

[79jaybird]

Carthage's defense looked really good Saturday in that 2nd half.  I also think Carthage made some great (coaching) adjustments at the half, which led to the outcome. 

[ExTartanPlayer]

Beating Bethel on the road is a pretty good win most years...but Bethel is currently 3-4, and Carthage needed overtime to close the deal.  Three other teams have beaten Bethel without going to overtime this year; Concordia-Moorhead currently is receiving just five votes, despite CM's loss [23-20 vs St. Thomas] being better than Carthage's loss.  Dubuque is currently receiving just three votes.  An overtime win over Bethel isn't going to get you ranked this year without more meat.

Signature wins don't need more meat.

You can keep going to the well with this all u want, but the fact of the matter is... Carthage controls its own destiny. If they win out, they'd need to beat NCC by 16+, they win the CCIW and earn the automatic bid. Signature or not, Carthage's win over Bethel was huge for that program and big for whoever finishes 2nd in conference (as far as a pool C bid).

I absolutely agree.  It was a huge win for the program, and Carthage should bask in some glory from it.  But that still does not necessarily translate into a top-25 resume.

Some of my long-winded rant there is just a carryover because this is an every-year thing: some middle-of-the-road program gets off to something like a 4-1 or 5-0 start and wonders why they aren't ranked yet.  They have a win or two that look pretty good, or they just played the best team in their conference close, and feel jipped because they're not getting any pollster love.

Beating Bethel, in general, is a really nice win.  Bethel is traditionally a great program, probably one of the 10 most successful programs in Division III over the last 10-15 years.  Unfortunately, they're a little bit off their (very high) standards this year, and that takes some of the shine off that win as far as "Does this catapult Carthage into the top 25?"

Call it a signature win if you like; I won't object.  But if you're making the case for a program with no recent historical success to vault into the top 25, you need something better than an overtime win against a 3-4 team.  They're in that great morass of "pretty good" teams, surely somewhere above the 50th percentile but lacking enough meat to be in the top 10 percent just yet.

[thunderdog]

Congrats to the NCC Cardinals on a hard fought victory over the Wheaton Thunder on Saturday. What an electric atmosphere! I have nothing but respect for the Cards. They play hard, they play fast, they play tough, they play the game the right way... Others have mentioned it before, but this is one of the "healthier" rivalries I've seen during my time with Wheaton football. So when you get beat, you tip your cap... Congrats, once again.

I knew from the videos that Broc Rutter was good... well, he's even better in person. Very impressive young QB. Throw in 3 fast, smooth, sure-handed WR's in Ulmer, Kuel, and Warden, and you've got yourself a very dangerous passing attack. NCC's O-line also deserves credit for neutralizing a talented and explosive Wheaton D-line.

I thought D.C. Lang's adjustments defensively were spot on. Moving #4 Sigler to CB, bringing in #12 Blazek, and the nickel packages put WC in position to win the game. Too many letdowns in other areas (special teams, offense) prevented this from happening.

Enjoy the Bell, we'll be taking it back in 2017

[USee]

Beating Bethel on the road is a pretty good win most years...but Bethel is currently 3-4, and Carthage needed overtime to close the deal.  Three other teams have beaten Bethel without going to overtime this year; Concordia-Moorhead currently is receiving just five votes, despite CM's loss [23-20 vs St. Thomas] being better than Carthage's loss.  Dubuque is currently receiving just three votes.  An overtime win over Bethel isn't going to get you ranked this year without more meat.

Signature wins don't need more meat.

You can keep going to the well with this all u want, but the fact of the matter is... Carthage controls its own destiny. If they win out, they'd need to beat NCC by 16+, they win the CCIW and earn the automatic bid. Signature or not, Carthage's win over Bethel was huge for that program and big for whoever finishes 2nd in conference (as far as a pool C bid).

If Wheaton can finish 9-1, I think they are a virtual lock for a pool C bid. The one scenario that throws a serious wrinkle into that statement is if Carthage beats NCC (especially if they beat them by 16+) and finishes 9-1. Yes, that's a tall task, beginning this weekend when Carthage travels to B-Town to take on a IWU squad that seems to have found its groove with the Frosh QB Bauer at the helm. If Carthage can pull one off this weekend, that will force me to root for SoDup (ARGHHH!) on Nov 5th when Carthage hosts the SoDupers

Actually, if Carthage wins out and there is a 3 way tie for the title, the Redmen would need to beat NCC by 8 to win the title. The tiebreaker is the point differential against the three tied teams.

Wheaton; +5, -10 = -5
Carthage: -5, ??
NCC: +10, ??

Wheaton has no chance to win the AQ via this avenue, they would need a Carthage win against NCC combined with another conference loss for both NCC and Carthage, all of which is highly unlikely. Carthage needs an 8 pt victory vs NCC which would bring their point differential to +3 (-5+8) and NCC's to +2 (10-8). In that case Wheaton is hosed because NCC then gets in Pool C line ahead of the Thunder, which might be ok but also might not with all the other 1 loss teams out there (follow the Pool C board to learn more).

Wheaton is really hoping NCC runs the table and then Wheaton is probably a lock for Pool C. And IWU is in Kenosha this weekend to play Carthage, not in Bloomington.

[thunderdog]

I've been found guilty of "fuzzy math" yet again... thanks for the clarification on the point differential and location of the IWU/CC matchup in Kenosha, not B-Town.