FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[ncc_fan]

John Thorne has often said that NCC's 6-4 record in his first season (2002) made all the difference, because he could then tell recruits that NCC's program was indeed turning around.   And he thought himself extremely fortunate, because 3 of those games could have gone either way, and had just a few plays turned out differently he might well have been trying to sell a 3-7 record.   

[Augie6]

Some other superlatives for this season included ... only the 4th loss to NPU in the history of the program

I think you got on this earlier this year but I don't see what Augie is trying to be.   Are they trying to be a running team, a passing team?  There's zero identity.   The Augie team I saw this year was the smallest up front I can remember.  We used to look across the field and shake our head at the size of the Augie O Lines.  I have friends that are high school coaches in the quad cities and they all say Bell is a great guy and coach and say he just doesn't have the kids to do what he wants to do.  It comes back to recruiting.  It doesn't appear he has the right kids in house yet.  What is Augie doing as an administration to be better?   How many full time coaches are they committing to the football program?   The facilities upgrade was a nice start but now what?

I've heard from some -- not all, but some -- Augie people over the past few years that the AC administration just isn't committed to winning anymore. I've always found that hard to believe, as Augustana continues to be very strong in some sports -- men's basketball is a national force, baseball continues to be excellent, and Augie is always really solid in the running sports as well -- and the upgrades to the Knowlton Athletic Complex (which includes Lindberg Stadium) speak for themselves. I think that some of the grumbling can be explained by the fact that long-time Augustana supporters were spoiled by decades of AC being better across the board than everybody else in the CCIW, and they can't adjust their thinking to the realization that such a state of affairs couldn't go on forever, no matter how hard Augie tried. This is a league that has developed a reputation for being nationally competitive in just about every sport that's sponsored by D3, and you don't get that way by having the same school win the all-sports trophy (whether it's a mythical one such as the CCIW's or an actual one) every single stinkin' year. F'rinstance, just ask the MIAC how it's working out for them to have become St. Thomas And The Twelve Schools That St. Thomas Beats Like A Drum At Everything.

While Augustana is located a considerable distance away from Chicagoland, it's one of only two four-year schools in a metro area of 380,000 people. It's located in a stable middle-class neighborhood in Rock Island, it has the most physically attractive campus in the CCIW, and it's still close enough to the all-important western suburbs of Chicagoland to be a viable college choice for a large number of high-school student-athletes who live there, which is vitally important. Kids from the western 'burbs have come to play an even more prominent role in Augie recruiting in recent decades than the northwestern Illinois and eastern Iowa kids who used to represent Augie's bread-and-butter recruiting zone.

I think that the bottom line is that there's nothing in terms of resources or campus environment that's stopping Augie from restoring its former status as a football powerhouse (unless the football program's budget has been slashed in recent years, and I haven't heard of that happening). I don't mean "powerhouse" in the Reade-era sense, because that's never going to happen again. I mean more like the Schmulbach and Barnes eras, in which Augie is consistently a first-division CCIW football program as well as a champion and/or playoff team often enough for it to be both a realistic expectation for every team fielded by the program and a recruiting draw. From my admittedly limited point of view, the problem seems to be managerial. Augie just hasn't hired the right guy the past couple of times the head coaching job has come open.

GS,

I've heard enough over the years that I still question whether the top of the administration at Augie is really that committed to the success of the athletics program.  As I've mentioned before, Men's Basketball, Baseball and Men's Track and Field all have excellent coaches who had been in place prior to the hiring of the current administration, and they are the primary reason for the success of those programs.  The only major men's sport that this administration has it's "stamp" on is Football and I think most would agree it's been a disaster. 

I agree with your point that "if you're failing from a recruiting standpoint, it means you're failing from a coaching standpoint."  Coach Bell and his staff may be the best from an X's and O's standpoint in the CCIW (I don't actually believe this), but you would never be able to see that based on their failure in recruiting.  As I look at the roster, I don't think their is a huge change in where Augie is getting their kids from.  There are probably a few more Iowa kids than there were when I played, but the mix of Chicago area kids and smaller town central and northwest Illinois kids is pretty similar.  They probably have more west suburban public high school kids than we ever got, but a big difference between then and now is they are getting a lot less Chicago area Catholic high school kids than we did years ago.  We had a lot of players from Benet, IC, Carmel, Mt Carmel, St Rita, St. Laurence, Montini, etc which aren't represented on their current roster.  What they aren't getting is the more talented kids from the programs they recruit from.  I don't know if this is because of an inability to properly evaluate the kids they are recruiting or, maybe, it's shifting the paradigm of recruiting the talent level needed to compete in the Midwest Conference vs the CCIW (although you would think it wouldn't take three years to understand this).  Maybe they are being held to a higher academic standard for recruits than other schools in the CCIW (I highly doubt this is the case, BTW).  Whatever the reason, it needs to be be fixed very soon or my guess is they will find someone else who can figure it out. 

[HAMBO]

I will respond Gregory.  Here is the rest of the story regarding the Millikin turnaround.  There are only 4 seniors on the program.  There are 16 freshmen on the 2-deep roster list. The very talented wide receiver group is made up of 4 freshmen, 1 sophmore, and 1 Junior.  So unless the academic ax catches them, the future looks good.

Millikin needs much improvement on the defensive side to really contend.  They are currently 7-2 over all for the year.  They finish against IWU which they will likely lose but even ending up 7-3 is amazing.

[Augie6]

John Thorne has often said that NCC's 6-4 record in his first season (2002) made all the difference, because he could then tell recruits that NCC's program was indeed turning around.   And he thought himself extremely fortunate, because 3 of those games could have gone either way, and had just a few plays turned out differently he might well have been trying to sell a 3-7 record.

That's a big problem for Coach Bell.  How do you sell a program to a recruit by saying we have gotten worse since I've taken over the program.  There are a lot of other great things about Augie that can be used to sell a recruit that are not football related, but selling it on the merits of what's going in football is very tough.  About the only thing that may attract a new recruit is the ability to start/play early in their career.  However, that hasn't seemed to be a successful recipe in getting things turned around during the past 3 years. 

[Augie6]

Some other superlatives for this season included ... only the 4th loss to NPU in the history of the program

GS,

Forgot to mention, this gave me a pretty good laugh!!

[GoIrish7]

The echoes and frustration out of Augie are matched (to some degree) at Elmhurst.   The current Elmhurst regime has not really shown much in terms of development and getting the program to take strides forward.  Another loss this weekend where the 2nd half was a complete meltdown. I'd like to see a stat of the opponents vs. Elmhurst scoring in the 2nd half.  I can't imagine it being pretty.

IMO- Augie needs to get their identity back.  Perhaps going back to the Wing-T.  When Augie's Wing-T was polished, they were next to unstoppable.  2nd, sometimes 3rd man through the hole and they are almost always generating 4-6 yds (minimally) a carry.   

Once they chose to distance the Wing-T,  they were looking to adopt programs and ideas from others,  and well the results prove it. 

The other thing that comes to mind, is that it is just harder to recruit Chicago suburban kids.  With the rise of North Central (Thorne Sr. era) and other local programs (EC/CC) having (select years) success,  there are more vultures out there looking for the bread. 

I'm curious to see what the EC admin thinks of the state of the Jays program.

SCORE BY QUARTERS     1st  2nd  3rd  4th    Total
--------------------  ---  ---  ---  ---      ---
Elmhurst............           24   47   17   45  -   133
Opponents...........         65   79   50   90  -   284

Elmhurst scoring thus far this season. Really not impressive anywhere - But I do agree for as competitive as they have played in the first 2 quarters the last 2 games, things have been ugly in the second half. The biggest issue the offense is having is turnovers, and negative or no gain plays. The Bluejays leading rusher is averaging 2.7 YPC and then when we are forced to throw the ball we turn it over or are unable to convert. After the 2012 season hopes were that they would be able to compete in recruiting with other top CCIW teams. The current staff has put together a very nice coaches office, but the facilities still lie in the bottom of the league. The locker room might be the worst in all of the CCIW, and a few other stadium renovations need to be done.

With recruiting being the backbone of all programs, the Bluejays when having success were able to go down into Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and up into Michigan and then grab some talent in Illinois but not depend solely on Illinois recruits. That was the recipe for success knowing that the Jays were going to have trouble recruiting over NCC, Carthage, IWU, Loras and other d2/d3/NAIA schools who would recruit Chicago heavily. Right now we are settling grabbing the 3rd or 4th best players off of Illinois high school rosters while the schools listed get their best players. Hopefully we get back or find a new formula for success in recruiting! Would love to see the Bluejays get back to winning ways.

[iwu70]

Loved the horrified cat, too.   

'70

[Gregory Sager]

With recruiting being the backbone of all programs, the Bluejays when having success were able to go down into Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and up into Michigan and then grab some talent in Illinois but not depend solely on Illinois recruits. That was the recipe for success knowing that the Jays were going to have trouble recruiting over NCC, Carthage, IWU, Loras and other d2/d3/NAIA schools who would recruit Chicago heavily. Right now we are settling grabbing the 3rd or 4th best players off of Illinois high school rosters while the schools listed get their best players. Hopefully we get back or find a new formula for success in recruiting!

We're calling dibs on Polynesia.

[AO]

This is a league that has developed a reputation for being nationally competitive in just about every sport that's sponsored by D3, and you don't get that way by having the same school win the all-sports trophy (whether it's a mythical one such as the CCIW's or an actual one) every single stinkin' year. F'rinstance, just ask the MIAC how it's working out for them to have become St. Thomas And The Twelve Schools That St. Thomas Beats Like A Drum At Everything.

The dominant Tommies haven't stopped other MIAC teams from having great seasons.  In my estimation the conference is as good as it's ever been in basketball/football over the last few years.  I suppose some of the weaker football teams might have some blowout fatigue but I don't see evidence that has really hurt those programs.

[Gregory Sager]

This is a league that has developed a reputation for being nationally competitive in just about every sport that's sponsored by D3, and you don't get that way by having the same school win the all-sports trophy (whether it's a mythical one such as the CCIW's or an actual one) every single stinkin' year. F'rinstance, just ask the MIAC how it's working out for them to have become St. Thomas And The Twelve Schools That St. Thomas Beats Like A Drum At Everything.

The dominant Tommies haven't stopped other MIAC teams from having great seasons.  In my estimation the conference is as good as it's ever been in basketball/football over the last few years.  I suppose some of the weaker football teams might have some blowout fatigue but I don't see evidence that has really hurt those programs.

It has definitely had an impact on the MIAC's ability to land Pool C seeds in several sports.

[Gregory Sager]

Congratulations to NPU junior cornerback David Simmons upon being named CCIW DPOW.

[AO]

This is a league that has developed a reputation for being nationally competitive in just about every sport that's sponsored by D3, and you don't get that way by having the same school win the all-sports trophy (whether it's a mythical one such as the CCIW's or an actual one) every single stinkin' year. F'rinstance, just ask the MIAC how it's working out for them to have become St. Thomas And The Twelve Schools That St. Thomas Beats Like A Drum At Everything.

The dominant Tommies haven't stopped other MIAC teams from having great seasons.  In my estimation the conference is as good as it's ever been in basketball/football over the last few years.  I suppose some of the weaker football teams might have some blowout fatigue but I don't see evidence that has really hurt those programs.

It has definitely had an impact on the MIAC's ability to land Pool C seeds in several sports.

A positive impact for the most part I'd think.  Regionally ranked opponent who lifts your SoS.

[Gregory Sager]

No, it doesn't. The MIAC plays so few contests out of conference, due to its sheer size, in most sports that the SOS of MIAC teams trends more to .500 in both directions than is the case for other leagues. And, of course, within the MIAC itself all SOS evens out at .500, anyway, since there always has to be an equal number of wins and losses in league contests.

Even in single-round-robin sports that play a substantial number of contests -- men's soccer and women's soccer, for example, or volleyball -- the MIAC suffers because everybody else's leagues are also playing single-round-robin schedules, thereby decreasing the chances of a potential MIAC Pool C to move up in terms of national SOS comparisons.

[Pat Coleman]

I'm not sure the MIAC has been shafted in Pool C in anything that we cover.

[Gregory Sager]

"Shafted" would be too strong a word for what I'm describing, Pat. Plus, it implies conscious discrimination against MIAC schools, which I don't think is the case.