FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[markerickson]

I almost spewed my coffee when I read GoIrish7's words about the NCAA's penalties.  FA used a wrong word?  EC's actions occurred over more than a year in two different programs, i.e., MBB and wrestling.  Why would that affect VBALL?  And the degree to which GI7 characterized the severity of sanctions is also laughable.

[iwu70]

IWU hosting the Big Blue on Saturday.  Yes, wonderful fall football weather now.   I say the Titans by 2 TDs.  Sure hope Norm has figured out by now that Ryan Saxe should be the starting QB..   Special teams made the difference in the IWU comeback over Carroll on Homecoming, so I expect some big plays from them again this weekend.  Two Titan receivers are having big years so far . . . and they will likely continue this vs. the Big Blue. 

IWU'70

[Next Man Up]

IWU hosting the Big Blue on Saturday.  Yes, wonderful fall football weather now.   I say the Titans by 2 TDs.  Sure hope Norm has figured out by now that Ryan Saxe should be the starting QB..   Special teams made the difference in the IWU comeback over Carroll on Homecoming, so I expect some big plays from them again this weekend.  Two Titan receivers are having big years so far . . . and they will likely continue this vs. the Big Blue. 

IWU'70

IWU70 might be right on. Massey says Illinois Western has a 77% chance of winning, and predicts a score of
34-20.

[Next Man Up]

I think the Bell Game should be a good one.  I think we'll see how stout Wheaton's defense actually is.  Naperville has a lot of weapons and the weapons are talented too.  It will be interesting to see Naperville's offensive gameplan.  The most success in general against Wheaton's defensive philosphy has been short quick passes.  With Greenfield the red team wants to beat you into submission.  My heart says Wheaton by 3, unfortunately my head says Naperville by 10.  Fortunately the forecast looks good for Saturday evening.  Hoping for a good game and safety for all!

We are definitely in "football-weather" season now, that's for sure.

It's predicted to be 64 degrees with a feel like temp of 63 for the scheduled 6:00 kickoff in beautiful downtown NaPPerville, falling to 57 with a feel like of 56 at 8:30.

Massey predicts a 35-21 final score in favor of NCC.

[Gregory Sager]

I almost spewed my coffee when I read GoIrish7's words about the NCAA's penalties.  FA used a wrong word?  EC's actions occurred over more than a year in two different programs, i.e., MBB and wrestling.  Why would that affect VBALL?

It was more than men's basketball and wrestling, Mark. The NCAA investigation of EU found that, "Over the course of four academic years, the director of financial aid awarded scholarships partially based on athletics to 26 student-athletes across 10 sports on 42 occasions."

https://www.ncaa.org/news/2017/10/27/elmhurst-lacked-institutional-control.aspx

As for why women's volleyball in particular was brought into the discussion ... well, GoIrish7's assertion is that the EU administation has adopted a parsimonious attitude towards student-athletes with regard to financial aid in the wake of the NCAA sanctions, and he thus directly attributes the collapse of the Bluejays across the board to the administration's over-cautiousness. Next Man Up (accurately, IMO) challenged that by raising the point that the EU men's basketball program has not only continued to be successful in the wake of the sanctions, it's improved. I mean, it's hard to argue against a D3 national second-place trophy for the 2021-22 season.

That's when GoIrish7 specifically brought up women's volleyball, which has traditionally been Elmhurst's standard-bearing sport. Women's volleyball is the source of Elmhurst's two national championships (1983 and 1985, which, unfortunately, means that the CCIW can't take credit for them as well). Since the CCIW first started sponsoring the sport in the 1986-87 school year, the Bluejays have won nine conference titles in women's volleyball, which is by far the most success that EU has had in any one sport in the CCIW's co-ed era.

Given that this discussion was about the Elmhurst athletic department (and financial aid department, and overall EU administration), not simply the financial aid violations and the NCAA penalties they brought about, EU women's volleyball was completely germane to the topic at hand.

And the degree to which GI7 characterized the severity of sanctions is also laughable.

I strongly disagree. Even if you don't buy into GoIrish7's thesis about EU's financial-aid tightfistedness (and, as I said, Next Man Up makes a strong, although not airtight, argument against it), Elmhurst forfeited the 2012 CCIW co-championship in football and the women's volleyball CCIW tournament titles for 2012 and 2013. In addition, Elmhurst's 27-24 victory over Coe in the first round of the 2012 D3 football playoffs and the four matches that the Bluejays won in the 2012 D3 women's volleyball tourney en route to the Final Four, plus the two matches they won in the 2013 D3 women's volleyball tourney, were all vacated by the NCAA Committee on Infractions.

The severity of those penalties is most certainly not laughable, especially to the EU student-athletes and coaches who lost their claims to those CCIW titles and national postseason victories and to the Bluejays fans who support those two programs.

[GoIrish7]

I almost spewed my coffee when I read GoIrish7's words about the NCAA's penalties.  FA used a wrong word?  EC's actions occurred over more than a year in two different programs, i.e., MBB and wrestling.  Why would that affect VBALL?

It was more than men's basketball and wrestling, Mark. The NCAA investigation of EU found that, "Over the course of four academic years, the director of financial aid awarded scholarships partially based on athletics to 26 student-athletes across 10 sports on 42 occasions."

https://www.ncaa.org/news/2017/10/27/elmhurst-lacked-institutional-control.aspx

As for why women's volleyball in particular was brought into the discussion ... well, GoIrish7's assertion is that the EU administation has adopted a parsimonious attitude towards student-athletes with regard to financial aid in the wake of the NCAA sanctions, and he thus directly attributes the collapse of the Bluejays across the board to the administration's over-cautiousness. Next Man Up (accurately, IMO) challenged that by raising the point that the EU men's basketball program has not only continued to be successful in the wake of the sanctions, it's improved. I mean, it's hard to argue against a D3 national second-place trophy for the 2021-22 season.

That's when GoIrish7 specifically brought up women's volleyball, which has traditionally been Elmhurst's standard-bearing sport. Women's volleyball is the source of Elmhurst's two national championships (1983 and 1985, which, unfortunately, means that the CCIW can't take credit for them as well). Since the CCIW first started sponsoring the sport in the 1986-87 school year, the Bluejays have won nine conference titles in women's volleyball, which is by far the most success that EU has had in any one sport in the CCIW's co-ed era.

Given that this discussion was about the Elmhurst athletic department (and financial aid department, and overall EU administration), not simply the financial aid violations and the NCAA penalties they brought about, EU women's volleyball was completely germane to the topic at hand.

And the degree to which GI7 characterized the severity of sanctions is also laughable.

I strongly disagree. Even if you don't buy into GoIrish7's thesis about EU's financial-aid tightfistedness (and, as I said, Next Man Up makes a strong, although not airtight, argument against it), Elmhurst forfeited the 2012 CCIW co-championship in football and the women's volleyball CCIW tournament titles for 2012 and 2013. In addition, Elmhurst's 27-24 victory over Coe in the first round of the 2012 D3 football playoffs and the four matches that the Bluejays won in the 2012 D3 women's volleyball tourney en route to the Final Four, plus the two matches they won in the 2013 D3 women's volleyball tourney, were all vacated by the NCAA Committee on Infractions.

The severity of those penalties is most certainly not laughable, especially to the EU student-athletes and coaches who lost their claims to those CCIW titles and national postseason victories and to the Bluejays fans who support those two programs.

Thanks Sager. New to the boards, but your memory and ability to draw up old posts is impressive.

After graduating I hoped into Coaching, first at the d3 level for 2 seasons then joined Lester at Syracuse for 2 years before heading to U of Maryland. The 2nd two schools had no issues obviously with offerings of money. Per what I know from the FA side, almost every d3 has secondary "grant" money which can be pooled on to close the gap of other d3 schools. At Loras we had the DuHawk grant, and a few others that was awareded to be competitive when it came to packaging. Or to close the gap to other schools.  At Elmhurst, I was not part of the group who was awarded the grant, but they flat out called it the Elmhurst Athletics Grant.... in your face spelled out breaking d3 rules. This is what I mean by it could have been avoided if we simply called it something else. The majority of teams while I was there were affected when they looked into who was awarded the grant. Elmhurst did a poor job explaining to the teams who were affected, we simply got a blanket email saying that FA broke rules and that wins would be taken away from teams, but all individual records would hold and not be taken away from players. After that - they were not available for questions or meetings with student athletes and we had to piece together what it was all about.

Since - Grant money has been under tight lock and key. Elmhurst has not been willing to make the same mistake twice and simply is not awarding much grant money to compete vs other CCIW schools.

As for this weeks match ups. I like NCC over Wheaton by 2 TD's! With Elmhurst falling off, I am an NCC fan by association with Shane Dierking being one of my best friends in high school. Hoping to see them come out loose and have a good showing.

[kiko]

Today's results:

Matinees:

Carroll 44, Augustana 41 in 2OT in Waukesha
Carthage 57, Elmhurst 21 at Elmhurst
Illinois Wesleyan 38, Millikin 24 in Bloomington
Wash U 56, North Park 21 at Charcoal Delights field

I think the other two conference teams have games this evening but I'm too lazy to look up who they are playing. 

[Gregory Sager]

Wash U 56
NPU 21

Those ridiculous scoring numbers that the Bears are racking up (Carthage is the only team that's held them under 50, and the Firebirds gave up 45 to Wash U) aren't a mirage. That is a very dynamic offense that the Bears have, with a ton of talent at the skill positions and a very stout offensive line.

Reigning CCIW Special Teams POW Juan Nieves followed up his 90-yard punt return TD last week with a 98-yard kickoff return TD today. I can't remember anybody in a Vikings uni ever running back a kick to paydirt two weeks in a row. Maybe Kurt Olsson did it back when JFK was in the White House, but I doubt it.

[Schipper Strong]

Tuning in from the ARC to watch tonight's game of the week in the CCIW. As a Central fan and fan of the red and white, I will probably get confused a bit tonight. I've grown to respect Wheaton over the past two years and have to root for the Thunder tonight.  Good luck to both teams and stay healthy.

[Schipper Strong]

So much for stay healthy. 

[D3fanboy]

what a horrible start, T's and P's with that Wheaton kid

[iwu70]

IWU over MU 38-24.  Great defense by the Titans, with many sacks and tackles for loss.  Ryan Saxe with 346 yards through the air and four TDs.   

A bigger challenge for the Titans down in St. Louis next week.

IWU'70

[matblake]

Wheaton looking outmatched and disorganized. Not anticipating the quick kick was painful.

[tigerguy]

Wheaton looking outmatched and disorganized. Not anticipating the quick kick was painful.

And just like that...

[Schipper Strong]

I know I have aging eyes, but those North Central uniforms look like speedy little ants on my TV screen.