FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[USee]

Something I have never seen before early in the Wheaton @ Carroll game. Wheaton, leading 7-0, blocked a punt and recovered it in the Carroll endzone for a TD. Flag on the play and it was ruled that a Wheaton player illegally batted the ball to keep it from going out of bounds through the back of the endzone (allowing his teammate to recover it). The strange part was that Carroll was given a first down instead of Wheaton's ball near the Carroll EZ. Big penalty and seems disproportionate.

[lmitzel]

Something I have never seen before early in the Wheaton @ Carroll game. Wheaton, leading 7-0, blocked a punt and recovered it in the Carroll endzone for a TD. Flag on the play and it was ruled that a Wheaton player illegally batted the ball to keep it from going out of bounds through the back of the endzone (allowing his teammate to recover it). The strange part was that Carroll was given a first down instead of Wheaton's ball near the Carroll EZ. Big penalty and seems disproportionate.

Curious: what was the distance on it? I did a quick Google search and it looks like an illegal bat is a 10 yard penalty.

Other possibility is that an illegal bat also carries a loss of down. Not sure if that's why Carroll got the ball back?

[Crusader92]

Wheaton up 21-6 at the half. Have really benefited from favorable field position on a couple of drives.

[USee]

Something I have never seen before early in the Wheaton @ Carroll game. Wheaton, leading 7-0, blocked a punt and recovered it in the Carroll endzone for a TD. Flag on the play and it was ruled that a Wheaton player illegally batted the ball to keep it from going out of bounds through the back of the endzone (allowing his teammate to recover it). The strange part was that Carroll was given a first down instead of Wheaton's ball near the Carroll EZ. Big penalty and seems disproportionate.

Curious: what was the distance on it? I did a quick Google search and it looks like an illegal bat is a 10 yard penalty.

Other possibility is that an illegal bat also carries a loss of down. Not sure if that's why Carroll got the ball back?

It was 4th and 7. Seemed strange that you could block a punt and during the scramble to recover it, a penalty gives the ball back to the punting team. I kind of thought it would be like an illegal block on an interception return. Penalty for the return team but doesn't nullify the turnover.

[Crusader92]

Please but a bit surprised by the size of the 52-6 victory for Wheaton at Carroll today. It seemed like the Thunder were playing with a short field all day, but have to give them credit for applying pressure to help create those situations. In any event, an impressive win.

[ncc_fan]

Something I have never seen before early in the Wheaton @ Carroll game. Wheaton, leading 7-0, blocked a punt and recovered it in the Carroll endzone for a TD. Flag on the play and it was ruled that a Wheaton player illegally batted the ball to keep it from going out of bounds through the back of the endzone (allowing his teammate to recover it). The strange part was that Carroll was given a first down instead of Wheaton's ball near the Carroll EZ. Big penalty and seems disproportionate.

Curious: what was the distance on it? I did a quick Google search and it looks like an illegal bat is a 10 yard penalty.

Other possibility is that an illegal bat also carries a loss of down. Not sure if that's why Carroll got the ball back?

It was 4th and 7. Seemed strange that you could block a punt and during the scramble to recover it, a penalty gives the ball back to the punting team. I kind of thought it would be like an illegal block on an interception return. Penalty for the return team but doesn't nullify the turnover.

But in the interception return scenario the penalized team has possession prior to the penalty.  On the punt block play Wheaton committed the penalty prior to gaining possession, so there is no turnover.  (Is that the right way to look at it?)

[hickory_cornhusker]

Something I have never seen before early in the Wheaton @ Carroll game. Wheaton, leading 7-0, blocked a punt and recovered it in the Carroll endzone for a TD. Flag on the play and it was ruled that a Wheaton player illegally batted the ball to keep it from going out of bounds through the back of the endzone (allowing his teammate to recover it). The strange part was that Carroll was given a first down instead of Wheaton's ball near the Carroll EZ. Big penalty and seems disproportionate.

Curious: what was the distance on it? I did a quick Google search and it looks like an illegal bat is a 10 yard penalty.

Other possibility is that an illegal bat also carries a loss of down. Not sure if that's why Carroll got the ball back?

It was 4th and 7. Seemed strange that you could block a punt and during the scramble to recover it, a penalty gives the ball back to the punting team. I kind of thought it would be like an illegal block on an interception return. Penalty for the return team but doesn't nullify the turnover.

But in the interception return scenario the penalized team has possession prior to the penalty.  On the punt block play Wheaton committed the penalty prior to gaining possession, so there is no turnover.  (Is that the right way to look at it?)

I'm not certain on the rule but that's how I understand it as well. Until someone on Wheaton is holding onto the football, it is still Carroll's ball since they snapped it.

[USee]

Not sure why Augie isn't getting more love in the top 25. 5-1 with a 7 pt loss to #12. They were better than UWO who was ranked until picking up their 3rd loss. I think Augie is a legit top 25 team.

[ExTartanPlayer]

Not sure why Augie isn't getting more love in the top 25. 5-1 with a 7 pt loss to #12. They were better than UWO who was ranked until picking up their 3rd loss. I think Augie is a legit top 25 team.

I think that's fair, but as Pat always says when people ask why (Team X) isn't ranked, to put someone in you have to take someone out. There are lots of teams with similar(ish) resumes and ultimately you end up making judgement calls in situations where there's not much head to head data. Berry is ranked 24th at 6-1 with a 9-point loss against #6 (in a game they led at halftime and remained within a score until very late).  If we're splitting hairs, Angie's 7-point loss was 41-27 until a touchdown with 17 seconds to go, so those are probably more or less equivalent results.  I'm not saying it's clear that Augie loses this argument, but the bottom spots in the Top 25 ballot always involve judgements of undefeated teams and 1-loss teams where we have to guess about the "quality of the loss" and how that translates sometimes when there's little data to compare the two results directly.

Fair question; I just chalk it up to "it's dang hard to get ranked in D3" because lots of teams will have a resume of "6-1 with their one less to somebody ranked." Some of those teams will get ranked, of course, it's just the judgement calls of which ones. Putting my hater's hat on, the team I'm gonna pick on this week is John Carroll, who seems to ride close losses to Purple Powers to higher-than-warranted rankings every year although they haven't got their own (recent) track record of playoff success (as I ranted about on the PAC board not long ago).  I think they have gotten a little too much benefit of the doubt from voters, but that's a rant for another thread.

[USee]

I agree with you and to be clear, I'm not trying to solve the Top 25 voters dilemma's and was cherry picking a single name. Those guys do a great job week in and week out trying to balance results with perceptions. Historically they have been very accurate.

I was making an observation that Augie is a legit top 25 team based on quality of their team. They are likely going to be the Isthmus bowl rep (unless Wheaton falls into that spot--which could happen). I have seen UWO and NCC live. I have seen 7-10 other top 25 teams play on film. My personal opinion is that Augie is a top 25 team (better than UWO for sure--who was ranked very hight at one point) and I would favor them in a game over at least 5 teams that are ranked and probably 10 teams that are receiving votes. Its certainly subjective and based on my own opinion, which is worth a lot less than all the corn in Manito.

[Cardinal773]

In the podcast today, Pat pointed out that Chicago is "taking a dive in the five" in large part due to a shake-up in their coaching staff.  Games are won and lost in the trenches.  And while Pat did not mention him by name, former Maroon and current North Park OL coach John Lizak is no exception.  John was a junior when I was a freshmen at NCC.  He's a great guy and UC's loss is NPU's gain. 

I really enjoy seeing the success Park has been having this year, and it is in large part because of guys like John putting in the work and helping make it happen.

[USee]

To that end, the former UChicago Head Coach is Augie's Def Coordinator, Dick Maloney.

[Gregory Sager]

In the podcast today, Pat pointed out that Chicago is "taking a dive in the five" in large part due to a shake-up in their coaching staff.  Games are won and lost in the trenches.  And while Pat did not mention him by name, former Maroon and current North Park OL coach John Lizak is no exception.  John was a junior when I was a freshmen at NCC.  He's a great guy and UC's loss is NPU's gain. 

I really enjoy seeing the success Park has been having this year, and it is in large part because of guys like John putting in the work and helping make it happen.

Agreed, because I can see how much NPU's O-line has improved this year despite having three new starters. A lot of that is John Lizak's doing. But the kudos should go even more to Kyle Rooker for hiring guys like John in the first place. Assembling a strong coaching staff is one of the most overlooked yet crucial aspects of being a successful head coach.

[Gregory Sager]

I was way off on Wheaton vs. Carroll and IWU vs. Carthage being potentially competitive, but Elmhurst vs. Millikin made me look like a genius:

* I think that this is the week that Elmhurst finally breaks through and gets a W in league play. There's nothing impressive about the 'jays aside from an isolated player or three (take a bow, Bryce Gable), but there's more there than Millikin has; the Big Blue are truly awful across the board, and I say that as an observer who's had some experience with witnessing truly awful football. Nevertheless, it's another one I wouldn't put any money on, because you simply cannot rely upon a team like Elmhurst to get it done with no muss and no fuss. I think that this is the Worst Mistake Bowl; i.e., the loser will be the team that makes the worst mistakes, such as a turnover close to its own goal line, a touchdown called back because of a stupid penalty that didn't affect the flow of the play, or a missed PAT or point-blank FG. These really aren't teams that can exploit lesser mistakes the way that a first-division CCIW team can, so I think it comes down to blatant goofs to settle this one.

I'm sure that few people, if anybody, who weren't parents of a Bluejay or Big Blue player or who aren't true-blue diehard fans of either program actually saw this, but this game provided the CCIW play of the year in the late going.

Elmhurst went up in the seesaw battle, 27-21, on a TD and two-point conversion with 3:41 to play. Millikin bogged down on the ensuing drive until, with 2:31 to play and facing a 3rd and 8 at their own 35, MU got an enormous break when Aidan Lombardo hit Javeion Wallace in the flat a mere two yards upfield and Wallace managed to break two tackles on his way up the north sideline for a 64-yard gain to the EU 1. A big part of the play's success came from the fact that a Millikin WR rammed his pads underneath the chin of an Elmhurst DB while the ball was in the air and knocked him cold. The Bluejay was looking at the pass and at Wallace when he got hit, and was totally blind-sided. He was potentially in the right spot to stop Wallace shy of the first-down marker, but ... who knows? He also could've been the third Bluejay to blow a tackle on that play. At any rate, there was no flag, and MU was now in position to win the game with a TD and a PAT. Two plays later, MU's Matthew Salazar ran it in for the tying score with 1:16 to play and no timeouts remaining for the 'jays.

Then, MU kicker David Ramirez, who had already added field goals of 29 and 34 yards to a previous successful PAT, kicked the ensuing PAT attempt right into the line. The ball never got above head level. After bouncing around for a few brief moments, the ball was picked up by EU's Talyn West. He started running with it, dropped it, and got a nice Aussie-rules bounce off of the Langhorst turf that put the ball right back up into his outstretched hands. He then sprinted untouched into the east end zone for the rare two-points-the-other-way conversion that swung what would've been a 28-27 Millikin lead with 76 seconds left to play into a 29-27 Elmhurst lead that stood up after Ramirez's onside kick attempt failed and the 'jays kneed out the clock.

I feel for Ramirez. That's a bad, bad time to barely lift a PAT attempt off the ground at all when your team is set to win its first (and almost certainly only) game of the season in the final moments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUvWkb7zdr4&list=PL99VV4Nx2aNjliyYSIw86CRDxuKh5ocg7&index=14

The fun starts at about the 3:17:30 mark.

[wally_wabash]

Talyn West's DPAT also prominently featured in this week's Drive in the 5 segment on Around The Nation!  The rest of the pod, also great.  Highly recommend.