FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[cardinaldad]

The game ended with the North Central coaching staff receiving an unsportsmanlike penalty.

Anybody know the nature of this penalty?  Thorne runs a good ship there at North Central, I was very surprised at this.  I'm sure it was just the result of the heat of the moment and the fact that we are all human.

After the game, someone who claims they were right there and saw it, said that there were 12 Wheaton players on the field at the snap and to boot, when the Wheaton player was trying to get off, he was offsides when the ball was snapped. Neither called. In the excitement of the end of the game, I didn't observe either. I was watching intently when the flag came out. The coach that got flagged was not on the field when the flag was thrown. He was on the sideline. I believe it was something he said.

[cardinaldad]

Well, some of my thoughts about The Bell Game last night:

Congrats to Wheaton. You guys made the plays when you had to.

Both teams left everything on the field. It was like a heavy weight boxing match with an unbelievable flury at the end. From a spectator's point of view, what an excellent, exciting game to watch.

Cards, IMO you kicked some major butt last night, except you forgot to take some names. Keep your chins up. IMO you out hit and out played Wheaton last night. You have to learn to finish. There is alot of football left to play and alot of interesting things are happening in the CCIW. It's not over! Take your frustration out on Elmhurst next Sat.

Once again, NCC was out coached by the Wheaton coaching staff. Great job by them.

It was great to see each team help each other off the ground last night and to see the respect for each other displayed after the game.

IMO - Ittersagan is the Wheaton MVP for the game. The two late, great punt returns enabled Wheaton to pull this one out.

Fanthorpe is the Cards QB. I hope the coaching staff feels the same way!

Did anyone that was at the game see the flag come out on the holding call? If so, when did it come out?

Wheaton's roster is deep. They played better with some of their starters (Studebaker)hurt.

And, I'm going to say it ....... My heart goes out to the Cards. I know it's part of the game, but it is a darn shame that for two out of the past three years that one flag at the end of a game did and could potentially determine the outcome of the CCIW championship.

And again, what a GREAT game to spectate!!

[cardinaldad]

Mugsy, sorry you missed a classic. I hope you  achieved your goal and feel ok today.

[AndOne]

The game ended with the North Central coaching staff receiving an unsportsmanlike penalty.

Anybody know the nature of this penalty?  Thorne runs a good ship there at North Central, I was very surprised at this.  I'm sure it was just the result of the heat of the moment and the fact that we are all human.

After the game, someone who claims they were right there and saw it, said that there were 12 Wheaton players on the field at the snap and to boot, when the Wheaton player was trying to get off, he was offsides when the ball was snapped. Neither called. In the excitement of the end of the game, I didn't observe either.

I am NOT the fan referred to in the above post so there are at least 2 of us who saw the same thing.

I was standing on the north end zone end line about half-way between the goal post and the Wheaton sideline. The 12th Wheaton defender was definitely still a good 8-10 feet on the field at the time of the snap. As far as his also being offside, I can't say for sure, but this makes sense as unless he ran straight toward the sideline, which he did not appear to do, his path toward the bench would have taken him across the line of scrimmage as the scrimmage line on the play in question was north of the north end of the Wheaton bench.

As to the 4th down pass being caught, I did not have a clear enough view of the play to disagree with the official call of incomplete. From my vantage point, there was, as they say, "inconclusive evidence" to overturn the call on the field.

[matblake]

And again, what a GREAT game to spectate!!

Amen, and I was 300+ miles away!!!!!!!!

[ncc58]

I was sitting at the top of the stadium so I had a clear view of what happened.

Wheaton got caught changing personnel. It seemed pretty obvious that the Wheaton player did not get off the field in time. There should have been a penalty, no doubt. I'm not sure you could tell from the end zone, and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have been able to see this from the visitor's stands (because of the low profile and need to see over the players on the sideline).

It's impossible to say whether the 4th down pass was incomplete, but I'm assuming it was. Immediately though, John Thorne began to argue. And if you have ever talked to him, he does not lose his cool indiscriminately. After a brief argument, he began to argue with another official. He got in the face of the official and then walked away for a few minutes. Then, a second coach began to argue with the same official in the same manner. Then, he walked away. Then, the 3rd coach got into the official's face. And this official threw his flag - which was probably the only call he made all day.

I did not see when the flag for the holding call came out. But the Referee was standing next to the flag - it was his call. I only hope the holding obvious and blatant and paramount to the result of the play since it was the first call on an interior offensive lineman for holding in the game.

[usee]

And, I'm going to say it ....... My heart goes out to the Cards. I know it's part of the game, but it is a darn shame that for two out of the past three years that one flag at the end of a game did and could potentially determine the outcome of the CCIW championship.

And again, what a GREAT game to spectate!!

I hate to see controversial flags at the end of games. I didn't see the hold but you could probably call holding on many plays. I think its not a good idea to put the outcome of the game on one flag. The refs seemed a little overwhelmed. It appeared to me they missed some calls throughout the game that affected both sides. At one point the head referee ordered Wheaton's linebacker, Toal, off the field for "a couple plays". No flag, no ejection. Just a "timeout" of sorts. That was extremely strange as NCC was driving at the time.

I was in the visitor stands and the extra player for Wheaton was probably about 3 yrd from the sideline when the ball was snapped for the final NCC play. He was definately still on the field but also in an area the officials may give some grace. They had a lot on their plate on that last play but if you are going to throw a flag for holding you better throw it for the 12th guy.

One thing is for certain, the officials were not very consistent. Its a shame their performance is a topic for discussion in such a great game.

[AndOne]

I was sitting at the top of the stadium so I had a clear view of what happened.

Wheaton got caught changing personnel. It seemed pretty obvious that the Wheaton player did not get off the field in time. There should have been a penalty, no doubt. I'm not sure you could tell from the end zone, and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have been able to see this from the visitor's stands (because of the low profile and need to see over the players on the sideline).

It's impossible to say whether the 4th down pass was incomplete, but I'm assuming it was. Immediately though, John Thorne began to argue. And if you have ever talked to him, he does not lose his cool indiscriminately. After a brief argument, he began to argue with another official. He got in the face of the official and then walked away for a few minutes. Then, a second coach began to argue with the same official in the same manner. Then, he walked away. Then, the 3rd coach got into the official's face. And this official threw his flag - which was probably the only call he made all day.

I did not see when the flag for the holding call came out. But the Referee was standing next to the flag - it was his call. I only hope the holding obvious and blatant and paramount to the result of the play since it was the first call on an interior offensive lineman for holding in the game.

Not trying to argue with you Midwest, but the play was right in front of me. The line of scrimmage was the 24. Hard to miss. Enough said.

[WahooThunder]

I had a perfect view of the fourth down play.  The pass was not even close to being complete, it bounced off the ground about two feet in front of Sulo.

[WahooThunder]

And has anybody mentioned the extra 10-15 seconds North Central got when the scoreboard operator inexplicably stopped the clock after Fanthorpe's five yard scramble in the middle of the field on first down with about 1:20 left?

[Gregory Sager]

In carrying forward my statistical comparisons of NPU's 2007 and 2006 performances against specific CCIW opponents, here is how the Vikings fared against Millikin:

2007

team	points	total off yds	1st downs	TOs
Millikin	34	390	15	3
NPU	7	336	21	5

2006

team	points	total off yds	1st downs	TOs
Millikin	36	244	14	2
NPU	6	121	10	5

The improvement in scoring margin from last year to this year for NPU was miniscule -- the Vikings were only three points closer when the gun sounded on Saturday than they were in last season's tussle with the Big Blue. But the statistical difference otherwise is very large. Last season Millikin outgained NPU 2-to-1; this year the difference was more along the lines of a much narrower 13-to-11 ratio in Millikin's favor. Last season's advantage for the Big Blue in first downs was reversed, as the Vikings actually moved the chain half again as often as did the Big Blue. And turnovers, while still a grave NPU deficiency, were no bigger a problem than they were last year against Millikin.

North Park actually had a considerable advantage in time of possession in this game, as the Vikings had the ball for 38:42 as opposed to Millikin's 21:18. As with last week's game against NCC, you have to really look into the numbers to figure out how in the world this game wasn't much closer on the scoreboard than the statistics appear to make it at first blush. The answer is that Millikin simply converted its opportunities, while NPU didn't. Of the six Millikin drives that went for 20 or more yards, the Big Blue turned four of them into touchdowns (the fifth MU touchdown came on a punt return). Of the seven NPU drives that went for 20 or more yards, only one resulted in the Vikings reaching the end zone. The other six each ended with a punt or a turnover. Sustaining and then converting drives was what this game was all about. Millikin did it successfully, NPU didn't.

As noted by usee, two Vikings who played well against NCC continued to impress with fine performances against Millikin; sophomore running back Kelvyn West ran for 108 yards on 32 carries, while sophomore wide receiver Chris Durr caught 14 passes for 112 yards.

Carthage now becomes a team looking to be a spoiler in the CCIW and I do believe they have the capability of doing so. This is a good team even though their conference record shows no success to date. It's off to North Park next week (oh-oh) and I'm looking to see Carthage take out their frustration on the Vikes.

Given how the first two weeks of the CCIW portion of the season have shaken out, I'm sure that NPU is looking to take out a little frustration as well. The Vikes have moved the ball quite well against both NCC and Millikin, but somehow managed to shoot themselves in the foot time after time with turnovers, while the defense has tended to surrender the big play (particularly in the running game). I'm not changing my mind on this game -- I still see Carthage as the favorite, and would be very surprised to see NPU pull off the win -- but my first inclination is to suspect that the Vikings will give the Red Men a better game of it than they did in last season's pitiful 52-7 contest.

[usee]

And has anybody mentioned the extra 10-15 seconds North Central got when the scoreboard operator inexplicably stopped the clock after Fanthorpe's five yard scramble in the middle of the field on first down with about 1:20 left?

I think it was a non issue. The clock stopped at 1.22 and should have been running. One official noticed and while he was getting the attention of the head referee it started and ran down to about 1.09. I thought it should have been about 1.15 when the official noticed and they reset it to 1.16. The officials got it right. The clock operator was asleep at the wheel though.

[Mugsy]

Mugsy, sorry you missed a classic. I hope you  achieved your goal and feel ok today.

Thanks for the well wishes.  I'm bummed I missed another great game, though I called the Wheaton hotline from Chicago last night to get the score.  From the boxscore and accounts here, it sound errily like last years game.

Thanks for all the updates on the games, I feel I have an idea of what happened this weekend.

Regarding the marathon... it was brutal.  Some measured the heat on the street pavement at 110 degrees or more.  My foot was killing me by mile 5 (plantar fascitis) and by mile 12 my quads were seizing up.  Before I even started the race I had to adjust my goals significantly given the conditions - no thought of running 3:45 like I had in my training.

By mile 12 as people were dropping left and right, my goal was to finish.  By mile 18 the race organizers got word out that the race was cancelled.  Not what you want to tell people who trained for months and were 2/3rd of the way done.  Needless to say 90% kept pushing.  Later helicopters, policemen, etc. mentioned they were no longer timing the event but that everyone would receive their medals - obviously an attempt to get everyone to walk.  So most of us walked the last 5 miles to obey the race officials.  An extremely tough day to say the least...

Thank you all for the well wishes... not all the numbers in (some checks probably still trickling in over the next week or so), but thanks to a lot of generousity we raise betwee $1500-2000 towards Little Friends Center for Autism.

[Mugsy]

Just learned that one man died during the marathon today... horrible.  I saw one guy packed in ice and unresponsive.  Over 300 taken to the hospital and only 24K of the 45K runners completed the race.

[Tailgater]

Carthage now becomes a team looking to be a spoiler in the CCIW and I do believe they have the capability of doing so. This is a good team even though their conference record shows no success to date. It's off to North Park next week (oh-oh) and I'm looking to see Carthage take out their frustration on the Vikes.

Given how the first two weeks of the CCIW portion of the season have shaken out, I'm sure that NPU is looking to take out a little frustration as well. The Vikes have moved the ball quite well against both NCC and Millikin, but somehow managed to shoot themselves in the foot time after time with turnovers, while the defense has tended to surrender the big play (particularly in the running game). I'm not changing my mind on this game -- I still see Carthage as the favorite, and would be very surprised to see NPU pull off the win -- but my first inclination is to suspect that the Vikings will give the Red Men a better game of it than they did in last season's pitiful 52-7 contest.

That's why I say Oh-Oh. Carthage is certainly down after their disappointing start in conference play while NP is showing marked improvement. I fear the Red Men might be ripe for picking. They are also experiencing serious medical issues again like last year with staph infection taking out some of their players. The offensive line is....... well......banged up and digging deep for depth. They did do all right this weekend with the run game, but most of that success was due to Andy Bures finding cracks to sprint through. The Red Men pass defense needs to tighten up and lock down.