FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[usee]

Since we're on the "way too early playoff seeding" discussion, I'll add in my 2 cents.   My uneducated opinon on the North Region seedings would go like as shown below.  Granted I've made a huge assumption that the current conference leaders win out, but here it is nonetheless:

1.  Mount Union (10-0) OAC Champ - Pool A
8.  Hope/Olivet (7-3) MIAA Champ - Pool A

4.  Capital (9-1) OAC Runner up - Pool C
5.  Franklin (9-1) HCAC Champ - Pool A

3.  Wabash (10-0) NCAC Champ - Pool A
6.  Case Western Reserve (10-0) UAA Champ - Pool B

2.  Wheaton (10-0) CCIW Champ - Pool A
7.  Concordia/Lakeland (8-2) IBC Champ - Pool A

IMHO, what kills the CCIW's chances of getting a Pool C bid is the 2nd place team having 2 losses as well as there being a legit North Region Pool B team in Case sitting at 10-0.  Unless there are a ton of losses nationally with no surprise upsets in Pool A conferences, I don't think 8-2 gets another CCIW team in.  9-1 would have been for sure.   

For there to be any chance, the CCIW folks need the Pool A conference champs to be the clear favorite, not the upstart stealing it and leaving the "name" sitting at 9-1 and looking for Pool C.  Ala St John's if they stumble in the MIAC.

HSC,

This is exactly the bracket I would have laid out. However I would have put Wash U in place of Case. Either way, it will be one of the two. I wouldn't put it past the committee to try and get capital in the #2 seed side of the bracket to try and set up a rematch in alliance.

[Mr. Ypsi]

hscoach, that looks like a very plausible scenario (as of now).  If NCC/IWU were to take the AQ, Wheaton would probably drop to 4 (Wabash [how'd I type 'Franklin' earlier?! :-[] move up to 2, Cap to 3.  I'd guess that NCC/IWU would be slotted 6th (going to Cap) or 7th (going to Wabash).

But a lot of football between now and then.

[79jaybird]

Usee, thank you for the Karma and you hit it on the head.  It is very disappointing right now as a Bluejay fan/commentator, however as a football fan they have been very exciting games.  We are just a few plays here and there away from being in the top 3 slots, just for some reason we keep falling short.  There is still a lot of games remaining and my goal all along has been 7-3 or better.  Attainable yes, difficult- extremely, but that's the goal for me right now.
Just one of my "personals"  when I am on the air I try not to be the Ron Santo "homerism".  Ron can get away with it because it's WGN and the Cubs, but at our level if I become a homerism on the air, only Elmhurst fans will listen.  That minimizes your audience which I don't want to have happen.  Then when you go on a national "neutral" broadcast, you definitely can't be a homer.

[Titan Q]

A little pub. for North Park and North Central on Sportscenter tonight...something about the 1968 game played between the two featuring more points scored than that crazy Boise St/Nevada game.

[Brass Bell]

For the better part of two quarters NPU did an epic face-plant that was memorable even by the dismal standards of North Park football. Before the game was a minute old Shelby Wood had thrown an interception and Carthage was in the end zone. NPU fumbled away the ball deep in its own territory, leading to another Carthage TD; the Vikings failed to recover a Carthage fumble on a Red Men first and goal, in spite of the fact that a Viking fell on the football first; Carthage scored a safety when Wood was called for intentional grounding in the end zone; and the Red Men scored yet another TD when a blocked North Park punt rolled into the end zone and was recovered by a host of Red Men.

It was 33-0 with plenty of time left in the first half, and it was looking as though Scott Pethtel was going to have to suffer through yet another one of those crushing humiliations that pop up all too regularly throughout NPU football history.

However, the Vikings snapped out of their zombie-like state at that point. Wood drove them down the field and completed a nifty pass to sophomore WR Chris Durr for a TD. The Vikings then drove the ball down the field again at the end of the half, only to have a Viking bobble away an end-zone pass that found its way into the hands of a Red Men defender for a touchback INT.

The ballgame was basically over at the half, so it was more or less just a test of character for NPU from that point forward. And the Vikings actually did show plenty of character. It's not as though they dominated the second half by any means, but they did outplay the Red Men and outscored them, 12-7, to make the final score a little more palatable. Carthage is by far the superior team -- the Red Men's O-line blew NPU off the line of scrimmage so badly that for most of the afternoon Carthage ballcarriers weren't even touched by a blueshirt until they were five or six yards downfield -- but the Red Men played the second half as though they were all deep in thought about what was going to be served for dinner in the Carthage dining hall this evening. They continually short-circuited their performance with penalties, and the Carthage pass defense turned into Swiss cheese. NPU, meanwhile, didn't show an ounce of quit and the Vikings could at least hold their heads up at the end of what turned into a 40-18 final score.

Durr, who caught a whole pile of passes (two for TDs) turned in a terrific game, and Wood was for the most part pretty good. Kelvyn West never got untracked; the game got out of hand so quickly that NPU had to abandon the run, and on most of his rushes before the game did get out of hand in the first half West was hit behind the line of scrimmage by defenders who swept through the NPU O-line like it was made out of paper.

The NPU defense had some good stops in the second half, but both the defense and the special teams need a lot of improvement when it comes to tackling skills. The first man to touch a Carthage ballcarrier very rarely brought him down, and the Red Men ran through a lot of listless arm tackles. Carthage also proved to be adept at cutting back against the grain and taking advantage of NPU overpursuit, particularly after catches.

Not a pretty game by any stretch of the imagination for NPU, and since Carthage was probably North Park's best shot at a CCIW win this season my guess is that the final scores will not get any better than this one turned out to be. But for a team that's used to packing it in in the second half, the Vikings did show people something with a decent effort after they came out of the locker room.

Agreed, nice summary of the game. I'm sorry to say I to feel NP will indeed record a donut in the CCIW win column again this year. I was expecting a little better showing from NP, but instead saw a team (sorry to say) that showed little to no improvement from last season. There are a few very good looking players on NP's team. but not enough supporting cast around them to elevate their potential. Carthage was playing this game with serious personnel issues. 5 defensive starters were out, including the entire linebacker core, CB Franco Shenault limped through the game trying to cover NP's best receiver, QB Brennan O'Boyle was knocked out late in the first half and spent the remainder of the game on crutches on the side-line. The O-line resembles a mash unit. I wish I had picked up a game program so I could identify my own players. None-the-less Carthage pulled it together and got the job done in workman like fashion. The Red Men scored with Off., Def and special teams. The Carthage Coaching staff is once again challenged, like last season, to bandaid together different personnel packages week after week. So far they are doing a pretty good job of it. I have seen some real promise for the future with some of the depth Carthage has shown as they are tested to stay tough on the field.

Whoa.........5 defensive starters were out for the redmen and that was only on one side of the ball......Sounds like Da Bears.  What's with all the injuries?

[Gregory Sager]

Its interesting if you look at the stats for NPU, the 308 total yds is made up of only 33 yds rushing and 275 passing, of which 154 went to Durr.

That's not surprising at all. As I said, the run-blocking for NPU was so nonexistent that Kelvyn West was hit two yards behind the line of scrimmage just about every time that Shelby Wood handed him the ball. But the most important explanation for the statistical imbalance in North Park's total yards was the fact that the Vikings were down big very early in the game. They had to throw the ball if they wanted to make a game of it; they had no choice in the matter.

He is a good receiver with good hands and it was fun watching the battle between he and Shenault.   I don't want to take away from that performance but the Red Men D was missing 5 starters on Saturday and while we were able to stop the run, we had difficulty getting good pressure on Wood which gave him time to find guys open.

I understand that, but injuries are a part of football. It's a sport of attrition, due to its violent and dangerous nature. You play with the players you bring, and you do the best with what you have, no excuses.

That all said, I think NPU was one of the most physical teams we have played this year.  They brought some lumber on their hits.

We did hold the ball 21:32 min in the 2nd half and I would have liked Carthage to score more than 7 points in the 2nd half, but thats hard to do when you turn the ball over 3 times.

Yeah, as I said the Red Men were pretty much able to run at will for the entire game; hence, the time-of-possession disparity in their favor. The turnovers killed all the momentum that Carthage's ground game built up in the second half (although the fumbles were a byproduct of those hard Vikings hits you mentioned), but the penalties were just as much of a factor in bogging down the Carthage attack. Eleven penalties for 100 yards lost -- that would've killed the Red Men if they hadn't already stockpiled all of those early points, especially when you consider that NPU is usually the team that self-destructs and has lots of yellow flags thrown against it.

Good luck to you guys the rest of the year.  Would love for you to knock off Wheaton this weekend! 

Thanks. I'd love to see it happen this weekend, too, but we're in "when pigs fly" territory as far as the likelihood of NPU knocking off Wheaton on Saturday is concerned. Believe me, it's a lot more galling to be looking ahead to an ugly final score for NPU this coming Saturday than you think. In case you haven't heard, we Parkers don't exactly look upon our orange-clad friends out there in DuPage County with a spirit of overflowing warmth and bonhomie.

[Mugsy]

Did the Quality of Wins Index go by the wayside for 07'?

[Titan Q]

Did the Quality of Wins Index go by the wayside for 07'?

It has been replaced by Opponents' Average Winning Percentage (OWP) and Opponents' Opponents' Average Winning Percentage (OOWP)...

http://www.ncaa.org/library/handbooks/football/2007/2007_d3_football_handbook.pdf

Page 7

[matblake]

Take a look at the colors of the chart listing each conference's playoff records.  Guess we know what CCIW team D3sports favors.......   

[matblake]

Just one of my "personals"  when I am on the air I try not to be the Ron Santo "homerism".  Ron can get away with it because it's WGN and the Cubs, but at our level if I become a homerism on the air, only Elmhurst fans will listen.  That minimizes your audience which I don't want to have happen.  Then when you go on a national "neutral" broadcast, you definitely can't be a homer.

This is precisely why I could never be on the radio/tv/print media.  Even with games I don't care about I find myself rooting for one particular team.  Kudos to those who are broadcasters rather than fans.

[usee]

In case you haven't heard, we Parkers don't exactly look upon our orange-clad friends out there in DuPage County with a spirit of overflowing warmth and bonhomie.

Greg,

I am shocked by this. I always thought you cheered for the Thunder for all games other than vs your Vikings??

And you can be my bonhomie any day.

[79jaybird]

Matblake- hehe,  I remember the first time I did a national game in the back of my mind I consistently repeated "stay neutral, no favoritism"  to remind me that I cannot be 1 sided. 
Most of the time you find a comfortable rhythm and it becomes natural. 
I am a big fan of North Park, and feel bad for them not being able to generate any wins in the conference.  I thought this would be the year they upset somebody and start to build on their CCIW mark, but gosh I don't see that happening after some of their games already.
I am running out of ideas and suggestions for them.  NPU is such a great academic institution and the neighborhood is safe/clean,  why so much trouble attracting good football talent?

[Pat Coleman]

Take a look at the colors of the chart listing each conference's playoff records.  Guess we know what CCIW team D3sports favors.......   

Hope? Gettysburg?

[matblake]

Take a look at the colors of the chart listing each conference's playoff records.  Guess we know what CCIW team D3sports favors.......   

Hope? Gettysburg?

That's why I said CCIW team...    8)

[79jaybird]

There has been some discussion about Carthage injuries and  roster alterations.  The fact that the numbers not active are up and players not dressing is NOT primarily due to injuries.  
I have firsthand information that there is a severe case of Staph Infection going around the Carthage environment, and many players are ill battling this illness.  
I heard that the Staph Infection resurfaced in the same dorm as last year.  Terrible!  I hope all the Red Men feel better asap and get back to the fields soon.   There are some injuries yes, however many players are out due to the Staph.