FB: Northwest Conference

[coco]

Now that is impressive!

The football seniors have been doing a great service with their Helmets for Hunger program every year, with Roth's making their contribution.  With Delap adding to it, and your T-shirt sales and donations, Wildcat 11, it was astounding this year. In light of the economy, that is remarkable.

I hope you all take the time to read WC 11's blog.

Nice job, Siefert.

[wildcat11]

Major news is coming out of Western Washington today that could have a big impact on the NWC.

Western Washington University has dropped football in order to retain its other sports

It's a sad day when the PacNW loses another program but what will this mean for the NWC schools (especially UPS and PLU)?  Will they reap the fallout of displaced players and/or recruits?  I don't know if the impact of their loss will be able to be measured but I'm sure we'll see some WWU players on NWC rosters next season.

[coco]

Geez, what a shocker. I guess they'll be playing soccer for Homecoming now. That will get everyone's juices pumping!

That will have an effect on WOU's schedule, also. They will lose the WWU games, and then Linfield.

I feel sorry for the WWU players.

[wildcat11]

Geez, what a shocker. I guess they'll be playing soccer for Homecoming now. That will get everyone's juices pumping!

That will have an effect on WOU's schedule, also. They will lose the WWU games, and then Linfield.

I feel sorry for the WWU players.

Coco,

Don't forget that Portland State was a one year deal for WOU so they lost 4 games off their schedule.  Really, WWU dropping their program might be the death blow for D2 football in the Pacific Northwest.  There are only two D2 programs located in PacNW now (CWU and WOU) and that leaves the GNAC down to four teams (Dixie State (who is just in their 2nd year of membership), HSU, WOU, and CWU).  I think the "GNAC" might just break up...again.

I have no idea what those GNAC teams are going to do to fill those two games...I mean they already play a round-robin schedule.  Maybe they will play each other 3x a year now. 

Whatever the solution is for the rest of the GNAC it's going to cost them at least one...maybe two more flights a season to fill out their schedule and that is going to add an additional $100K (guessing) onto their budgets.  That can't help those programs in trying to build up their scholarships.

Very curious to watch the long term fall-out of this.

[(509)Rat]

Don't know how CWU is going to be able to shell out much dough for two more flights if thats the case...thanks to d-train and his liberal buddies on the west side our fearless Governor made an $800 Million cut on state funding for education (how did this lady get re-elected?).  Politics aside, I can't imagine the NWC being anything but benefited from this since 80-100 top DIII athletes (in terms of talent thats what WWU had) take a more serious look at Whit, UPS, PLU.  Maybe even Linfield can upgrade their talent pool 

[MonroviaCat]

I don't suppose schools like Southern or Eastern have any plans to move to the NCAA and go to D2?  

[MonroviaCat]

.  Maybe even Linfield can upgrade their talent pool 

Of course we can--there's always room for quality players on the Linfield Bench!

[D O.C.]

Stranger things could be down the pike with this Lehman Bros. domino game.
You pups who took all business classes might not be aware that in dire times sports - football always - might lose all funding for awhile. WWII it happened shortly.

[Tuxguy]

I'm back guy's,
D.O.C.,
How about Sociology Majors?

Question:
Was Urban Meyer the Coach at Utah when our man Brett Elliott was sent to the bench after his broken wrist? ( Smith who?)   61 Td's in 2004 our Championship year and 8,614 yards and 110 Td's in 2 years at the helm of the Wildcat Offense..................................the rest is History!!!!!


USC for #1.
GO TROJANS!   8)

GO WILDCATS!

[d-train]

Wow, I'm shocked by the WWU news! In hindsight, maybe the GNAC football schools should have stayed NAIA and they'd still have EOU, SOU, Azusa and the Montana schools to play. Sometimes a 'move up' totally backfires (like the Univ. of Idaho's move from I-AA).

To be honest, this would have been far less surprizing news coming out of Ashland. SOU and Azusa are the programs that are really on an island. The NCAA and NAIA should throw these guys a bone and allow them to play in one western states football league (D-2 or NAIA) regardless of the affiliation of their other sports.

Don't know how CWU is going to be able to shell out much dough for two more flights if thats the case...thanks to d-train and his liberal buddies on the west side our fearless Governor made an $800 Million cut on state funding for education (how did this lady get re-elected?).  Politics aside, I can't imagine the NWC being anything but benefited from this since 80-100 top DIII athletes (in terms of talent thats what WWU had) take a more serious look at Whit, UPS, PLU.  Maybe even Linfield can upgrade their talent pool 

I haven't lived in the State of Washington for nearly ten years. Not sure what I have to do with your budget problems, but thanks for generalizing.

[Gig Harbor Cat]

The WWU announcement is hitting the local sports pages here, several of our local players were there.  Even though they can remain in school on scholorship I imagine they are looking for a new home.  Not only the players but a pretty good coaching staff was just kicked to the curb.  Crappy deal

GHC

[wildcat11]

I think the PLU is going to gain the most out of this deal.  Granted, it won't happen right away but the Lutes should be able to capture some of the talent that might have gone to WWU in future years.  Linfield does recruit Western Washington pretty hard so I'm not worry about upgrading our talent out of the area.  It did look like we had a group of 25-30 recruits and their families at the PLU/Linfield game this season.

[RFB]

Wow, never like to see a football program fold. Chapman started up their program in 1994 right when Cal State Fullerton folded their program. Chapman got a bunch of transfers from there. Chapman had some crazy athletes from 94-96. They were pretty unreal but super ghetto.

[speedybigboy]

I think the PLU is going to gain the most out of this deal.  Granted, it won't happen right away but the Lutes should be able to capture some of the talent that might have gone to WWU in future years.  Linfield does recruit Western Washington pretty hard so I'm not worry about upgrading our talent out of the area.  It did look like we had a group of 25-30 recruits and their families at the PLU/Linfield game this season.

So......I should be happy cause this will benefit PLU, but I'm not.  I guess my theory on the downturn in the Lutes will get tested.  For those of you that missed it I've stated in the past I think one of the big problems for PLU was when Western and Central went d2.  That caused some athletes who would have chosen PLU to instead take a scholarship or partial scholarship to Western or Central.  That happened in '95 I believe, hence the downturn after the '99 season for PLU. 

As WC11 pointed out it'll take time to see a change, unless PLU gets heavy into recruiting the WWU players to transfer.  I would think most of them would want to go to another d2 school so look for Central and WOU to pick up most of them?  And then SOU, they give scholarships and seem to be fond of the transfer.  In my time at PLU (well before the turn of the century,LOL) transfers to PLU football were a rarity, if not out right discouraged.  The notable exception being the current head coach and, shortly after I graduated, a running back, Vindivich?

[bluenote]

 ....they didn't seem to discourage it too much when they got the big fullback (Hicks) from U of W in '99.