FB: Northwest Conference

[d-train]

Yesterday's game 'felt' similar to the 2005 Stagg Bowl to me (the first of UWW's three recent trips). Yeah, it seemed like the better overall team won...but they were getting pretty well handled in the fourth quarter. In both games the 'new kid on the block' seemed a little out of sorts at times; starting slow and/or showing nerves before finding their stride. If they just had a couple mulligans or the game were a few minutes longer...

Congrats to both squads. I'll be pulling for Whitewater the rest of the way. The NWC race will be very interesting next year.

[BoBo]

Question, how do you keep coming up with such young good teams?
Inquiring minds want to know!

Wasn't always the case, Tuxguy - although UWW has had plenty of good teams, they never made a dent on the national stage.  Prior to this 4 year stretch, UW-La Crosse has been the most recognized WSUC/WIAC powerhouse.

Ask anyone who knows and they might tell you, "if I told you how they do it, I would have to ...!"   
Actually, good coaching, good recuiting, good facilities, good university support, good community support, can get it done IMO.

[footballfan413]

Regarding the comparison between the two games, depends on which half you look at in Saturday's game, IMO.  I was at the 05 game and only listened to the WU game but I did not have any flashbacks in the first half.  Hawks brought the thunder first half and schooled the Bearcats in play-off attitude.  But now second half, another story.  That gave me flashbacks to the 05 game where any time a team touched the ball, it could be 7 as well as the quick strike capabilities of our opponent.  But as a whole, the 05 game with 11 lead changes, consistant, amazing play by both teams the entire game and the high intensity, back and forth, makes it one for the ages in my mind!  The winner would be the one who scored last when the clock ran out.  The sustained high blood pressure in 05 lasted for 60 minutes where only in the second half, did the Bearcats seem to hit their stride and thoughts that the Hawks could lose enter my head.
    Tuxguy, my $.02 cents on why the Hawks have been able to make this run the last 4 years.  A couple of things.  The previous coaching staff of Brezowitz, Zweifel and Borland recruited the bulk of these classes, especially the 24 seniors that graduated last year. Big because it included two classes, the last year that NCAA allowed red-shirting 03 class and the true 4 year class of 04.  They struck gold finding not only great athletes but a chemistry developed between players and staff that a program needs to win.  Then they got some players like Jacobs, Stanley, Schmidt who along with great o-linemen were able to bring a second dimension to the offense, an impressive passing game.  UWW had always been a run first, run often offense, but in 05 when they had the talent to move to a more balanced offense, they got the ingredients to be successful in the play-offs and at the elite level.  I watched the transformation from 04 where they were a good running team to 05 where they were an amazing, 2 dimensional offense who would beat you on the ground and in the air, whichever they were given. I believe strongly that a 1 dimensional offense will not carry you through.  A great defense just loves to only have to defend against the run with an occasional, mediocre passing offense.  Add to that facilities that are second to none in D3 and the players that took us on this ride in 05-07 took UWW to a new level.  Then the old adage, "winning breeds winning," comes into play and when a program starts to have that kind of success on the national stage, well, the talent just kind of starts to come to you.  Example, Danny Jones.  It snowballs.  Now the key to me is if this coaching staff can continue to field these kind of teams when the bulk of the team is from their own recruiting classes.  Badgerwark mentioned last week that the talk around the program is that the sophmore class is the best of this group.  Coincidence that they are the last class that the previous staff had a hand in bringing in?  (At least until Jan. when the new staff took over after the head coaching position was settled.)  Just an observation.  Anyway these boys are very young and to get this far speaks volumes about the foundation that the program has established.  It seems to be running like a ferrari and, with proper maintenance, looks like it could be on the road for years to come.   

[RedandPurple]

Question, how do you keep coming up with such young good teams?
Inquiring minds want to know!

...Actually, good coaching, good recuiting, good facilities, good university support, good community support, can get it done IMO.

BoBo and Tux:
Isn't it great when it all comes to together. The same can be said about Linfield. 53 consecutive winning seasons says a lot about their football program.
Enjoy the ride!

[wucatwu]

Question, how do you keep coming up with such young good teams?
Inquiring minds want to know!

...Actually, good coaching, good recuiting, good facilities, good university support, good community support, can get it done IMO.

It also helps to be a public institution of 9,000+ undergrads...with no other levels between you and the big dogs in Madison.

[wildcat11]

Question, how do you keep coming up with such young good teams?
Inquiring minds want to know!

...Actually, good coaching, good recuiting, good facilities, good university support, good community support, can get it done IMO.

It also helps to be a public institution of 9,000+ undergrads...with no other levels between you and the big dogs in Madison.

...and here come the excuses....

Yesterday's game 'felt' similar to the 2005 Stagg Bowl to me (the first of UWW's three recent The NWC race will be very interesting next year.

100% agree with D-Train.  I think the NWC will be one of the better conferences in the country next year.  IMO, I believe the conference has adjusted to losing the ability to Red-Shirt players and the result is an overall young and very talented conference that should be pretty deep next season.  Willamette should be the favorite coming back but Linfield and Whitworth are both going to be extreamly dangerous teams.  I believe Menlo will be the Wild Card next season and PLU is pretty much going to bring their entire group back. 

[wucatwu]

Question, how do you keep coming up with such young good teams?
Inquiring minds want to know!

...Actually, good coaching, good recuiting, good facilities, good university support, good community support, can get it done IMO.

It also helps to be a public institution of 9,000+ undergrads...with no other levels between you and the big dogs in Madison.

...and here come the excuses....

Nope...no excuses from me.  Just pointing out the factors for their success.  Fact of the matter is they do have good recruiting, great community support,  and better facilities than lots of other schools.  Size does play some role in that...

[badgerwarhawk]

Question, how do you keep coming up with such young good teams?
Inquiring minds want to know!

...Actually, good coaching, good recuiting, good facilities, good university support, good community support, can get it done IMO.

It also helps to be a public institution of 9,000+ undergrads...with no other levels between you and the big dogs in Madison.

If the number of students were the deciding factor then Oshkosh and Eau Claire would be the heavies in our league.  And how do you account for Mount Union's dominance with just over 2000 students?     We don't recruit among the general student body.  No posters are put up in the dorms or the university center saying "Football Tryouts today at Perkins Stadium."  Also our league limits the size of our football roster.   Not to mention Title 9's gender equity impact on public institutions.

While it's true that Wisconsin doesn't have any DII schools playing football check out the rosters of the Minnesota DII's and you'll find a slew of Wisconsin kids.   They recruit heavily in our state and we've lost more than a few recruits to them.

I have to admit I'm sick of hearing the enrollment whine.   It's meaningless to any of our competitive sport team's rosters.  Now if you want to argue that facilities play a role, that might be a different story.  Larger institutions do generally have better facilities and there's no agruing that facilities play a role in some athlete's decision.  

[wildcat11]

http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/index.ssf/2008/11/willamette_rally_falls_short_i.html

Just read the above game article in the Oregonian and found a couple of quotes that were intresting.

Cornerback Ryan Bettencourt said he didn't think the defense was ready to start the game, but they played much better in the second half and gave up just nine points.

"I think if we played them again it might be a little bit different on defense but we just weren't quite ready to go," he said. "We just sat there at halftime, like come on, we have to go out there and play with no fear like we've been doing all year."

As a unbiased observer I think the UWW's staff got way too conservative in that 3rd quarter.  The Hawks had the play action pass game whenever they wanted it and unless Willamette could swap out their defensive line with somebody else the Bearcats would not have been able to stop the run game if they met again or 30 times in a row.  The Bearcat's defensive line was getting abused and poor DE Marcus Ford (who I really appreciated as a player) was spending more time on his back than one Elliott Spitzer's call girls.  

Leslie said that while the loss was disappointing, he hoped it would provide some incentive to the underclassmen.

"For the older guys, I think it will kind of burn forever knowing that if we play our game we probably win," he said. "But for the younger guys, I think it's encouraging knowing we just played the best and should have beat them. It's exciting, definitely."

I think the only thing that changed in the second half for UWW's defense is they lost their legs and those great open field tackles we saw all 1st half long started to turn into big chunks of yards.  On the flip side, if the 3rd string running back making his first start can run for 250+ yards I would have like to see what Coppage would have been able to do.  UWW has a fantastic offensive line.

[wucatwu]

Question, how do you keep coming up with such young good teams?
Inquiring minds want to know!

...Actually, good coaching, good recuiting, good facilities, good university support, good community support, can get it done IMO.

It also helps to be a public institution of 9,000+ undergrads...with no other levels between you and the big dogs in Madison.

If the number of students were the deciding factor then Oshkosh and Eau Claire would be the heavies in our league.  And how do you account for Mount Union's dominance with just over 2000 students?     We don't recruit among the general student body.  No posters are put up in the dorms or the university center saying "Football Tryouts today at Perkins Stadium."  Also our league limits the size of our football roster.   Not to mention Title 9's gender equity impact on public institutions.

While it's true that Wisconsin doesn't have any DII schools playing football check out the rosters of the Minnesota DII's and you'll find a slew of Wisconsin kids.   They recruit heavily in our state and we've lost more than a few recruits to them.

I have to admit I'm sick of hearing the enrollment whine.   It's meaningless to any of our competitive sport team's rosters.  Now if you want to argue that facilities play a role, that might be a different story.  Larger institutions do generally have better facilities and there's no agruing that facilities play a role in some athlete's decision. 

Points well taken.  I think a poster on the WIAC board summed it up pretty well:

Low tuition/High enrollment + D1 Facilities = Good teams

I'm not using this as an excuse, I'm just saying the likelihood of success is better at a school similar to UWW.  That's why it IS so amazing to see schools like MUC and Linfield do it so well YEAR IN YEAR OUT.

[OxyBob]

Question, how do you keep coming up with such young good teams?
Inquiring minds want to know!

...Actually, good coaching, good recuiting, good facilities, good university support, good community support, can get it done IMO.

It also helps to be a public institution of 9,000+ undergrads...with no other levels between you and the big dogs in Madison.

Not to mention admissions standards which are the equivalent of an Army recruiting office. "Are you breathing? Can you sign your name? Yes, an X will do. OK, you're in."

OxyBob

[wucatwu]

Question, how do you keep coming up with such young good teams?
Inquiring minds want to know!

...Actually, good coaching, good recuiting, good facilities, good university support, good community support, can get it done IMO.

It also helps to be a public institution of 9,000+ undergrads...with no other levels between you and the big dogs in Madison.

Not to mention admissions standards which are the equivalent of an Army recruiting office. "Are you breathing? Can you sign your name? Yes, an X will do. OK, you're in."

OxyBob

I wasn't gonna take it there.  You may have just started something...

[D O.C.]

should could have beat them. It's exciting, definitely.

[speedybigboy]

Question, how do you keep coming up with such young good teams?
Inquiring minds want to know!

...Actually, good coaching, good recuiting, good facilities, good university support, good community support, can get it done IMO.

It also helps to be a public institution of 9,000+ undergrads...with no other levels between you and the big dogs in Madison.

If the number of students were the deciding factor then Oshkosh and Eau Claire would be the heavies in our league.  And how do you account for Mount Union's dominance with just over 2000 students?     We don't recruit among the general student body.  No posters are put up in the dorms or the university center saying "Football Tryouts today at Perkins Stadium."  Also our league limits the size of our football roster.   Not to mention Title 9's gender equity impact on public institutions.

While it's true that Wisconsin doesn't have any DII schools playing football check out the rosters of the Minnesota DII's and you'll find a slew of Wisconsin kids.   They recruit heavily in our state and we've lost more than a few recruits to them.

I have to admit I'm sick of hearing the enrollment whine.   It's meaningless to any of our competitive sport team's rosters.  Now if you want to argue that facilities play a role, that might be a different story.  Larger institutions do generally have better facilities and there's no agruing that facilities play a role in some athlete's decision.  

I agree with badgerwarhawk.  I don't think enrollment size has ANY bearing on team quality.  Like he said, they, and I'd guess pretty much any school don't recruit from the student body.  It's not like high school where it is a huge factor.  Personally, I think no d2 schools is a big factor, yes you lose some recruits to other states but the fact of the matter is if you look at rosters they are primarily made up of in state athletes.  Winning breeds winning is also a big factor, IMO, especially at the non scholarship level.  The better players are going to want to go to a school where they can compete for the conference and national title.

[02 Warhawk]

Question, how do you keep coming up with such young good teams?
Inquiring minds want to know!

...Actually, good coaching, good recuiting, good facilities, good university support, good community support, can get it done IMO.

It also helps to be a public institution of 9,000+ undergrads...with no other levels between you and the big dogs in Madison.

If the number of students were the deciding factor then Oshkosh and Eau Claire would be the heavies in our league.  And how do you account for Mount Union's dominance with just over 2000 students?     We don't recruit among the general student body.  No posters are put up in the dorms or the university center saying "Football Tryouts today at Perkins Stadium."  Also our league limits the size of our football roster.   Not to mention Title 9's gender equity impact on public institutions.

While it's true that Wisconsin doesn't have any DII schools playing football check out the rosters of the Minnesota DII's and you'll find a slew of Wisconsin kids.   They recruit heavily in our state and we've lost more than a few recruits to them.

I have to admit I'm sick of hearing the enrollment whine.   It's meaningless to any of our competitive sport team's rosters.  Now if you want to argue that facilities play a role, that might be a different story.  Larger institutions do generally have better facilities and there's no agruing that facilities play a role in some athlete's decision.  

I agree with badgerwarhawk.  I don't think enrollment size has ANY bearing on team quality.  Like he said, they, and I'd guess pretty much any school don't recruit from the student body.  It's not like high school where it is a huge factor.  Personally, I think no d2 schools is a big factor, yes you lose some recruits to other states but the fact of the matter is if you look at rosters they are primarily made up of in state athletes.  Winning breeds winning is also a big factor, IMO, especially at the non scholarship level.  The better players are going to want to go to a school where they can compete for the conference and national title.

I think that's the number one reason why the WIAC is considered the most competitive conference in DIII.