FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[Nescacman]

Ah, I see.

So has the NESCAC affirmed that they'll allow their champ to participate?

No, this will need to be approved by the NESCAC President's before it is official.

And to answer another question, we believe that this will go into effect in 2026 because NESCAC does nothing quickly (although we hope the change goes into effect next year).

Lastly, we do not see this having any impact on the NESCAC schedule, either pre-season or in-season since the play-offs begin after the current NESCAC season ends, assuming the NESCAC sticks to a 9-game, intra-league schedule.

NM

[Pat Coleman]

Ah, I see.

So has the NESCAC affirmed that they'll allow their champ to participate?

No, this will need to be approved by the NESCAC President's before it is official.

And to answer another question, we believe that this will go into effect in 2026 because NESCAC does nothing quickly (although we hope the change goes into effect next year).

Lastly, we do not see this having any impact on the NESCAC schedule, either pre-season or in-season since the play-offs begin after the current NESCAC season ends, assuming the NESCAC sticks to a 9-game, inter-league schedule.

NM

Intraleague.

[Nescacman]

Ah, I see.

So has the NESCAC affirmed that they'll allow their champ to participate?

No, this will need to be approved by the NESCAC President's before it is official.

And to answer another question, we believe that this will go into effect in 2026 because NESCAC does nothing quickly (although we hope the change goes into effect next year).

Lastly, we do not see this having any impact on the NESCAC schedule, either pre-season or in-season since the play-offs begin after the current NESCAC season ends, assuming the NESCAC sticks to a 9-game, inter-league schedule.

NM

Intraleague.

Thanks oh great one. Typo.

[Nescacman]

We checked with some of our sources this evening regarding the NESCAC and the D3 play-offs. Our sources tell us that they believe the NESCAC President's will approve allowing NESCAC football teams to enter the D3 play-off tournament when they next meet. As far as timing, conference ADs are pushing for that to happen starting as soon as next season. At a minimum, the 2025 NESCAC football champion will appear in the D3 championship tournament next year. A residual benefit may be that the NESCAC will have to change their archaic and ridiculous rules as far as who wins the league championship in the event of a "tie" in the standings. In that case, Middlebury would have represented the NESCAC in 2023 as the league champions. Hartford State may have been in consideration for an at-large bid.   

NM

[MapleBBQChicken]

Thank you to everyone and especially NM for the info. Huge step in the right direction for NESCAC football.

I know I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but I want to add that it is absolutely ridiculous that it took this long. Just this year, two NESCAC teams played for the men's soccer national championship on December 7. Middlebury won the field hockey national championship on November 24th. But the football season was over on November 9... why? Football players can't handle balancing academics and sports as well as people in other sports? And as others have pointed out, it's not like the NESCAC will be the only high-academic schools eligible for the playoffs. So what, Hopkins football can handle it but the NESCAC can't? About damn time they fixed this unnecessary imbalance.

[Nescacman]

We checked with some of our sources this evening regarding the NESCAC and the D3 play-offs. Our sources tell us that they believe the NESCAC President's will approve allowing NESCAC football teams to enter the D3 play-off tournament when they next meet. As far as timing, conference ADs are pushing for that to happen starting as soon as next season. At a minimum, the 2025 NESCAC football champion will appear in the D3 championship tournament next year. A residual benefit may be that the NESCAC will have to change their archaic and ridiculous rules as far as who wins the league championship in the event of a "tie" in the standings. In that case, Middlebury would have represented the NESCAC in 2023 as the league championship. Hartford State may have been in consideration for an at-large bid. 

NM

Another residual benefit (and there are others)...this should help some of the NESCAC schools with recruiting. We know for a fact that Middlebury, Tufts, Wesleyan, and Hartford State regularly go head-to-head in recruiting battles with Hopkins (and some other similar high academic schools). This removes one advantage that Hopkins (and others) has over their NESCAC competition.

We will also see if this development has any impact on the roster limit decision as well. It just might.

NM

[Trin9-0]

I'll add to the chorus of happy and optimistic NESCAC football alumni who believe this (likely?) outcome is long overdue. If for some reason it doesn't get approved by the league Presidents I think a Title IX lawsuit would not be far off.

On a separate note, the league roster size rules appear to be having an impact at Trinity where they have 21 players committed in this recruiting cycle. They are looking to add "a few more" in the coming weeks but even that would mean a smaller incoming class than what they've averaged over the past few seasons:

2024 - 29
2023 - 32
2022 - 33
2021 - 29
2020 - 31
2019 - 29

[Nescacman]

On behalf of the NESCACMAN Consortium and the 9 Weeks NESCAC Podcast, we want to wish all of our NESCAC friends and fans a happy and healthy holiday season. 2025 should be an amazing and exciting year of firsts for the NESCAC (D3 play-off participation? 10-game winner?). Looking forward to experiencing it with all of our fellow NESCAC fans!!! Thank you for all of your passion no matter who your favorite team is and support of our student-athletes and coaches. We know they appreciate it.

NM

[NESCACFball24/7]

Ty Richardson is the first Nescac Undergrad transfer I can remember to have received an FBS offer in the portal. Congratulations to him. I always wonder with a kid like that is tufts trying to almost recruit him to bring him back or using him more as a recruiting pitch to high schoolers and trying to help him get somewhere?

[Nescacman]

Ty Richardson is the first Nescac Undergrad transfer I can remember to have received an FBS offer in the portal. Congratulations to him. I always wonder with a kid like that is tufts trying to almost recruit him to bring him back or using him more as a recruiting pitch to high schoolers and trying to help him get somewhere?

What about Ty's brother last year at USC? And of course, Nick Helbig transferred to Wake via the portal. So we have at least two prior NESCACers that not only received FBS offers via the portal but actually matriculated at an FBS/Power 4 school (and were scholarship athletes).

[NESCACFball24/7]

Ty Richardson is the first Nescac Undergrad transfer I can remember to have received an FBS offer in the portal. Congratulations to him. I always wonder with a kid like that is tufts trying to almost recruit him to bring him back or using him more as a recruiting pitch to high schoolers and trying to help him get somewhere?

What about Ty's brother last year at USC? And of course, Nick Helbig transferred to Wake via the portal. So we have at least two prior NESCACers that not only received FBS offers via the portal but actually matriculated at an FBS/Power 4 school (and were scholarship athletes).

As I specified before undergrad transfer. Both of those were graduate transfers and had another 2 years to develop and gather film before entering the portal.

[Nescacman]

Ty Richardson is the first Nescac Undergrad transfer I can remember to have received an FBS offer in the portal. Congratulations to him. I always wonder with a kid like that is tufts trying to almost recruit him to bring him back or using him more as a recruiting pitch to high schoolers and trying to help him get somewhere?

What about Ty's brother last year at USC? And of course, Nick Helbig transferred to Wake via the portal. So we have at least two prior NESCACers that not only received FBS offers via the portal but actually matriculated at an FBS/Power 4 school (and were scholarship athletes).

As I specified before undergrad transfer. Both of those were graduate transfers and had another 2 years to develop and gather film before entering the portal.

Got it.

A bit confused by this move. He's giving up the potential to earn a degree at one of the best schools in the country (Tufts) and continue to excel in the NESCAC to transfer to play football at a school that is one of the worst FBS football schools in the country (UMass). We realize that UMass just went out and hired a new HCOF who was the DC at Rutgers but UMass isn't even in a conference so we can't imagine that there is a huge NIL $$$ opportunity at UMass for Ty either. He could have graduated from Tufts and then transfer potentially to a better FBS opportunity. Head scratcher to us. in any event, we wish him the best of luck.   

[NESCACFball24/7]

Ty Richardson is the first Nescac Undergrad transfer I can remember to have received an FBS offer in the portal. Congratulations to him. I always wonder with a kid like that is tufts trying to almost recruit him to bring him back or using him more as a recruiting pitch to high schoolers and trying to help him get somewhere?

What about Ty's brother last year at USC? And of course, Nick Helbig transferred to Wake via the portal. So we have at least two prior NESCACers that not only received FBS offers via the portal but actually matriculated at an FBS/Power 4 school (and were scholarship athletes).

As I specified before undergrad transfer. Both of those were graduate transfers and had another 2 years to develop and gather film before entering the portal.

Got it.

A bit confused by this move. He's giving up the potential to earn a degree at one of the best schools in the country (Tufts) and continue to excel in the NESCAC to transfer to play football at a school that is one of the worst FBS football schools in the country (UMass). We realize that UMass just went out and hired a new HCOF who was the DC at Rutgers but UMass isn't even in a conference so we can't imagine that there is a huge NIL $$$ opportunity at UMass for Ty either. He could have graduated from Tufts and then transfer potentially to a better FBS opportunity. Head scratcher to us. in any event, we wish him the best of luck.   

I hate this take for so many reasons and honestly comes off as such a snobby remark when talking about a kid who is just trying to better his situation and seems to have the support of the tufts staff behind based on their activity on social media.

Posting Umass does not necessarily mean he's going to UMass they just offered him. Also the impact on a full ride scholarship va paying for a nescac 100k education can be huge for a family. Lastly the days of playing at a nescac for 4 years and then graduating and leaving are over due to the covid year no longer being a thing and the fact that guys cannot redshirt at the d3 level unless it's medical.

[Pat Coleman]

And, frankly, even going to UMass and spending a semester there doesn't mean he has to finish his degree there. He could still come back and get that Tufts degree.

[SpringSt7]

UMass is joining the MAC in all sports and committed to raising an NIL pool for the new coach. I wouldn't have made the move either but supplying context