FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[Knightstalker]

There have been a lot of posts on point, so possible that I missed it, but was there really a discussion of NJ football without a mention of arguably the best high school program in the country, Don Bosco?

I'm not sure what Don Bosco's record has been over the years, and maybe it's just my CA bias, but I don't think there's a doubt that De La Salle out of Concord, CA is the best football program in the country.  Since 1979, they are 399-25-3.  They are currently on a 26 game win streak and since 1979 they've had separate win streaks of 26 (now), 28, 15, 21, 151, 34, 14, and 44.  Personally I'd like to see the public schools and private schools play each other during the year but have separate championships.

De La Salle is who I meant to mention not Mater Dei.  Durh!

[madzillagd]

De La Salle is who I meant to mention not Mater Dei.  Durh!

Right school, wrong sport.  Mater Dei is the basketball powerhouse. 

[jumpshot]

I assure you that Texas high school football is unequaled for the extraordinary level of play, speed, sophistication, talent, etc. The only regions that are close are Florida and California.

[AlDavis]

I assure you that Texas high school football is unequaled for the extraordinary level of play, speed, sophistication, talent, etc. The only regions that are close are Florida and California.

...Strait Up....with exception of the handful of schools like Don Bosco , maybe an Everett , St John Prep and some others , just speaking for Florida there is no comparison pound for pound especially in skill players .....you can rattle off atleast 50 Florida H.S. that would treat teams up there north of Maryland as Strait Trash....now seeing Don Bosco has beaten St. Thomas Aquinas and Manatee the last 2 years makes them probably the only exception and equal if not better team.....so manyFlorida teams are loaded out their ass with skill players and most of them  that don't go Bigtime D-1 , don't go to school at all , let alone NESCAC.

[quicksilver]

Here's the skinny on Tim Drakeley, the outstanding Taft QB who is headed Bowdoin's way. He looks to be a natural for the Bowdoin offense . .

[frank uible]

NESCAC football and high school football at any level are apples and oranges.

[gridiron]

AMH63-

I've got the Colby information too and will post that if anyone is interested when I have a chance.


Bowdoin

Dylan Mann - Masconomet, MA  5'10"   185      DB
Tim Drakely - Taft, CT  - 6'3" - 210 - QB
Brendan Bilcheck - Hand, CT - 6'0" - 175 - QB
Bjorn Halvorson - Eden, MN - 6'0" - 190 - QB
Andrew Grant - Exeter, NH - 6'0" - 190 - RB
Trevor Kenkel - Glacier, MT - 5'11" - 185 - DB
Harrison Carmichael - N. Attleboro, MA - 6'2" - 190 - DE
Hossam Hamdan - Pingree, MA - 5'9" - 160 - WR
Patrick Fabrizio - Newton South, MA - 6'2" - 220 - OL
Steve Anderson - Seattle Prep, WA - 6'0" - 215 - LB
Dan Wanger - Belmont Hill, MA - 6'1" - 260 - OL
Brian Mullin - St. Sebastians, MA - 6'2" - 275 - OL
Kevin Kearney - Staples, CT - 6'1" - 195 - LB
Jordan Bayuk - Xaverian, Ma - 6'2 - 250 - OL

Bates

Ivan Reese - Savannah Christian, GA - 6'1" - 229 - RB
Trevor Lyons - Hamilton, Wenham, MA - 5'11" - 180 - QB
Sean Antonuccio - Masconomet, MA - 6'2" - 230 - DE
Nick LaSpada - Taft, CT - 6'2" - 190 - QB
James Semmonella - Amity, CT - 6'0" - 205 - RB
James Fagan - St. Johns Prep, MA - 6'2" - 255 - C
L J Lawrence - Loomis Chafee, CT - 6'1" - 264 - OL
Ryan Spillane - Medfield, MA - 5'9" - 180 - RB
Mitch Hildreth - Needham, MA - 6'4" - 270 - OL
Mark Upton - St. Mark's, MA - 6'2" - 215 - LB
Andrew LaChance - Marancook, ME - 6'1" - 190 - WR
Dan Cannone - Windham, NH - 6'0" - 195 - RB
Will Barstow - Amherst, MA - 6'3" - 270 - OL
Tyler Janssen - Glastonbury, CT - 5'11" - 190 - RB
Jake Flaherty - Andover, MA - 5'11" - 195 - OLB
Nate Friesth - Munford, TN - 6'2" - 270 - DL
Andrew Segal - Winnetka Country Day, MN - 6'2" - 260 - OL

Interested in info on others too--Colby???

[Panthernation]

Your breakdown of the Wesleyan situation seems accurate. They inexplicably lost a couple of significant players. One was Vinci who I know was a D1 or D1a transfer last year- not sure if he is an academic casualty or just a guy who wanted to play in 10 or 11 football games.

Vinci's new team: http://www.uclabruins.com/SportSelect.dbml?&DB_OEM_ID=30500&SPID=126913&SPSID=749828

[iamhuge]

I assure you that Texas high school football is unequaled for the extraordinary level of play, speed, sophistication, talent, etc. The only regions that are close are Florida and California.

Texas 5A high schools may have 25,000 people in stands on Friday nights under the lights, but I assure you if they were ever brave enough to host Don Bosco, then 25,000 Texans would go to bed Friday night crying in their cowboy hats.

[iamhuge]

NESCAC football and high school football at any level are apples and oranges.

I would argue that Don Bosco could defeat a weak NESCAC team.  Their skill players are faster than the NESCAC skill players, for starters.

[frank uible]

Very possibly true, and if so, evidence of "apples and oranges".

[amh63]

Need to correct a previous post....am confusing high schools and am spelling words wrong....time for me to head to the shores.
Jack Reynolds''13 posted earlier went to NJ's Delbarton prep...not the now famous Don Bosco.  Last season, Amherst did have 4 players from Don Bosco ( did  I spell it correctly?), also players from Florida, TX, and California. Many "CAC" schools also have fine players from the same prime football "breeding"states.  IMHO, there are fine conference players coming from all over!
Based on the info from Panthernation...thank you both....it now can be stated that Wesleyan is a "Prep" school for Div 1 top football colleges.  Two players left the Cardinals....one going to the "U", as reported by nescac1, and the other is listed on the UCLA roster. . Does anyone else find that amusing.  What are they drinking in Middletown?

[AlDavis]

Need to correct a previous post....am confusing high schools and am spelling words wrong....time for me to head to the shores.
Jack Reynolds''13 posted earlier went to NJ's Delbarton prep...not the now famous Don Bosco.  Last season, Amherst did have 4 players from Don Bosco ( did  I spell it correctly?), also players from Florida, TX, and California. Many "CAC" schools also have fine players from the same prime football "breeding"states.  IMHO, there are fine conference players coming from all over!
Based on the info from Panthernation...thank you both....it now can be stated that Wesleyan is a "Prep" school for Div 1 top football colleges.  Two players left the Cardinals....one going to the "U", as reported by nescac1, and the other is listed on the UCLA roster. . Does anyone else find that amusing.  What are they drinking in Middletown?

Amherst recruits well and Amherst is awesome , but the couple of Florida players you have are from schools that are probably not in the Top 400  in Florida , the disclaimer being I am sure they are great Student - Athletes.... Wesleyan has a good possibility to go 8- 0 and to put years and decades of things that need to be done ( Win the Little 3 ) to rest this season....Wesleyan is recruiting that Football is important ( yes we all know reading some books is important ).

[Someone]

Sir:
A point of clarification on the quality of Bosco players on NESCAC squads from an earlier post by NESCAC1.  Yes, some of the players were mid-level players on the squad, but based on the statistics from MaxPreps it shows several players were statistical leaders on the team. 

On the Amherst squad, as someone noted earlier, they have a number of Bosco players.  Two of them (Daniel Chun and Jimmy Clark)  are from the 2009 football season (where Bosco won their first of two mythical National crowns).  Chun was 2nd on the team in total tackles while Clark (who was not on last year's roster so it is unclear if he is still on team) led the team in receiving - both in catches and yards.  From the Bosco 2010 team, Lars Larsen was named first team NJ All State at linebacker.  As with many D-3 kids, they were extremely key players in their respective squads but they were slightly undersized or a half a step too slow to get D1-A attention.   

As to the quality of their program, several posts are correct in noting their success.  Their record since 2002 has been stellar and stands up to any program in the US particularly when you measure their performance against out of state teams such as De La Salle, Prattville, St. Thomas, etc.   

[amh63]

Tufts...as "usual", an interesting perspective for me to think on.
Someone...thanks for the info that brings us regulars to focus on what NESCAC  is really about.
Before shutting down my posts until the rosters are up in a few weeks, I will point out some examples wrt past players that came to Amherst....hopefully to illustrate why students come to play football in the conference....and to show how the "recruiting" process can often twist in unusual ways.
First, the Amherst QB from IOWA became a MD like his father.  The son is Nick Kehoe '07...the Taft grad.  The wr who played in the NFL, I will only mention here that he is a lawyer/businessman that tried to purchase a MLB team....his son went to a Div 1 school on a football scholarship and later came to Amherst where he graduated.
Player 1...Mike Salerno from St John's in Ma. was recruited by Harvard (info from his father, a friend)
but was given a bit of a run around. Mike made a decision to come to Amherst where he could play two sports in a competitive environment.  Mike captained both the football team and the '07 National Championship BB team...playing significant roles on both teams.
Player 2...Marsh Moseley '05 was a starting QB from New Orleans.  His football team at Isidore Newman often played with crowds that exceed 5000 fans.  The NFL Manning brothers played QB at the same school.  Marsh was the backup QB to Eli while in HS and wanted to play quarterback in college.  Several Ivy schools were interested, Princeton in particular.  Moseley was a talented player but was "undersized" at 5'10" for Princeton.  The Div 1 schools wanted him to play defense.
Mash came to Amherst, unrecruited, because Amherst's coach was willing to give him a chance to play the QB position.  It seems his ability was related to Amherst's coach in a phone call by Archie Manning...Eli's father and a friend of the family.  Marsh wanted to play in a top academic place where football was of a high quality and where he could compete for the QB.
I am sure that such stories are repeated at Tufts, Williams, Trinity, Bowdoin, etc.  Div 1 talented students often come to Div 3 in order to play multi sports and/or were overlooked because of many things.
See you people in a week or so...going to the beach to spoil my grandchild abit.