FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[ContinentalsMan]

Eventually those who control the NESCAC will have to realize that times are changing quickly and perhaps go the way of the Ivy League which now clearly understands the impact of football. You think five years ago there was any way that Yale would beat Army? In two years, Harvard, Princeton and, even Penn will be as good as the top teams in I-AA and Yale, Brown and Cornell and Dartmouth are trying everything to go the same way. Only Columbia seems lost. Like it or not, alumni, make that any alumni, want winning teams and (no offense) they could care less about baseball or track, or for that matter, about any other sport. You win and the alumni and the money come with it. And with it come facilities and with that come athletes. You think Harvard is that good because it hasn't brought down its academic standards for football players? Of course they have and so has Princeton. They have stretched and, for me, I have no problem with it. They are not letting in dummies but simply rounded out their student body and it is paying off in football. And the student-athletes are getting smarter. QB Joe Don Blake from Los Angeles could go play for UCLA and fight for a job with every other great athlete on the West Coast or he could go to Harvard, get one of the country's best education and ticket to a bright future and at the same time be Joe quarterback on campus. Look at the transfers, the kids moving down and the huge number of Southern kids now on Ivy rosters. Atlanta, alone, has three QB's on the Harvard roster and two at Yale. Now, well-thought of institutions like the schools in the Ivy and NESCAC will always attract money but the smarter presidents are now realizing the power of football. It's contagious, at any level. It's not going to be long before they go from 10 games to 12 and the Ivy champion goes to the I-AA playoffs. It's called money and Harvard All-American John Doe from the Class of 1992 that has made millions in the social media sector is going to write an awfully big check to the SCHOOL for that Ivy League champion team that represents that first playoff team from the conference to go to the postseason. It will happen in the NESCAC as well. It may take a few years as first they go from eight games to nine and then a full D3 schedule and playoffs. Think about it: wouldn't it be cool to see our teams open the season with Ivy League ones. Harvard vs. Trinity, Princeton vs. Wesleyan as the top eight finishers in the Ivy open the next season against the top eight in the NESCAC. You think Williams-Amherst is big but what about Williams-Yale and Amherst-Dartmouth in a doubleheader at the Yale Bowl. I betcha ESPN Gameday would be there.     

[NothingButNESCAC]

Nothing but Nescac-

For clarity, you also mention Gleich, Ahoua and Donellen....each of these guys have not played since 2012.... so I am not sure where you are coming from there. My post made notation of 2013 players who did not come back this year so these guys were not included in the numbers I posted.

Realize that those players wouldn't be included in your numbers but just wanted to include them as other examples of possible upperclassmen that aren't playing so that younger players have to fill in earlier than the coaching staff might ideally like.

Amh63, Of course I understand every school is working within a similar framework, but like it has been noted before on this board, the admission standards for different schools vary just because of the overall quality of school. Obviously that hasn't held back Williams or Amherst, and the history and alumni connection of those programs explains a lot of that for why they are consistently able to draw such incredible student-athletes.

Sounds like I might be mistaken about the numbers thing. That was what I've been told before but that could be wrong.

[frank uible]

Once upon a time during my lifetime NESCAC-to-be colleges scheduled in football, and at times defeated,  Ivy League colleges, but I don't have enough time remaining to see it happen again. In 1953 Amherst beat Brown, and, most recently. in 1956 Tufts Harvard - I can't wait another 58 years to see it happen again, and in my view it will take at least that long.

[ECoastFootball]

Think about it: wouldn't it be cool to see our teams open the season with Ivy League ones. Harvard vs. Trinity, Princeton vs. Wesleyan as the top eight finishers in the Ivy open the next season against the top eight in the NESCAC. You think Williams-Amherst is big but what about Williams-Yale and Amherst-Dartmouth in a doubleheader at the Yale Bowl. I betcha ESPN Gameday would be there.     

You can't say in one sentence that the top IVY teams are = to the the other top 25 1-AA teams (which I think they are in some years) and then turn around and think that NESCAC schools could play with them. This is not 1953, and An All-Star team of the Little Three would not be competitive with Harvard.

[P'bearfan]

Eventually those who control the NESCAC will have to realize that times are changing quickly and perhaps go the way of the Ivy League which now clearly understands the impact of football.

ContinentalsMan - you make some interesting points.  However, IMHO you're drawing too strong a line between success on the football field and success for the schools - especially in terms of alumni donations. 

My memory - which could be wrong - is that studies that evaluated the link sports success and alumni donations show a weak to fuzzy correlation.  The situation people tend to discuss is when George Mason Univ made the NCAA Final Four in men's basketball in 2006.  Their appearance is credited with an uptick in applications to the school (I'm not sure about alumni donations).  That example also underscores that sports other than football can raise a school's profile.

Regarding the Ivy league, I have a hard time believing that alumni donations to Harvard, Yale and Princeton fluctuate with the wins of their respective football teams.  These schools have generous and consistent donors (as do many NESCAC schools).  If I had to guess, I would say the single biggest factor impacting the annual donation levels at these schools is the the stock market's performance.

[P'bearfan]

Think about it: wouldn't it be cool to see our teams open the season with Ivy League ones.

Slightly off topic - last season Bowdoin's men's basketball team was 12-0, the best start in school history.  This was a real point of pride and accomplishment for the players.

One of the major reasons no team had done that before is that Bowdoin used to open it's season by playing Harvard.  I'm pretty sure the players would rather try for another record start than play Harvard.   

[Jonny Utah]

Maybe, just maybe, the 1990s Williams teams could beat Columbia.  Today, Columbia would beat any nescac team by 50 points.  I only say this with my experience playing for ithaca college in the 1990s, and not being overall impressed with below average Cornell teams that we scrimmaged. 

But seeing Harvard play and practice live in 2014, and seeing nescac teams over the past few years in the addition of other d3 teams, Harvard would beat all nescac teams by 70 points, and the top d3 teams by 30points.

[amh63]

ContinentalsMan...wow!  Like your imagination.
Me...I will be happy with a nine...yes 9 game season.
Frank U...thanks again for some history.  Yes, remember the days before NESAC when the Ivies would contest Schools like Amherst in many sports. 
Football is always evolving.  If Harvard is to be a standard, it has had a mixed history!  In the days when it could fill it's horseshoe stadium...with 10,000 extra seats,  its teams went to the Rose Bowl...Harvard would also recruit Amherst grads to play on its football team.  I have attended football games in the Yale Bowl when Yale played UConn... The crowds Did not come close to fill the place and it was falling apart.
Yes football seems to repeat its error.  Today, there is talk about paying the players more.  Heck...Back in the days of the leather helmets...yes, I have the DVDs...Notre Dame paid its non student players.  Big bucks can do that..regretfully, IMO.
I'm sure our conference was formed to return sanity to college sports.

[FourMoreYears]

Well, first, the Williams facility was very nice.
Beer and wine in isolated area, great. Bud and Bud Light, not so great.
A lot of rules and a lot of security to make us all understand the rules. Oh well.

The only downside to my recent trip to Williams was the security personnel.
I was threatened with removal from the premises for drinking seltzer water out of an aluminum can.
Never seen anything like it ... in my opinion it does not reflect well on the school.

[ContinentalsMan]

I agree that the NESCAC was put together to try to bring sanity back to the game and eight games sounds nice and ... But use Nothing but NESCAC and this board as an example. Look at the way some of the posters dove into the Bowdoin and their QB and now the sudden backlash on Williams. Fact is players, parents, alumni, board trustees and even some presidents want to win. Nobody wants to be the whipping boy and while Hamilton and Tufts have been the latest homecoming games, you now are seeing both schools put more emphasis on football. That is not happening by accident. Look at Stanford as an example. They were one of the very best schools in the country before they had a good football program but they clearly have raised the visibility of the school by becoming very competitive on the gridiron. Same thing at Duke and the money they have spent on facilities. I am not saying it is right, I am just saying it is happening. Yes, happy alumni may not give money to the science program if their school is winning but they are giving it to the athletic program which is taking pressure off the school to have to fund capital improvements. Also, on another note, Columbia would not blow out every NESCAC team, and, in fact, I think they would go into the game against Trinity as an underdog and would struggle against Wesleyan. And what is the difference in Alabama playing a lower end I-AA school and say a Dartmouth playing Amherst. In D1, it is a chance for D1-A schools to get a big check. For the NESCAC it would be a chance to play against the very schools they consider their academic peers. Williams, for instance, is hands down just as good a school as Harvard, Princeton and Yale, and Amherst and Bowdoin are not far behind. And schools like Middlebury, Bates, Hamilton, Wesleyan and Colby stack up against the lower half of the Ivy (Dartmouth, Cornell and Brown). It may never happen but all I am saying is you are seeing NESCAC schools have pressure put on them to win in football. It is coming from the parents who pay the tuition's, players who are picking to attend these schools, trustees and alumni.  Hamilton, for example, just put in an incredible new arts and theatre center. It will blow you away and who ever would have thought this was going to happen at a liberal arts school which by definition is "a college with an emphasis on undergraduate study in the liberal arts and sciences, with some offering numerable graduate programs that lead to a master's degree or doctoral degree in subjects such as business administration, nursing, medicine, and law.'' Why did Hamilton do it? Because they want to widen the circle of their incoming students and there were alumni at the school that wanted to see the school move in this direction and came up with the money.  Things change and all I am saying is don't be surprised in five years to see a very different NESCAC when it comes to football.             

[P'bearfan]

ContinentalsMan

I'm still not convinced this will happen.  If your argument is that it would enhance the profile of NESCAC schools to play Ivy or Patriot league schools (at least in the minds of parents, fans and alumni) then you have to consider that the opposite is true as well.  Fans and alumni of Ivy and Patriot league schools won't be too happy that they're playing a D3 school - regardless of its academic profile.

This is happening today. 

Holy Cross' men's basketball team has scheduled a game against a D3 school this season.  The response on the HC fan message board has been intense with the majority of fans and alumni falling into one of two camps:

1) Why in the world are we playing a D3 school?  It lowers the profile of our program.

2) Why in the world are we playing a D3 school?  The last time we did that we lost (to Williams in 2003).

Harvard and MIT men's basketball teams play an EXHIBITION game at the beginning of every season but that's a bit different given the proximity of the two schools but even that's not a guarantee that schools will play.  VMI (D1) and Washington and Lee (D3) are literally next door to each other.  However, it's been several years since VMI has played W&L in men's basketball simply because VMI almost lost the last time they played.  There's no upside for VMI.

[PolarCat]

You think Harvard is that good because it hasn't brought down its academic standards for football players? Of course they have and so has Princeton. They have stretched and, for me, I have no problem with it. They are not letting in dummies but simply rounded out their student body and it is paying off in football.

Ah, but there is an ugly underbelly to Ivy recruiting.  One that (hopefully) the NESCAC schools will avoid, maybe more than happenstance than by design.

An Ivy team's Academic Index has to fall within a certain range compared to the rest of the student body.  So what does Harvard do when they need a tight end, but the kid they really want is dumber than a post?  They recruit the tight end, and balance him off with another player (Punter? WR?) who is a marginal player, will never get a minute of playing time (except maybe against Columbia and Cornell), but who has perfect SAT's, a 4.5 GPA and is a member of Mensa.  The Harvard coach gets his TE, without jeopardizing his AI.

Now the punter has pipe dreams of being a football hero in college, never realizing that his intended role is to ride the pine for 4 years (or until he quits football in favor of the Hasty Pudding).  Is that fair?  Depending on the kid, maybe yes, maybe no.  We know kids who got "recruited" to Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth, who will never play a snap.  Their role is to prop up the AI, period.  And we know other kids that are wearing the Crimson or Big Green who are not academically gifted enough to be admitted to Bowdoin or Wiliams.   At the end of the day, they'll all graduate with the Ivy diploma, so maybe they were all well-served.

To the best of my knowledge, the NESCAC's limits on recruiting function differently than the Ivies - no tips below a certain level, etc.  (I'm sure others here are much more knowledgeable on this score than I am).  So the Colby coach CANNOT recruit that same dumb-as-a-post TE, and balance him with the unathletic brainiac punter.  And the 75-man roster places terrific constraints: how do you compete for the kids who have talent, that also have brains, and that are being wooed by the Ivies (to prop up their AI), or being offered scholarship $$$ by the DI's?

So I'd argue that the NESCAC's with the most academically-selective Admissions (Williams, Amherst and Bowdoin) have a much more limited pool of prospective players to select from than the rest of the 'CAC.   Particularly a school like Bowdoin that wants to compete for National Championships in Field Hockey and Women's Lacrosse, while still supporting Sailing, Rugby, hoops and the like.

[PolarCat]

ContinentalsMan

I'm still not convinced this will happen.  If your argument is that it would enhance the profile of NESCAC schools to play Ivy or Patriot league schools (at least in the minds of parents, fans and alumni) then you have to consider that the opposite is true as well.  Fans and alumni of Ivy and Patriot league schools won't be too happy that they're playing a D3 school - regardless of its academic profile.

I respectfully disagree.  Colgate is a DI school both of my kids "cross-shopped" before applying ED to NESCAC.  In my mind, they are academically and athletically comparable to most of the 'CAC.

Colgate's football schedule this year:

Away - Ball State
Away - Delaware
Home - Cornell
Home - Georgetown *
Home - Holy Cross *
Home - Princeton
Away - Yale
Away - Albany
Away - Fordham *
Home - Lafayette *
Away - Lehigh *
Away - Bucknell *

* Patriot League

Colgate went 4-8 in 2013, and dropped their first 2 games against Ball State and Delaware.  If I was a Colgate parent, I think I'd be happier travelling to Clinton, Williamstown or Amherst, instead of facing non-league opponents in Muncie, Indiana, Newark Delaware, or New Haven.   

[Jonny Utah]

ContinentalsMan

I'm still not convinced this will happen.  If your argument is that it would enhance the profile of NESCAC schools to play Ivy or Patriot league schools (at least in the minds of parents, fans and alumni) then you have to consider that the opposite is true as well.  Fans and alumni of Ivy and Patriot league schools won't be too happy that they're playing a D3 school - regardless of its academic profile.

I respectfully disagree.  Colgate is a DI school both of my kids "cross-shopped" before applying ED to NESCAC.  In my mind, they are academically and athletically comparable to most of the 'CAC.

Colgate's football schedule this year:

Away - Ball State
Away - Delaware
Home - Cornell
Home - Georgetown *
Home - Holy Cross *
Home - Princeton
Away - Yale
Away - Albany
Away - Fordham *
Home - Lafayette *
Away - Lehigh *
Away - Bucknell *

* Patriot League

Colgate went 4-8 in 2013, and dropped their first 2 games against Ball State and Delaware.  If I was a Colgate parent, I think I'd be happier travelling to Clinton, Williamstown or Amherst, instead of facing non-league opponents in Muncie, Indiana, Newark Delaware, or New Haven.

Recruitingwise playing up helps though.  Would it make any difference if they were playing in the orange dome against Syracuse?  I think so.

[PolarCat]

Recruitingwise playing up helps though.  Would it make any difference if they were playing in the orange dome against Syracuse?  I think so.

Depends on the athlete.  My daughter opted for a DIII program that is a perennial contender for the National Championship, vs. several DI offers at mid-pack schools.  She's been playing long enough to know that winning is a hell of a lot more fun than losing.