FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[frank uible]

nescac1, you have, in the past, consistently shown that you are a better man than that unseemly and unproductive screed presents.

[nescac1]

Fair enough, Frank.  Has the current coaching staff done all it can with the level of football talent on hand, and reasonably available in light of constraints imposed by the admissions department?  It's certainly possible.  I imagine you believe that to be the case, given this and your past statements.  But I don't think it's unfair to say that SOMETHING should change in terms of the direction of the football program at Williams: notwithstanding the fact that players are giving their all and representing the institution with pride, and continue to be paragons of the student-athlete ideal, I imagine they'd like to win a few games here and there, particularly vs. Amherst, as well ...

[All NESCAC]

Coach Farley would still be turning out 8-0, 7-1 or at worst 6-2 teams every year out in Billsville even with today's Admission Office higher hurdles....there's a reason he is in the College Football Hall of Fame.  Great coaches are good at both the X's and O's and also getting the Jimmies and Joes.  Current HFC seems to be lacking something known as "it", as there should be no reason a Williams College Football team should be worse than 6-2 every year given how many recruits line up wanting to head to the Purple Valley and play football.  I'm amazed the current HFC is still there.  As Bill Parcell's once said "you are who you are", and the current record speaks very loud.  I'll be shocked if there is a turn around to 6-2 or 7-1 next year without significant staff changes....sometimes change is good and necessary.

[PolarCat]

nescac1, you have, in the past, consistently shown that you are a better man than that unseemly and unproductive screed presents.

Got to admit, I am scratching my head over this post.  The analysis I saw from nescac1 was anything but an "unseemly screed".  Did he edit the post between the time Frank saw it and I saw it?

The HCOF record really speaks for itself, doesn't it?  Finishing 8th or 9th in NESCAC has got to be a major disappointment for a program with Williams' traditions and expectations.  Worse, it's likely to make potential recruits choose a different school, so finishing at the bottom of the CAC becomes a tradition.  (Let's face it, winning is a LOT more fun than losing).

Personally, I'd be delighted to have Kelton stay in Williamstown for the next 3 years, as I suspect that will help my Bobcats.  Williams was arguably the least impressive team we faced this year, and I hope that continues.

[amh63]

Read several short articles in today's WSJ that I feel connected to several topics that are being discussed here.
First...a crack in the love of football in the Deep South.  The UAB...a Div1-A football school in Alabama has decided to drop football on Tuesday.  Reason.., it's 86-135 record.  Statement on UAB discontinuing its football program after this season...." To invest in Sports where it can be 'sustainably competitive.' ". Like the use of  today's fashionable term.."sustainably".
Second...short story of the firing of HFC Hoke at the U of Michigan.  Though he had  a 31-20 record in his 4 seasons, after his 11-2 record in 2011, his team's have won fewer games each year since.  The coach he replaced...Rodriuez, now at Arizona, was named the Pac-12 coach of the year.  Somehow, this story has some similarities to the events now at Williams.

[frank uible]

Williams football and Michigan football are apples and oranges.

[PolarCat]

Williams football and Michigan football are apples and oranges.

Yes, we can agree on that.  Even under Brady Hoke, Michigan never had back-to-seasons where they lost 75% of their games like the Ephs.  If memory serves, Big Blue has only had one losing season in the past decade.

[AmherstStudent05]

nescac1, you have, in the past, consistently shown that you are a better man than that unseemly and unproductive screed presents.

Got to admit, I am scratching my head over this post.  The analysis I saw from nescac1 was anything but an "unseemly screed".  Did he edit the post between the time Frank saw it and I saw it?

Have to say I am with PolarCat on this one.  I too found Frank's post to be an overly harsh and seemingly unjustified criticism of nescac1.  It seemed to me that nescac1's post was a thoughtful -- and yes, at times pointed -- criticism of the current state of the Eph football program.  There were no personal attacks -- indeed, nescac1 went out of his way to praise Coach Kelton's character.  I bet this post reflects the frustration of a lot of the Williams faithful.

Frank, you yourself have referenced that famous Parcells quote in the past, and by that simple metric (not necessarily the only plausible one) something clearly has not been right with Williams football the past few years.  Frank, I know you like to hold your cards (VERY) close to the vest, and that caution may well be prudent (particularly so as not to make next year's Williams College Football Program tapings awkward and uncomfortable), but I do think it is unfair of you to call out nescac1 for being "unseemly" without rebutting or at least identifying his supposedly wrongheaded arguments.  I read nescac1's post to raise several interesting questions that I would love to see a "Kelton supporter" (you or anyone else) respond to.

(1) Do you think that a 2-6 record is the best that Williams could reasonably expect these past few seasons with any HFC at the helm in light of whatever institutional restraints might be weighing on the program (e.g., admissions standards, legacy coaches, or something else -- certainly not the facilities)?

(2) Do you think that Coach Kelton can return Williams to its heritage of being a consistently top-class football program in the NESCAC?  If so, is this because (a) the Williams administration has agreed to ease up on whatever institutional restraints have been weighing the program down the past few seasons, (b) you believe that Coach Kelton has always been a winning football coach and has just experienced a recent run of misfortune that is unlikely to continue, and/or (c) you have reason to believe that Coach Kelton will show marked improvement as a head coach in the years to come.

(3)  Do you feel that, regardless of your personal views of whether, from a purely on the field success standpoint, Coach Kelton is the right man to lead Williams football, it is unseemly for Williams to ever fire a coach for onfield performance reasons when his conduct and the conduct of his team has otherwise exemplary on campus? (Addendum, if so, is it also impermissible to refuse to extend Coach Kelton's contract for performance reasons?)

[frank uible]

I have my standard of unseemliness, which I'm not about to try to explain here - others, should they choose, are free to have a different standard. I'm indifferent to the possibility of my being in the minority on that subject as on most others.  This year I'm not toadying for a Presidential or other public office run. 

[AmherstStudent05]

Forgive me, Frank.  I was only trying to do you the courtesy of trying to understand the point you were attempting to make in your post of 9:57 this morning.  But, if you want to publicly accuse nescac1 of violating a standard that you pointedly refuse to define or explain to anyone else (and to which you concede might deviate from the generally accepted meaning of the term) while also refusing to identify what part of nescac1's long post violated this secret norm of yours, I suppose I will have to let the matter drop.  My mistake. 

[lumbercat]

Amherst 05- were you on the Debate team at Amherst?

[banfan]

Think of it possibly as a Williams Amherst thing. Frank is Frank. We all need to accept that this forum is not transparent, no?

[frank uible]

It is solely a Williams thing. Proximity at one time or another to to NFL football, to Big Ten football and to NESCAC football tells that one size does not necessarily come close to fitting more than one.

[banfan]

I'm with ya Frank.

[gridiron]

Seems to me the question really comes down to this.  Most would agree in recent years Williams has been giving football less flexibility in the admissions department, while Amherst has been receiving more.  Are the respective results on the field (W's and L's) solely the byproduct of this trend?  Is Coach Kelton, therefore, getting unfairly tarnished by the brush, or are the coaches' the real difference???