FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[amh63]

Amherst's preview of the upcoming Bates battle is up on the athletic website.  Has a preliminary starting lineup for both teams and standard comments.  More interesting is the Podcast attached...an interview with HFC Mills on the game ahead, his coaching staff, the Williams scrimmage  even how he got into being a coach....a kitchen sink type interview.  This continues a series started last season.  The interviewer is an asststant men's basketball coach...an alum.  Last year's interviewer is now the head BB coach at TCNJ...also an alum.
The roster update remains unfinished.  Believe the SIDS were busy covering the volleyball game last night in Willytown...a lost.  And...finishing up a preview of the women's tennis team...yes a Fall sport.

[JEFFFAN]

To D3Boards - ever thought of getting rid of or archiving pre this season?   Coming onto the site and seeing 2005 posts doesnt do much for me.

[PolarCat]

Bates has posted its own preview of the Amherst game: http://athletics.bates.edu/sports/fball/2015-16/releases/20150924kc1ciq.

And Pat, if you're reading this, I actually LIKE having all those prior posts available.  It's easy enough to click on the last page to see the latest posts.

[AUPepBand]

To D3Boards - ever thought of getting rid of or archiving pre this season?   Coming onto the site and seeing 2005 posts doesnt do much for me.

You know you can choose whether to have recent posts at the top? When I'm logged in, most recent posts are always on the No. 1 page of posts. Do you know how many pages of posts there are over on the E8 boards? Some of my best work....and you want to delete them? 

[NewtoNescac]

Please do not delete the old posts. Looking back at them, and seeing how foolish I sounded at times, keeps me humble and grounded.

More importantly, one day to game day!

[nescac1]

Last year may not have been a winning one for Eph football, but it was for senior center Alan Felix, who was named all-NESCAC and more importantly broke the hot dog eating record at Jack's with an incredible 28!  If you haven't been to Jack's during a Berkshires visit, you should -- your mouth will thank you, although your intestines surely won't.  I'm too embarrassed to even list my pathetic personal hot dog high at Jack's, and stand in awe of Felix's accomplishment.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/travel/2015/09/24/fork-the-road-jack-hot-dog-stand-closing-century-north-adams-institution-keeps-grilling/HdTmVkxndBzG8D5rJRatfN/story.html

[polbear73]

Unless I counted incorrectly (a distinct possibility), Bowdoin's newly posted roster (still entitled "Preseason"), lists about 86 players (obviously before "gray shirts", including about 20 freshmen, not including a previously discussed transfer. Certainly shows a low attrition rate from last year.

[AUPepBand]

Last year may not have been a winning one for Eph football, but it was for senior center Alan Felix, who was named all-NESCAC and more importantly broke the hot dog eating record at Jack's with an incredible 28!  If you haven't been to Jack's during a Berkshires visit, you should -- your mouth will thank you, although your intestines surely won't.  I'm too embarrassed to even list my pathetic personal hot dog high at Jack's, and stand in awe of Felix's accomplishment.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/travel/2015/09/24/fork-the-road-jack-hot-dog-stand-closing-century-north-adams-institution-keeps-grilling/HdTmVkxndBzG8D5rJRatfN/story.html

Pep Jr. never liked hot dogs and refused to eat them as a child. On one occasion about nine months ago, we stopped in at the Texas Hot in Wellsville where I had the usual....two Texas Hots and an order of french fries. Don't remember what he ordered. I was about done when he says:

"Hey Dad, I think I might like to try one of those!"

"Fine. Order one."

Waitress comes by to settle up.

"Can you add another Texas Hot to our bill?"

"Sure thing, I'll put the order in."  She returns a moment later with another Texas Hot.

Pep Jr. devours it and remarks, "That was awesome!"

That was nine months ago.

He's probably consumed 96 Texas Hots since and there's no end in sight.




On Saxon Warriors!

[Nescacman]

Are you ready for some football?!? We are glad to be back from a self-imposed off-season exile. To the veterans, hope you are well. To the rookies, well on-board. We kept tabs on the best Board on the D3 site and we're sorry we missed contributing to the many "titillating" off-season debates and discussions. With that being said, a few thoughts on various football related topics as we get ready for Week 1 in the league "where they pay to play"...

1.   ROSTERS: NESCAC Football Teams are required to submit final 75 final man rosters by Noon today, Friday, September 23. Our understanding is that schools that exceed 75 may carry one additional injured player for a total of 76 roster spots, however, if that player is able to play during the year, one of the players on the 75 man roster can no longer suit up (I have no idea, however, how the League would ever track that...does NESCAC have its own enforcement unit...ha-ha). Teams like Amherst and Wesleyan, who have more than 75 players in camp, are still making final roster decisions and I would not expect to see their final rosters until later today, at the earliest
2.   PLAY-OFFS: Here's the scoop...our sources tell us that there is little to no chance that the NESCAC champion will take the automatic bid into the D3 Playoffs any-time soon, if ever. As we all know, the NESCAC tends to mimic the Ivy League. I would not expect the NESCAC Presidents to even consider entering the D3 tournament until the Ivy League were to go that route, which we believe is highly unlikely to happen in our lifetime.
3.   9th GAME: With that being said, we think the idea of a 9th game could happen. Here's the scoop...our sources tell us that the preferred timing for the additional game would the week before the current start of the regular season. "Week 0" would take the place of the current "game condition" scrimmages the week before the season starts. Starting the season then is more in synch with many other D3 conferences. Although, theoretically, a majority of the NESCAC President's can approve this change, they will not agree to a change like this unless there is complete unanimity among the Presidents. Based on changes at the top at certain schools over the last several years, we believe that this might be something that could happen in the next couple of years. Besides the obvious hurdle of the vote, the other hurdle is the schedule. If you kept the current schedule, Hamilton, would be forced to open up against Amherst every year. From what we understand, Hamilton, among others, wants a rotating schedule to be put in place. This would obviously throw a monkey wrench in historical end of season match-ups such as Amherst/Williams and Wesleyan/Hartford State. With all of the math genius' floating around the NESCAC, I am sure that issue could be resolved (for example, rotate the first 5 weeks of the schedule and leave the last 4 weeks when most of the rivalry games are played, fixed).
4.   COACHING CHANGES: Two teams made changes at the top this past off-season, one internally and one externally. Although we are big proponents of both new coaches, we believe one will be very successful and one is doomed to fail. At Wesleyan, Dan DiCenzo fills the head spot vacated by his retired mentor, Mike Whalen. Coach DiCenzo, a former standout NESCAC performer in football and wrestling at Williams, takes over after having successfully led the Wes defense the last several years (#1 ranked defense in terms of YPG in all of D3 last year). He has the full support of the school's administration, the AD (Coach Whalen), and the players who he has coached and recruited. We believe he will be wildly successful. On the other hand, Coach JB Wells comes to Bowdoin College from Endicott, where he successfully started and led the program. Although Wells also knows NESCAC well, having both played and coached at Hartford State, we believe that he will have an uphill fight turning Bowdoin around. First of all, as has been memorialized on this Board, we all know some of the inherent issues he will have institutionally at Bowdoin. Second, it is never easy to recruit at Bowdoin between their high academic standards and their location. We believe Wells will be marginally more successful than his predecessor. However, expectations should be tempered and success should be measured in terms of C-B-B titles, not NESCAC titles. We also think two non-changes were interesting. At Tufts, they obviously opened up their wallet and decided to pay Coach Civetti. Here's the scoop...our sources tell us that he was the lowest paid coach in the league and that in order for him to stay, they were going to have to up his pay (significantly). The other interesting "no change" was in Willytown and what they did not do with the controversial and embattled self proclaimed HCOF which leads us to....
5.   HCOF: No NESCACMAN write-up would be complete without a discussion of our favorite NESCAC Coach, the HCOF himself, Aaron Kelton. The HCOF enters the last year of his second three-year contract.  We understand that the EPH powers that be gave the HCOF the opportunity to seek out employment elsewhere this past off-season. To no one's surprise, he was unable to avail himself of that opportunity. Thus, the HCOF is back for his 6th and we believe last year of his reign of terror on Purple Valley.  He has singlehandedly wreaked havoc on the once proud Williams College football program. Back-to-back 2-6 seasons (while the man he replaced, Mike Whalen went 14-2 at WES) and low expectations for 2015 will do that. We think you actually have to TRY to be bad this bad in Willytown. Williams is the #1 liberal arts college in America and gets their pick of the litter in just about every other sport. For some reason, that has ceased to carry over to football (despite the addition of their ~$25 million stadium). The Ephs demise has been Amherst's gain. The two programs used to more or less go after the same recruits and basically split them 50/50. Now, Amherst gets all of those kids, which is one reason Coach Mills has done so well over the last couple years at Amherst. You heard it here first, 2015 is the end of the HCOF era. The HCOF will last the season but will certainly provide us with more fodder during the year.
6.   UNION COLLEGE: Although I did not attend Union, I was the "black sheep" of the family since my Father and two sisters went there. Although recruited by legendary Coach Al Bagnoli when he was an assistant at Union, I made the decision to attend a school that only played 8 games and did not go the play-offs. Until the day my Dad passed away in 2007, he must have reminded me once a week that I missed the opportunity to play for Union in the D3 Play-offs. Why is Union no longer in the NESCAC? I discussed this many times with my Dad (who was a lax captain and football player and big sports booster there). He noted several reasons: travel times (in particular to the Maine schools), 8 game schedule, the ability at the time to only play one out of conference, non-NESCAC game, the ability to play in the football play-offs and Union's aspirations in D1 hockey (which as we know has been very successful leading to a National Championship).
7.   NESCAC JV FOOTBALL: We know of at least three NESCAC teams that play a JV schedule: Amherst, Wesleyan and Tufts. Maybe there is a direct correlation between overall program success and keeping your younger players interested and involved....?
8.   TRANSFERS: Fact: Most heralded transfers into NESCAC fail. Why is that? First, we think NESCAC football is pretty good and getting better every year. Second, frankly, most of these transfers, especially those that come from D1 programs, did not belong in those programs to begin with and were non-contributors (the EPH QB, for example). The exception could be MID QB Jared Lebowitz who actually saw playing time at UNLV. Although he did not play that well statistically, he still played at a major college program and that is a rarity.
9.   A few last minute notes....nice job by NothingbutNescac on their season preview (ours will be a bit more controversial)... highly touted NJ recruit Spencer Aukamp quit the Hartford State program and let the coaching staff know via text message...we hear that Hartford State's starting QB is still in school...QB controversy in Middlebury with player favorite and last year's co-offensive player of the Mike Milano being pushed by UNLV transfer Jared Lebowitz (when was the last time the best two QB's in the league were on the same team?)...Coach Wells is the first Bowdoin coach to not issue leather helmets to his players...contrary to rumors, Mac Caputi does not have another year of eligibility and will not be starting for MID tomorrow...we guess Dave Caputi did not retire from Bowdoin...pre-season rankings and week one picks to be posted later today...

[lumbercat]

PolBear 73

Beleive Bowdoin roster has been updated only to reflect FYs and transfer. Several duplicate numbers. Would think/hope that tomorrow's game program will reflect final roster and numbers.

Conspicuously absent from the group of FYs is RB Brandon Lopez from Governors. He was All State, All Scholastic, all everything in Ma last year. He was publicized as a Bowdoin commit and was viewed as a big recruiting score but has evidently gone in another direction.

BC transfer Tevin Montgomery is a great addition for the Bears. Thanks to Bowdoin Alum John Fish.

[lumbercat]

Nescacman-

Fantastic post. Enjoyed reading, thanks for you efforts.

You have been pretty much on the mark with your coaching projections.  Believe you had Caputi Helton, Civetti and Harriman listed as those in question last year at one point or another. You had the situation nailed at Bowdoin along with issues and their subsequent reslution at Tufts. We will see on Helton though your take makes sense. However, some surprise to have seen Harriman on your list- obviously no change at Bates but you never revisted that situation. At a loss as to what was fueling that observation?

Look forward to your season preview.

[PolarCat]

The Bowdoin Daily Sun has a 6 minute video interview with JB Wells here: http://dailysun.bowdoin.edu/2015/09/coachs-corner-with-j-b-wells-and-a-preview-of-football-season-opener/?utm_source=Bowdoin+Daily+Sun&utm_campaign=6734a04fa3-BDS_RSSEMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6094f84690-6734a04fa3-293531237

[Jonny Utah]

The Bowdoin Daily Sun has a 6 minute video interview with JB Wells here: http://dailysun.bowdoin.edu/2015/09/coachs-corner-with-j-b-wells-and-a-preview-of-football-season-opener/?utm_source=Bowdoin+Daily+Sun&utm_campaign=6734a04fa3-BDS_RSSEMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6094f84690-6734a04fa3-293531237

I was at a football clinic where JB Wells spoke, and he also mentioned how the "football culture" needed to change up there.  I am paraphrasing now, but I remember him talking about how football captains for the next year (juniors going into their senior year), would be in California for a spring semester out there.  He was basically questioning how a football captain could leave the school and the responsibilities that go with lifting, preparing, etc for the upcoming fall.

Overall I was impressed by JB Wells, and the Patriots offensive coordinator (who spoke at the same clinic), said he got a few drills from him (involving some PVC pipe with some handles).

[polbear73]

Interesting post, JohnnyU, thank you.  Football is a sport that demands dedication and cannot be treated a just another extra curricular activity.  This does not mean that other offerings found at a NESCAC school can't be experienced, but the game does require priority.  Coach Wells is indeed impressive and his record at Endicott certainly indicates that he can coach; the question remains as to whether he will receive the support required to be a winner in this conference, 

[gridiron]

On the topic of roster size for 2015 appears as if all NESCAC teams will list at least 76 players (Williams 77??).  The only exception is Bates with 68.  Who knows about Amherst as it continues to run with last season's roster for the time being.