FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[frank uible]

Fishing for a compliment? Spoiling for an insult? Or just looking for an objective assessment?

[Jonny Utah]

What's your prediction if Mount Union were to play Amherst?!

49-6 at the half, 55-13 final.

[PolarCat]

MUC 45, Amherst 21

[amh63]

westcoastdad.....Cannot make Any comparison......an apple and orange comparison.   Other than fine programs and players that want to win....too many differences otherwise. 

General question.....Is there a Colby alum connection to the NFL Carolina football team?   Realize that the blue is related to the UNC blue, etc,  the NFL team has the blue and silver colors of Colby...at least to the older uniforms.  Maybe Colby should adapt the uniform style of the NFL team.   Who knows these days where CAC alums own, manage or impact a large number of professional sport teams...football, soccer, baseball and hockey.

[IslandTime]

What's your prediction if Mount Union were to play Amherst?!

I think MU would win convincingly......but then go onto to work for the Amherst players after graduation.

[PolarCat]

Post of the year.  +K, and I'm sure it will be the first of many.

[frank uible]

Then further the MU players will act collectively in order to gain social justice.

[amh63]

Frank U.....Nice!  Plus K.
Posters here are hitting on all cylinders now.

[Desertraider]

What's your prediction if Mount Union were to play Amherst?!

49-6 at the half, 55-13 final.

First, a question: why doesn't NESCAC participate in post-season? Second, I am not an expert with Amherst but looking at the stats and their scores - Mount 63 Amherst 3 (maybe 10). Sorry but I see a mid-range OAC (Otterbein type) football team. I guess we shall never know.

[All NESCAC]

What's your prediction if Mount Union were to play Amherst?!

49-6 at the half, 55-13 final.

First, a question: why doesn't NESCAC participate in post-season? Second, I am not an expert with Amherst but looking at the stats and their scores - Mount 63 Amherst 3 (maybe 10). Sorry but I see a mid-range OAC (Otterbein type) football team. I guess we shall never know.

Some NESCAC coaches back in the day were fond of saying "isn't it better to be 8-0 and debate you could have been 11-0 or 12-0 if you went to the D3 Tournament, then go and go 8-1 with a one and done".  The NESCAC coaches have known for a very long time that the Presidents will likely never let the Football Champion go on the extended season run unless the Ivy League ever does...and very doubtful it will ever happen....it is what it is...tilting at that windmill is a non-starter.

[AO]

What's your prediction if Mount Union were to play Amherst?!

49-6 at the half, 55-13 final.

First, a question: why doesn't NESCAC participate in post-season? Second, I am not an expert with Amherst but looking at the stats and their scores - Mount 63 Amherst 3 (maybe 10). Sorry but I see a mid-range OAC (Otterbein type) football team. I guess we shall never know.

Some NESCAC coaches back in the day were fond of saying "isn't it better to be 8-0 and debate you could have been 11-0 or 12-0 if you went to the D3 Tournament, then go and go 8-1 with a one and done".  The NESCAC coaches have known for a very long time that the Presidents will likely never let the Football Champion go on the extended season run unless the Ivy League ever does...and very doubtful it will ever happen....it is what it is...tilting at that windmill is a non-starter.

The Ivy teams play 10 games.   I doubt any NESCAC team would have to worry about getting past the 2nd round and playing their 11th game.

[amh63]

AO.....with all due respect....if you do not understand the Nescac and its football history, you never will.  It is not about the number of games. It is about the post season.  The Nescac where the football history goes back to the beginning of college football.  It is what it is.  When the conference presidents allowed post season play in the 70's for many of its other sports, the conference schools built programs to compete and WIN national titles.

[AO]

AO.....with all due respect....if you do not understand the Nescac and its football history, you never will.  It is not about the number of games. It is about the post season.  The Nescac where the football history goes back to the beginning of college football.  It is what it is.  When the conference presidents allowed post season play in the 70's for many of its other sports, the conference schools built programs to compete and WIN national titles.

Have the presidents directly answered this question recently?  I assume they would say something better than "it is what it is."

[Mr. Ypsi]

AO.....with all due respect....if you do not understand the Nescac and its football history, you never will.  It is not about the number of games. It is about the post season.  The Nescac where the football history goes back to the beginning of college football.  It is what it is.  When the conference presidents allowed post season play in the 70's for many of its other sports, the conference schools built programs to compete and WIN national titles.

Have the presidents directly answered this question recently?  I assume they would say something better than "it is what it is."

It DOES seem surpassingly strange that they are SO proud of Directors' Cup standings, are a power conference in nearly every other sport, yet will not only not participate in postseason play in football, they will not play ANYONE outside of the conference.  To me (despite my high esteem for them in other sports) that means their football teams are not even D3 - they are intramurals.  Perhaps they are afraid of showing just how bad their football is if they ever played a D3 team?

Sorry, amh63, but there is NO evidence whatsoever that Amherst would not finish last in some conferences!  I like your posts (and enthusiasm) but, no, the position of your Presidents will never be comprehensible to me.  IF they boycotted outside competition and playoffs in ALL sports, that would be a principled position (I'd disagree, but they have the right to do as they see fit).  But to do it ONLY for football is simply bizarro world.

[nescac1]

It must be the holidays, because it's time for the annual discussion of NESCAC football's lack of participation in the post-season!

I don't have a strong view either way (I think a more realistic goal which would improve the NESCAC experience is to ditch the Week One scrimmage in place of a ninth game for all teams, something which MIGHT actually happen if enough NESCAC Presidents got behind it).  But I don't think the status quo regarding the playoffs is incomprehensible or unprincipled.

First, football takes a dramatically disproportionate number of TIPS for NESCAC schools already (I think something like 12-16 out of 66-72 for ALL sports combined), and for such small schools (typically 2000 students or less), fielding any sort of competitive football team already takes up a substantial proportion of the males in each frosh class.  You can have a great tennis team, or basketball team, or soccer team by letting in just a few star players per year.  Football you need a dozen or more each and every year.  If there was a desire to compete with other D3 football programs, that would require even more slots dedicated to football players, most likely.  Many of the D3 football powers like St. Thomas and Whitewater are absolutely massive by comparison, so letting in a few extra guys for football doesn't have a material impact on the composition of the first-year class the way it does at every NESCAC school save for maybe Tufts and Wesleyan.   

Second, it's not just the number of slots for football, it's the size of the concessions for each slot.  It's easy to find elite (at the D3 level) runners or tennis players with NESCAC-level credentials.  They hardly require any concessions by admissions at all.  It's tougher in some of the team sports, but still, there are plenty of ace basketball and soccer players out there with 1300 plus SATs, etc.  And maybe one player per year per sport will be a real stretch for admissions.  Even under the current regime, admissions has to reallllly stretch for football in ways it simply does not need to for any other sport (save probably men's ice hockey).  There just isn't a huge population of star football players with elite academic credentials to choose from, and many of those who exist are always going to pick the Ivy League.  Again, if NESCAC wanted to be remotely competitive on a national stage in football, it would require the types of admissions concessions that these institutions won't ever be willing to make. 

Third, football is in an entirely different stratosphere in terms of costs -- traveling to playoff games (for whichever school made it) and extending the season would be a very costly endeavor, without the sort of revenues to offset those costs that you have at a higher level.  Big difference between bringing a 12 person roster with a few coaches to the NCAA's vs. a 75-person roster with huge coaching staffs and loads of equipment and huge insurance and medical costs.

Fourth, unlike most (basically all, although hockey and soccer have some issues too) other sports, the longer the season, the more practices, and the more football games are played, the greater the risk of long-term brain damage/injuries to those participating. 

So, while I can see arguments either way for NESCAC participating in the NCAAs, there are very good reasons why football is distinguished from other sports as a matter of policy.  Especially when realistically not even the best NESCAC teams in history would have been remotely competitive vs. the elite D3 powers, and there is no possible way they ever could be without dramatic changes to admissions practices.