FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[amh63]

NFO.....Nice!

[polbear73]

So.... let's talk football and week 4 predictions:

o   Bowdoin 21 @ Hamilton 28
o   Wesleyan 28 @ Bates 14
o   Colby 07 @ Amherst 31
o   Tufts 17 @ Trinity 31
o   Middlebury 42 @ Williams 07           

Seems about right.  No arguments here. 

[JEFFFAN]

https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/colleges/2016/10/12/tufts-takes-its-shot-tripping-trinity/jahrWmZHqcj1w9YzQ8kZvI/story.html

[amh63]

JEFFFAN....thanks for the link....plus K.   Found another item more interesting.  There is a list of the IVY games.  Seems this is the weekend that the Ivies schools plays out of conference games.  The matchup that caught my eye was the SH vs Cornell match up.  SHeart is off the Merritt Pwy just down the road from where my wife grew up.  Have a brother-in-law that went to HS there and then off to Fairfield Un. " up the street".  Fairfield Un. has dropped football and now SH has a football program that can schedule an IVY team!  Cornell's football program has dropped a bunch from its glory days.  Have to give Cornell credit in that it still has a "160 lb limit" football program and the only marching band in the Ivies!

[ITH radio]

Ivies played a few non-league games last weekend too (and played vs. Patriot League teams the wkd before).

Brown lost to Stetson by 10 who lost to SHU in Wk 1, 18-14.

[Pat Coleman]

JEFFFAN....thanks for the link....plus K.   Found another item more interesting.  There is a list of the IVY games.  Seems this is the weekend that the Ivies schools plays out of conference games.  The matchup that caught my eye was the SH vs Cornell match up.  SHeart is off the Merritt Pwy just down the road from where my wife grew up.  Have a brother-in-law that went to HS there and then off to Fairfield Un. " up the street".  Fairfield Un. has dropped football and now SH has a football program that can schedule an IVY team!  Cornell's football program has dropped a bunch from its glory days.  Have to give Cornell credit in that it still has a "160 lb limit" football program and the only marching band in the Ivies!

Penn also has sprint football -- weight limit is 172 these days.

[amh63]

Pat....thanks for the term and present wt. limit.  In my days, it was 155 lbs.  Harvard and the Naval Academy had such teams.  I knew the wgt limit had increased....spoke to a former Cornell player in Ithaca awhile back.  However, just winged it a bit....after the post, 175 lbs came up but did not think that was correct.

[amh63]

ITH radio...thanks for the info...plus k.  I had a post discussion here or elsewhere a time back about SHU' s football field location.  SHU church and HS is located in prime real estate as well as limited space due to roadways.  I find this topic somewhat linked to earlier discussions on this board about football finances, tradition, etc.  It is a little ironic to me that Fairfield Un had a good football history and the land but dropped football, whereas, SHU had no football history at all...in the late 60's and now supports a competitive football program.  There is a private school...Fairfield Prep nearby that has a thriving athletic program with a rep for sending football players to the Nescac and other top academic colleges.  My eldest son roomed for 3 years with a Fairfield Prep grad that was a capt of the Amherst hockey team.  My wife's Aunt worked at Fairfield Un and her two sons went to Fairfield Prep and Fairfield Un...do not think she knows why football was dropped, but I believe it has to do with money primarily.

[mariner75]

ITH radio...thanks for the info...plus k.  I had a post discussion here or elsewhere a time back about SHU' s football field location.  SHU church and HS is located in prime real estate as well as limited space due to roadways.  I find this topic somewhat linked to earlier discussions on this board about football finances, tradition, etc.  It is a little ironic to me that Fairfield Un had a good football history and the land but dropped football, whereas, SHU had no football history at all...in the late 60's and now supports a competitive football program.  There is a private school...Fairfield Prep nearby that has a thriving athletic program with a rep for sending football players to the Nescac and other top academic colleges.  My eldest son roomed for 3 years with a Fairfield Prep grad that was a capt of the Amherst hockey team.  My wife's Aunt worked at Fairfield Un and her two sons went to Fairfield Prep and Fairfield Un...do not think she knows why football was dropped, but I believe it has to do with money primarily.

Fairfield class of '73 here.  The Stags had moderate success with their on again/off again football program.  amh63 is correct....it eventually came down to money as the reason to drop the sport.  Basketball has always been the primary sport at FU but they've also had some success in soccer, baseball, and more recently lacrosse.

[Trin9-0]

A high school teammate of mine attended Fairfield and played football. The sport was cut just prior to his senior year.

[JustAFan]

I didn't know the new term was sprint football. Back in the day they used to call it lightweight football.  Army has always had a very competitive team. This year's Army sprint football team roster lists more than 80 players (http://goarmywestpoint.com/roster.aspx?path=sfootball) playing a 7 game schedule against Penn, Cornell and Navy, among others. Great to see so many students continuing to play competitive football even if it's not at the varsity level. Gotta believe a bunch of these guys could play at the DIII level if they bulked up a bit....

[polbear73]

Rutgers, Lafayette, and Villanova all fielded lightweight football teams in the past in addition to those previously mentioned. 

[Grabowski]

Princeton cut their 172 program very recently after a ridiculous losing streak.  I'm sure their coach blamed the admissions office for all the losses and was at least partly right...

[Grabowski]

Had to look it up:  106 straight losses before throwing in the towel.  They were being laughed at by Tex Cobb, the Columbia Lions, Walter Mondale, the 76ers, and Chicago Cubs.

[amh63]

In the days when I was living in Cambridge, MA., there was another scource of football players for Havard's varsity.  As many posters are aware of, Harvard students move from Havard Yard residence after freshman year into Oxford-like residences called "Houses"...at Yale they are called "colleges".  Anyway, these houses often field their own athletic teams in crew and football, etc. and compete with the other Houses. I recall that there were several House players invited to join the Varsity.  Read somewhere...Harvard pub?...that a key QB starter was pulled from a House team.
Tommy Lee Jones, the actor in the Hollywood Film series "Men in Black" was playing for Harvard on some fine Crimson teams when I was around.  Met some great people then...inventer of the Strobe Light..at MIT, Polaroid of the Instant Camera and some others that had part in getting an American to the Moon.  Heady times for me.  Never met Al Gore...inventor of the internet ....who was at Harvard and a roommate of TLJones.  Not an admirer of Gore but wanted to mention him since he was in Florida again pitching his nonsense recently.