FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[lumbercat]

AMH63-
In those days the Boston papers actually COVERED the NESCAC. Sadly we are lucky to get just the scores these days in the Globe and the Herald. Tufts, as the Boston NESCAC team, is ignored for the most part these days by the Boston press. Too bad.

Sporting events are expensive these days especially for a young family. On may occasions in recent years I've  recommended to many friends or business associates in the Boston area that they take in a NESCAC game at Tufts.

The feedback I get is overwhelmingly positive and many have gone back to additional games. A parent can take the kids over there for next to nothing (believe Tufts is one of the NECACS that charges a small admission but kids are free) and have a great afternoon of good football.

Unfortunately many know nothing of NESCAC football and the Boston papers do nothing in the way of providing any coverage or publicity whatsoever. At the end of the day Boston is not a college sportstown even for D1 BC but would think the media would at least provide some NESCAC coverage as they did in the past,

[FourMoreYears]

[/quote]
Bowdoin alternated Williams and Amherst. 
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Not that it makes much of a difference, but Bowdoin alternated Williams and Middlebury, playing Amherst every year.

[bigbucks]

Does anyone know how those two boys from Poly Prep are? I hear Robert Deleon-Kollmer 6'3 220 to Bowdoin and Tegha Egbiri to Tufts are two hell of ball players

[amh63]

big bucks.....welcome to this board.  Will give you a historical response to your question.  Poly prep is a fine high academic school that sends a very large number of student-athletes to Nescac schools.  The former director of Admissions at Amherst and at Williams is an alum of the NY prep school.  He was also the key individual to the 75 player limit and 14 tip number wrt football in the conference.  In my faulty, bias memory,  the success of players from Poly Prep has been mixed at Amherst. Good in basketball but do not recall any contributors in football.  Competition for starting positions even in the Nescac is tough for high school starters.  Amherst has an incoming OL recruit that was selected a  first team player in Ma., a state that provides many starters on Nescac teams.

[HansenRatings]

I usually don't pay much attention to you folks in the NESCAC (on account of not playing any non-conference games), but I decided to do a quick little analysis based on teams' scoring margins over the last 4 seasons to try to project out 2017 using the same linear regression I use for my main rankings. Results here:

[amh63]

HansenRatings....nice try!   Yes, using a ranking system based mainly on point spreads and imo questionable math techniques does not work for the Nescac.
Going back only 4 seasons to project the future ranking is questionable, again imo.
Case in point.  Trinity won the conference in 2016, 8-0 with a high power offense.  Amherst won the previous three seasons with a fine defense..all 8-0.  Add the fact that all 4 previous seasons were ones where the football teams did not play identical opponents.

[HansenRatings]

HansenRatings....nice try!   Yes, using a ranking system based mainly on point spreads and imo questionable math techniques does not work for the Nescac.
Going back only 4 seasons to project the future ranking is questionable, again imo.
Case in point.  Trinity won the conference in 2016, 8-0 with a high power offense.  Amherst won the previous three seasons with a fine defense..all 8-0.  Add the fact that all 4 previous seasons were ones where the football teams did not play identical opponents.

So which teams specifically do you disagree with? Like I said, I'm very unfamiliar with the history of the NESCAC, but I will argue that point spreads are a better predictive measure than merely wins & losses.

[Garnet]

Breaking911‏

JUST IN: Trinity College In Hartford, Conn. Closed Until Further Notice Due To "Received Threats"

What is going on there?

[nescac1]

Hansen, that looks about right to me, in terms of what the consensus predictions for next year will likely be.   Certainly, Trinity is a strong favorite, and Wesleyan a strong number two, based on what each has returning on paper.  Midd, Amherst and Tufts will likely be fighting for third, although any of them could easily contend for the top spot if things break right.  Bates looks like the best of the rest, and Colby, Hamilton, Williams and Bowdoin are all very closely grouped.  Of course, this doesn't account for the off-season.  Colby seems to have had a brutal off-season, and Williams a very strong one, so their outlooks might need to be switched accordingly.  But right now, there is a closely-grouped top five in NESCAC, and a closely grouped bottom five, and it's going to be very hard for any team in the bottom five (at least this fall) to crack the top group. 

[AUPepBand]

I usually don't pay much attention to you folks in the NESCAC (on account of not playing any non-conference games), but I decided to do a quick little analysis based on teams' scoring margins over the last 4 seasons to try to project out 2017 using the same linear regression I use for my main rankings. Results here:

Hansen: Pep has learned that this outlier group doesn't play (or play well) with others. It's just best to leave them alone in their little bubble. 

[amh63]

PolarCat....much opinion in the news recently wrt to a Supreme Court 8-0 ruling.  Copyright sort dealing with a Asian music band called the "Slants".   Maybe you can put your old decal on your car without getting your window smashed! .
Am in Richmond...had dinner with a classmate/ frat brother.  Some interesting true stories wrt to the Indian tribes in Virginia.
In any case...am a little concern about the Bates vs Amherst game this Fall.   Bates always gives Amherst trouble.

[PolarCat]

For the record:  amh63 is referring to my alma mater, where the school mascot was once the Indian.  He knows that I have an old Indian window sticker I have been saving for my 50th reunion (assuming there are still cars around in 2026).

And I personally find the term "Slants" really offensive, as my son and daughter each have multiple, lovely Asian-American friends.  I'm not very politcally correct, but that's a term I would never use.  (I believe ahm63 may be Asian American himself, so he gets a pass.  Much like it's okay for my son's African American teammates to use the N word, but it would not be okay for him to do so).

And speaking about my alma mater: my Classmate Reggie Williams (former All Pro LB for the Bengals) just donated his NFL Walter Payton Man of the Year Award to Dartmouth, along with footballs from his two Super Bowl appearances.  Reggie is a class act.  After retiring from the Bengals, he went to work for Disney and started the Wide World of Sports complex at Disney World.  He left Disney under trying circumstances: a nasty infection set in after one of the multiple knee surgeries he had to repair a lifetime of football injuries, and his knee swelled up to the size of a volleyball.  (The photos are not for the faint of heart).  The doctors wanted to amputate his leg, but Reggie devoted the next dozen years of his life to saving it.  Along the way he had a stroke, and open heart surgery.

Proving that good things do sometimes happen to good people, Reggie battled back from the stroke, and successfully rehabbed his knee.  He threw out the opening pitch at a baseball game recently, danced at our 40th reunion, and gave a lovely eulogy in memory of deceased members of our class.  A truly remarkable and wonderful human being.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.

[amh63]

My post directed to PolarCat was to see if he was going to take the Summer off...prior to his son's senior year at Bates.  Guess it worked!
By the way, the WSJ article on the impact of the Supreme Court ruling mentioned the Wash. Redskins and the Cleveland Indians....noting the differing positions between the NFL and MLB on " symbolic mascots".   It also mentioned PolarCat's school and neglected Stanford. 
As mentioned, I am in Richmond....sitting in a hotel lobby that housed the Redskins players in recent years when RGIII was the QB during pre- season training/practice.
Yes, I am an Asian....preferring to be considered an American of Asian heritage vice all the usage of the " - " labels.  My kids are Americans of multiple heritages.  They can check the block...."other"

[PolarCat]

I'm not taking the entire summer off, but did manage to take 2 weeks for a father-son trip.  My son did his Study Abroad at University of East Anglia.  I met him at end of his semester, and we toured Normandy (he and I were both big Band of Brothers fans, so we visited the D Day beaches, 101st airborne drop zones, American Cemetery, etc.), Mont Saint-Michel, Versailles, Sedan (Maginot Line), Reims (where we drank a lot of good champagne), Bastogne and Trier, then looked for our "roots" in the Saar Valley of Germany.  A really lovely break from the routine of daily life back home, and some really nice memories.

And I can reliably report that my genealogy quest revealed that I, too, am a polyglot mutt.  No "-" for me, either, I'm afraid.

Will we finally meet in person on September 16th?  I think you have somehow gained an overly inflated opinion of my tailgate skills, so if you're going to be at Pratt for the Bobcats-Mammoths, I need to start working on my game.

[polbear73]

That's a great trip, PC-certainly on my bucket list.  To do it with your son is special.