FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[DadintheStands]

mariner75 - with all due respect to Trinity and Midd, Tufts was the toughest and most well prepared team Williams has played thusfar.  Congrats to the Jumbos.  Good things will happen for them the rest of the way if they keep up that intensity.

[nescac1]

First, that Tufts-Williams highlight video is slick.  Every NESCAC school should aim for quality like that.  Shows just how much immediate pressure Maimaron was under all game.  Protection is tough against an aggressive, talented D when you often have four guys spread out (including the TE) so Williams needs to really get passes off quickly in those formations and also just find other ways to get Maimaron more time to operate.  The OL, like every unit on the team, is young and still growing.   

Second, impressive re: Yamin.  He has to be the favorite for NESCAC DPOY, right?  I remember Kevin Ferber well.  He terrorized Williams, may have been the single fastest pass-rushing linemen I've seen in NESCAC.  He was undersized for the position, but man did he have a quick first step towards the QB.  Not looking forward as a Williams fan to dealing with Yamin in week 9.

West Coast Dad, thanks for the info.  I was mostly curious because at least on paper Williams has had SO much production from returning starters and/or frosh.  I don't doubt, however, that improvements among some guys who didn't make big impacts last year accounts for some of the Ephs' improved play.  That is an area that was a problem under Kelton -- players didn't seem to really develop their size and skills all that noticeably from year-to-year.  I think the current staff is very serious about off-season workouts and player development and as good as the frosh class is now, I have a feeling two years from now, they will be significantly improved as a group.  The sophomore class is interesting -- it is a very small group since Kelton was let go after the season and then the new staff came in much later.  I'm not sure who is responsible for those recruits, I imagine Kelton, but there are definitely a handful of strong contributors in the soph class: Apuzzi, Horihan, Anthony on defense and the three sophomore starters on the OL.  Still, by my count, as many frosh are major impact players this season than players from the soph and junior classes combined ...

[westcoastDad]

Tufts has the best streaming production and now that video which truly is well done.  Tufts did look much more physical than Williams from that ground view. 

Based on school location, new sports facilities, size and excellent academic repuation......i've often wondered why their football program wasn't up to snuff.  They seem to be on the right path now.

Willians definitely on the rise.  Young team....star at QB......great recruiting means they will be back quickly.

[maineman]

all 4 "forces" (army, navy, airforce and marines) in full military gear as part of their ceremony.... special night.

Probably Coast Guard, too!


last on the bucket list will be to attend the Gahden when the Lakers are in town.  peace

You may want to add Bruins-Canadiens?

[Mammoths Fan]

surprising.  any examples of the questionable behavior?

I don't want to name names because whatever these kids do, they're kids and don't warrant being called out by us.  But let's just say, late game, i.e., game well over, trash-talking and belittling.  outrageous excessive celebration, by starters, of late-game garbage time scores. late-game, i.e. game well over, taunting and scuffling.  and worst of all, coach trash-talking opponent players.  You know, as a parent you feel things in the stands about the way the opponent is handling it's trouncing of your boys.  It's never fun, and I'm not denying kids' right to celebrate, but there's ways to do it and ways not to do it.  so just say that Trinity was not even close to being the worst offender.  nothing that happened in the loss to Trinity gave reason for unhappiness.  other than parents screaming for more up until the last second of play.  but they're parents, so they get a pass.

Amherst scored their last TD against Hamilton with 8:28 left in the THIRD Quarter.  Is that what you wrote about as "outrageous excessive celebration, by starters, of late-game garbage time scores"?  I don't know about the other stuff because I wasn't at the game, but what you described is out of character for the Amherst team I've seen in this and in prior years.  I do know the team had a collective chip on their shoulder about the NBN prediction of a Hamilton win, so they might have been a little more emotional than usual - but I have a hard time believing it was as bad as you've written.

[amh63]

Mammoths Fan....I as an Amherst alum with my family was sitting in the stands.  The limited number of Amherst parents left a little early to help out in the Amherst's cookout area.  Most Hamilton students left early and the fans went quietly out, IMO.  I remember the Amherst players gather after the handshakes between teams and shouted among themselves...usual procedure...and went to the locker rooms afterwards.  Happy for the win...period. 
Even after a win over favored Wes team...same thing/ procedure.  In the Wes game at Halftime as the Wes team slowly left, Amherst coaches held the players back from going to the locker room....avoiding any possibility of verbal or physical contact.
In summary....no parents will be parents and boys will be boys, etc.  situations.  Agree with your expected behavior assessment.

[JEFFFAN]

Mammoths Fan....I as an Amherst alum with my family was sitting in the stands.  The limited number of Amherst parents left a little early to help out in the Amherst's cookout area.  Most Hamilton students left early and the fans went quietly out, IMO.  I remember the Amherst players gather after the handshakes between teams and shouted among themselves...usual procedure...and went to the locker rooms afterwards.  Happy for the win...period. 
Even after a win over favored Wes team...same thing/ procedure.  In the Wes game at Halftime as the Wes team slowly left, Amherst coaches held the players back from going to the locker room....avoiding any possibility of verbal or physical contact.
In summary....no parents will be parents and boys will be boys, etc.  situations.  Agree with your expected behavior assessment.

Having played sports in college (at Amherst) and with three sports playing sons, I would not suggest for a second that someone from Amherst - or Williams, or Wesleyan, or Middlebury, or every school in the NESCAC - didn't do some end of game trash talking.   Said trash talking comes out of the mouths of the best of young men and young women.   It takes almost nothing to trigger it and only takes 1-2 kids to make a negative impression.

Where there is institutional negative behavior, however that is defined, that is a different story.  NESCAC, for the most part, is an extraordinarily well-behaved group of athletes comparatively speaking.   Further up the food chain it gets the worse it gets.

All in all, I am more interested in game results and strategy and less in who said what to whom.   

[nescac1]

I await a pithy Frank Uible comment to the effect of, all you need to do to avoid hurt feelings is to win. 

[Hamiltonian]

[/quote]

Amherst scored their last TD against Hamilton with 8:28 left in the THIRD Quarter.  Is that what you wrote about as "outrageous excessive celebration, by starters, of late-game garbage time scores"?  I don't know about the other stuff because I wasn't at the game, but what you described is out of character for the Amherst team I've seen in this and in prior years.  I do know the team had a collective chip on their shoulder about the NBN prediction of a Hamilton win, so they might have been a little more emotional than usual - but I have a hard time believing it was as bad as you've written.
[/quote]


a couple of points:  1) I think you're right about the annoyance with Hamilton being favored.  I groaned when I saw that.  and that probably goosed things up a bit.  2) I certainly wasn't accusing them of running up the score.  they didn't.  3)  I was at the game and wasn't the only person on my side who felt the way I did 4) my description was not of criminal behavior but of what I regarded as unnecessary extracurricular stuff -- not a mortal sin in football by any means, and I didn't claim it was  4) my main point was to say that in three such games that I witnessed, I had the least issue with Trinity, which has been getting its head handed to it on this board for over a week.

[Hamiltonian]

by the way, when the touchdown at 8:28 in the third quarter makes the scores 36-0, that's a garbage time score. 

[westcoastDad]

36-0 is a beat down but if they scored their last points halfway thru the 3rd quarter.....that's unusual sportsmanship.  Bama beats folks 67-0 and nobody blinks an eye. 

[Hamiltonian]

Jeepers, guys.  Didn't say they ran up the score! 

[FanOfNescac]

Isn't is unlikely that outrageous predictions put forth by NothingButNESCAC.com or even by NescacMan himself are affecting the outcome of actual football games?

Amherst player: ``Hey, NothingButNescac, which is a bunch of fellow students at other colleges, says we're going to lose to Hamilton. Man. I'm going to play harder than usual to prove them wrong.''

I mean, maybe somebody shouts louder in the pregame scrum or runs down faster to cover the opening kickoff. But after that?

[Hamiltonian]

The outcome? No.  The mood?  Sure.

[Grabowski]

It was definitely more fun debating the status of kickers