FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[FredWilliamson]

Westerfield was the DL Coach. Coach Hammer served as his own DC and unfortunately the defense was the worst statistically that it has been in years. Westerfield is probably happy not to be in Hammer's system. Additionally recruits attend Bowdoin because of the education, not the football.

At Wabash, Coach Hammer's system had the defense in the top 5 in a number of statistical categories regularly and had the best stats in all of college football in a couple of categories one year.  At Allegheny, by his third year, their defense was in the top 10 of several of the defense stats.  Ask the current D3 National Champion - North Central how they liked Coach Hammer's defense in 2011.
The NESCAC rules make a quick turn around difficult with limits on recruiting and no spring practice unlike Allegheny where Coach could bring in 70 recruits a year and had spring practice to work on skills and teaching his system.    Bowdoin is a great school and Coach Hammer is a top notch recruiter.  As the right players are added and become comfortable with the defensive system, you will see quite a difference.
[/quote
Respectfully Wabash and Allegheny are definitely not NESCAC caliber schools in terms of the type of players being recruited. That being said hopefully Hammer can do what no other Coach has been able to do in the last forty years. In terms of financial aid when you are talking Amherst, Williams, Middlebury and Bowdoin cost is a wash because all can and do meet full need.

[nescac1]

I have no inside knowledge, but I think it's fair to assume that Bowdoin has made an institutional decision (through I imagine admissions decisions, but perhaps in other ways as well) not to prioritize sports that require the most recruiting / admissions concessions. 

Look at how Bowdoin is faring right now in the following men's team sports: football (last), soccer (tenth), ice hockey (average), lacrosse (ninth), basketball (10th), baseball (10th).  In the aggregate, that's pretty bad across the board.  And Bowdoin has had some very good programs in some of those sports over the years.  I don't think football can be looked at in isolation.  At the same time Bowdoin has been trending down, some other NESCAC schools that weren't traditionally powers in men's team sports have been trending up over the past decade, especially Wesleyan and Tufts.  Again, I don't think these sort of things happen in a vacuum, in terms of institutional focus / priorities.   

Williams dominated many high-profile NESCAC men's team sports in the 1990s and early 2000s, but while still very strong, has since fallen back more towards the middle of the pack (with the suddenly ascendant lacrosse team being an outlier in the other direction).  Amherst is another example ... the former LJs were incredibly strong across the board in men's team sports from around 2011 through 2018, just consistently killing it in football, soccer, lacrosse, hockey, baseball, basketball ... but it seems like those team sports are, in the aggregate, now trending back down to the middle of the pack at Amherst (although a few teams are still extremely strong).  I don't think any of these things are coincidences, and sometimes (albeit not always, see Williams football five years ago) a narrow focus on one or two coaches really paints an incomplete picture. 

[quicksilver]

I have no inside knowledge, but I think it's fair to assume that Bowdoin has made an institutional decision (through I imagine admissions decisions, but perhaps in other ways as well) not to prioritize sports that require the most recruiting / admissions concessions. 

Look at how Bowdoin is faring right now in the following men's team sports: football (last), soccer (tenth), ice hockey (average), lacrosse (ninth), basketball (10th), baseball (10th).  In the aggregate, that's pretty bad across the board.  And Bowdoin has had some very good programs in some of those sports over the years.  I don't think football can be looked at in isolation.  . . . 

As a long-time Bowdoin fan, I totally agree. Even hockey, long Bowdoin's crown jewel in men's sports, has suffered, finishing out of play-off contention for the past couple of years .  .The hockey program is a bit improved this year due to strong recruiting for the FY class (we'll see whether that was a one-time aberration) but the other men's programs continue to struggle and have gotten much worse since Clayton Rose assumed the presidency . .

[lumbercat]

Some speculation on my part but I do spend some time in the Brunswick area and have had friends in and around Bowdoin athletics for a number of years. I've always been a close observer of Polar Bear Athletics. Don't kill me on this one but I think the majority of the Bowdoin community is somewhat immersed in their very commendable ascension to the top 4 or 5 on the Forbes rankings. The rarified air which their admission and administration folks are breathing at this high level is intoxicating to the point where sports has slid a bit from their focus.

It's hard to be the best simultaneously in academics and athletics, only the true elite can do it. Our NESCAC Ivy League knock offs, Amherst and Williams, are a prime example of schools that can perennially achieve that precipice as the NESCAC equivalents of Harvard and Yale.

I think the emphasis on academics in Brunswick has been costly to their Athletic program but at the end of the day aren't academics the NESCAC priority in all venues in the league?

My answer is yes but I believe those disappointed in Polar Bear sports are justified in their hope for some adjustment in the balance between academics and athletics.

[FredWilliamson]

Well said lumbercat. I am trying to figure out what Bowdoin's plan for football actually is. If I remember correctly Caputi was let go after winning two straight games and a 2-2 record after four games. This was the last time Bowdoin fielded a competitive football team. It seems like they are holding their football coaches to a much higher level then they are willing to support. Whether anyone wants to admit it, football and for that matter any helmeted male sport has to be supported differently in order to be successful. If the institution does not change in its support of those programs, then simply changing the Coach does nothing. Again, look at the historical evidence and you will see that Bowdoin's football program has a 30-40 year run of futility. True change will have to come from the top down and without it not matter who coaches the program it is destined to be a continual non contending loser.

[lumbercat]

I agree Fred.
An earlier post cited Coach Hammer as a fantastic recruiter. This may well be so but I know a rigid administration and a tough admissions staff with an anti Football bias will make an ordinary recruiter out of any Coach.

[Trin9-0]

Trinity announced their captains for the upcoming season:
Jimmy Chritiano, DL - Two time All NESCAC 1st team selection
Matt McCarthy, DB - A 2nd team All NESCAC selection last season
Jon Girard, WR - All NESCAC 1st team in '17 and 2nd team last season
Brian Casagrande, LB - 1st team All NESCAC selection last season as a sophomore

Interesting that three of the captains play defense and one will only be a junior. Congratulations to all four!

[firstdown]

I agree Fred.
An earlier post cited Coach Hammer as a fantastic recruiter. This may well be so but I know a rigid administration and a tough admissions staff with an anti Football bias will make an ordinary recruiter out of any Coach.

Lumbercat - Coach Hammer has always been an effective recruiter for a number of reasons. Among these is because Wabash cross trained coaches to work closely with the admissions staff.  Compared to peer institutions in the Midwest, Wabash's admission standards are more rigorous (though not necessarily as high as those at Bowdoin).  Coaches learned pretty quickly what those standards are and to focus their attention on recruits who will meet them and not waste time on those that might not.  They also learned  to get an early read on recruits on the borderline.  Wabash is one of two D3 football colleges, with Hampton Sydney being the other, that are all male.  Most football recruits are not interested in entering a monastery, so coaches recruiting for Wabash have to make clear early on that they won't be monks (because coaches for rival schools will be saying the opposite.)   
Coaches from Wabash learned to recruit from a much wider pool of candidates.  During his tenures at Wabash and Allegheny, Coach Hammer reached out to recruits from both the Midwest and the high school football programs across the Sunbelt.  Coach Hammer has a strong network with high school coaches and will continue to use that network to find top notch players that meet the admission requirements for Bowdoin.  Given the timing of recruiting by NESCAC institutions, the upcoming freshman class for this Fall will be his first recruiting class at Bowdoin.  However, given his background at Wabash, no doubt one of his first stops upon arriving at Bowdoin was to meet with the admissions office to learn their criteria and to establish a process for some preliminary reads on gray area candidates.

[gridiron]

I concur with some of the earlier posts indicating financial aid packages can and do in fact vary in some cases significantly from one nescac school to another. Often it will make the difference in the recruiting game for those in need.

[lumbercat]

I agree Fred.
An earlier post cited Coach Hammer as a fantastic recruiter. This may well be so but I know a rigid administration and a tough admissions staff with an anti Football bias will make an ordinary recruiter out of any Coach.

Lumbercat - Coach Hammer has always been an effective recruiter for a number of reasons. Among these is because Wabash cross trained coaches to work closely with the admissions staff.  Compared to peer institutions in the Midwest, Wabash's admission standards are more rigorous (though not necessarily as high as those at Bowdoin).  Coaches learned pretty quickly what those standards are and to focus their attention on recruits who will meet them and not waste time on those that might not.  They also learned  to get an early read on recruits on the borderline.  Wabash is one of two D3 football colleges, with Hampton Sydney being the other, that are all male.  Most football recruits are not interested in entering a monastery, so coaches recruiting for Wabash have to make clear early on that they won't be monks (because coaches for rival schools will be saying the opposite.)   
Coaches from Wabash learned to recruit from a much wider pool of candidates.  During his tenures at Wabash and Allegheny, Coach Hammer reached out to recruits from both the Midwest and the high school football programs across the Sunbelt.  Coach Hammer has a strong network with high school coaches and will continue to use that network to find top notch players that meet the admission requirements for Bowdoin.  Given the timing of recruiting by NESCAC institutions, the upcoming freshman class for this Fall will be his first recruiting class at Bowdoin.  However, given his background at Wabash, no doubt one of his first stops upon arriving at Bowdoin was to meet with the admissions office to learn their criteria and to establish a process for some preliminary reads on gray area candidates.

Hammers predecessors Caputi and Wells struggled quite a bit with admissions which is not unusual in the NESCAC but the feeling among both coaching regimes was that it was excessive at Bowdoin.

Maybe the Hammer has the Midas touch and will deftly navigate the system to the benefit of the Back and White!
Lets eat some Boiled Owl!

[quicksilver]

it's a safe bet that much of the blame for the collapse of Bowdoin sports (especially men's sports) can be laid on the doorstep of President Clayton Rose and his hand-picked admissions director (Whitney Soule). He became president in October of 2015 and she became the admissions director a few months later. You can see a consistent and steady decline in the quality of Bowdoin athletics during their respective tenures . . .  Football has always been a special case at Bowdoin but even there the drop-off under Wells was dramatic  . .

[FredWilliamson]

Firstdown...
I'm glad you are such a fervent fan of Coach Hammer and hopefully he is the Messiah you tout him to be. In terms of his past institutions it is probably better to look at his tenure at Whittier rather than Wabash or Allegheny. Wabash is, has and will always be a great football program. Why? History...you have to go back to 1990 to find a losing season. Allegheny won a d3 National Championship in 1990 and has 23 winning seasons out of the last 30. Hammer's time at these traditionally strong programs were successful, but any decent Coach would probably fair well there as well. At Whittier however as head coach of a program that has struggled for the last 30 years he had zero winning seasons and a wsub .300 winning percentage. I'm just saying that regardless of the abilities of the head coach, without institutional support a consistent winning program is impossible, even for the great BJ Hammer. Time will tell, but unfortunately for Hammer and the Bears history would say keep your resume hot.

[lumbercat]

I agree Fred.
An earlier post cited Coach Hammer as a fantastic recruiter. This may well be so but I know a rigid administration and a tough admissions staff with an anti Football bias will make an ordinary recruiter out of any Coach.

Lumbercat - Coach Hammer has always been an effective recruiter for a number of reasons. Among these is because Wabash cross trained coaches to work closely with the admissions staff.  Compared to peer institutions in the Midwest, Wabash's admission standards are more rigorous (though not necessarily as high as those at Bowdoin).  Coaches learned pretty quickly what those standards are and to focus their attention on recruits who will meet them and not waste time on those that might not.  They also learned  to get an early read on recruits on the borderline.  Wabash is one of two D3 football colleges, with Hampton Sydney being the other, that are all male.  Most football recruits are not interested in entering a monastery, so coaches recruiting for Wabash have to make clear early on that they won't be monks (because coaches for rival schools will be saying the opposite.)   
Coaches from Wabash learned to recruit from a much wider pool of candidates.  During his tenures at Wabash and Allegheny, Coach Hammer reached out to recruits from both the Midwest and the high school football programs across the Sunbelt.  Coach Hammer has a strong network with high school coaches and will continue to use that network to find top notch players that meet the admission requirements for Bowdoin.  Given the timing of recruiting by NESCAC institutions, the upcoming freshman class for this Fall will be his first recruiting class at Bowdoin.  However, given his background at Wabash, no doubt one of his first stops upon arriving at Bowdoin was to meet with the admissions office to learn their criteria and to establish a process for some preliminary reads on gray area candidates.

First Down-

The admission rate at Wabash is 62% and Allegheney is 67%. What kind of pre-reads did Hammer have to do to get guys in? Almost anybody gets in.
Not saying the Hammer won't succeed but the admission rate at Bowdoin is something like 15%. Respectfully you are way off.

I'm not trying to sound like a NESCAC elitist and I'm not a Bowdoin guy but you've got to brush up on the NESCAC. This is a new, different ball game for the Hammer.

[MRMIKESMITH]

I agree Fred.
An earlier post cited Coach Hammer as a fantastic recruiter. This may well be so but I know a rigid administration and a tough admissions staff with an anti Football bias will make an ordinary recruiter out of any Coach.

Lumbercat - Coach Hammer has always been an effective recruiter for a number of reasons. Among these is because Wabash cross trained coaches to work closely with the admissions staff.  Compared to peer institutions in the Midwest, Wabash's admission standards are more rigorous (though not necessarily as high as those at Bowdoin).  Coaches learned pretty quickly what those standards are and to focus their attention on recruits who will meet them and not waste time on those that might not.  They also learned  to get an early read on recruits on the borderline.  Wabash is one of two D3 football colleges, with Hampton Sydney being the other, that are all male.  Most football recruits are not interested in entering a monastery, so coaches recruiting for Wabash have to make clear early on that they won't be monks (because coaches for rival schools will be saying the opposite.)   
Coaches from Wabash learned to recruit from a much wider pool of candidates.  During his tenures at Wabash and Allegheny, Coach Hammer reached out to recruits from both the Midwest and the high school football programs across the Sunbelt.  Coach Hammer has a strong network with high school coaches and will continue to use that network to find top notch players that meet the admission requirements for Bowdoin.  Given the timing of recruiting by NESCAC institutions, the upcoming freshman class for this Fall will be his first recruiting class at Bowdoin.  However, given his background at Wabash, no doubt one of his first stops upon arriving at Bowdoin was to meet with the admissions office to learn their criteria and to establish a process for some preliminary reads on gray area candidates.

First Down-

The admission rate at Wabash is 62% and Allegheney is 67%. What kind of pre-reads did Hammer have to do to get guys in? Almost anybody gets in.
Not saying the Hammer won't succeed but the admission rate at Bowdoin is something like 15%. Respectfully you are way off.

I'm not trying to sound like a NESCAC elitist and I'm not a Bowdoin guy but you've got to brush up on the NESCAC. This is a new, different ball game for the Hammer.

I know you are not trying to sound like an elitist, but you are. I think the point was that being at an institution like Wabash help prepare Coach Hammer on how to search out recruits and narrow them down quickly and get a feel on if a player deserves the attention, not entirely if they meet certain requirements, all coaches ask what the potential student grades are and SAT score. Wabash is an all boy school, trust me, it's tough to get a young man to go to a DIII school, but then tell them, hey there aren't any young ladies on campus either. Again, my thoughts is that compared to what Wabash was recruiting against in its area, it had an additional barrier in comparison.

[lumbercat]

I get the gender issue but how is it elitest to point out the difference in the acceptance rates?
I didn't say Hammer won't do a good job but given the landscape it's a different ballgame. I think it's easier to get recruits into Wabash or Allegheney than it is at Bowdoin.