FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[ITH radio]

Matt's ranking wasn't too deep as far as looking at rosters, etc. so I get the MIDD comments (I feel the same FWIW).

Regardless it's great to see NESCAC FB coming back - actually texted with Coach Hammer earlier and he (like all the coaches I'm sure) can't wait for the season to start.

[The Mole]

Wesleyan to have 93 players in camp. League still only allowing 76 to dress for game day. Expectations are that the season and attendance will be full go without restrictions. Reporting date is 8/24, a few days earlier than normal as more opportunities allowed due to pandemic. High expectations in Middletown, but staff has mentioned Williams, Trinity, Middlebury all to be very good while Amherst is always tough and will bounce back and to not sleep on Tufts, Colby and Hamilton as they have all improved. Said league is as good as ever and the championship will certainly be a gauntlet. Physically impressive recruiting class for 21. 70 days until game day....

[lumbercat]

Ive heard the NESCAC will not deviate this year from the requisite 76 man game day roster but in view of the Pandemic disruption I believe they will revise their usual policies on numbers of players above 76 participating in practices and team activities though I have not confirmed at this point.

Around the NESCAC-
Colby looking more and more like Trinity. They are making clear declarative statements in Waterville that they are totally committed to winning in all their programs. Colby prexy openly endorses this initiative with a statement that they are actively luring D1 athletes to Waterville.

They are totally befuddled in the sleepy admissions department at Bates and Bowdoin HC Hammer just keeps making offers to Ohio and Penn kids hoping he can compete.

More than one D3 coach has indicated directly to me that the Mules are bottom fishing. Their only NESCAC competitor on a number of football recruits is Trinity. Cosgrove may well replace Bobby Boy Ritter as the Houdini of the NESCAC. If one more D3 guy tells me "I don't believe that kid got into Colby" I'll lose it.

How far behind are US News and world report rankings on this.......maybe a strongly vigorous approach to athletics is a plus in the ratings?

Coby Pres means business in sports- Football, basketball, Hockey, lacrosse. Other NESCAC passive presidents gotta run for cover in athletics and bang the academic drum.

[SpringSt7]

I don't mean this as a dig at Trinity, but what other programs are they winning in? If Colby is committed to winning in all their programs, Trinity would not be the model for that outside of football

[amh63]

SpringSt7...take a look at men's Squash at Trinity.  Trinity has been doing quite well historically speaking .  Presently too...against all the big boys in the Ivies,etc.

[quicksilver]

I don't mean this as a dig at Trinity, but what other programs are they winning in? If Colby is committed to winning in all their programs, Trinity would not be the model for that outside of football

Trinity has the strongest men's hockey program in the NESCAC . .

[lumbercat]

Bates Head Coach Malik Hall being let go.

[Hawk196]

What happened? I don't see anything on the web

[amh63]

Wow!  Bates' first game is with Amherst....it could be "ugly"....the last full season played did not end well for Amherst.  Amherst may want to prove it is back in the "hunt" for the title. 

[SpringSt7]

I don't mean this as a dig at Trinity, but what other programs are they winning in? If Colby is committed to winning in all their programs, Trinity would not be the model for that outside of football

Trinity has the strongest men's hockey program in the NESCAC . .

Not saying they don't have strong athletics, moreso indicating that the original comment seems to be a synonym for saying "we are lowering the bar on admissions to improve our sports teams".

[nescac1]

It will interesting to see how far Colby can rise with a combination of elite facilities, strong coaching hires, institutional embrace of athletic excellence, and more admissions concessions than most of its peers (especially relative to Colby's skyrocketing overall admissions standards over the past decade), including more D1 transfers.  I think Colby can comfortably get to at least the middle of the pack in basically every NESCAC sport.  But Colby is still geographically remote and out of the way (relative to its peers) for many of the recruits that other NESCAC schools are pursuing, and one of three schools in Maine, when Maine does not have a big pool of elite high school athletes in most sports.  Even more of an issue is that fact that, in nearly EVERY sport NESCAC competes in, at least one and in many cases several other NESCAC schools are a national power, in some cases, THE D3 national power.  So leaping over those particular schools is ENORMOUSLY difficult. 

For example, can Colby really be expected to top Williams, Amherst, Middlebury, Bowdoin and Wesleyan in men's and women's tennis when those schools are all competing for the national title, year in and year out?  Tufts is THE national power in men's soccer, followed by Amherst, which is not far behind.  Williams is THE power in women's soccer.  Bates in women's crew.
Amherst, Tufts and Bowdoin own women's hoops regionally and in most years nationally.  Trinity as discussed dominates squash.  Midd dominates field hockey.  Lacrosse: Tufts, Wesleyan, and Williams are national powers and Amherst used to be.  Men's hoops, Williams, Amherst and Midd have a massive tradition of excellence, and Tufts is a rising power, clearly.  Swimming and diving, women's golf, and track and field, Williams is nationally elite.  And on and on and on.  Even if Colby gets a LOT better in a LOT of sports, it's going to be very hard to match up with a consistent top-three program nationally, which nearly every varsity sport at NESCAC has at one school or another. 

The biggest exceptions are baseball (it's been awhile since any NESCAC team was a contender) and men's ice hockey (NESCAC seems to have slipped quite a bit from the days when Middlebury owned men's ice hockey, nationally).  If Colby wanted to go all-in on ice hockey, bringing in tons of Canadians (there, the geography is an asset!), it could I think build a dominant program pretty quickly.  Everywhere else, there is a ceiling that is going to be VERY hard to bust through.  Same with football -- even if Colby is clearly putting a TON into its football program, Williams and Amherst just built top of the line new facilities and each compete with lower Ivies for players in ways other NESCACs generally cannot.  Tufts and Wesleyan are clearly all-in on having really strong football teams.  Middlebury has a formula that works really well,  And Trinity is always gonna be top dog in terms of the talent it can attract, for a variety of reasons.  So that will be really tough, as well. 

I kind of see the future for Colby sports as becoming clearly the beast of the CBB in most sports, other than a few that Bates and Bowdoin really focus on and have a history of excellent in, like Bates crew or Bowdoin women's hoops.  Probably ahead of Hamilton, Conn, maybe Wesleyan (which has also really improved its athletic program across the board) in most sports as well.  But it's going to be MUCH harder to compete on even ground (let alone be stronger) across the board with Williams/Amherst/Midd/Tufts and in certain sports Trinity, given that those schools don't seem to be abandoning ship on athletics anytime soon, have a ton of resources that have been and likely will be in the future invested in athletics, and are going to be geographically more appealing to many recruits from certain regions (especially NYC, NJ, CT and upstate NY).  Is Colby going to start winning recruiting battles in most sports against Williams, Amherst, Tufts?  I'm skeptical.  And there is only so low you can go academically, given NESCAC constraints on TIPS and bands and everything else ...

[lumbercat]

Agree, you can go so low in terms of admissions standards but it gets a heck of a lot easier when a recruit can't get into competing NESCAC schools- at that point it can be like shooting fish in a barrel.

[The Mole]

Good discussion here on this topic. What happens when you "dip low" and no other NESCAC can compete--there are other competitive schools that could be compelling based on geography, compete in playoffs (for football), offer merit aid. I am thinking some of the UAA schools like Rochester, CWRU. Even Liberty teams like Union or Hobart (D1 lax helps) and some Centennial squads like Franklin & Marshall start to come into the picture. As always, comes down to recruiting. Hard to establish the tradition, but the Mules are spending the $, which is the critical first step.

Agree, you can go so low in terms of admissions standards but it gets a heck of a lot easier when a recruit can't get into competing NESCAC schools- at that point it can be like shooting fish in a barrel.

[lumbercat]

No question about that Mole but I see countless situations year after year predominantly among New England and Northeast prospects where they are pretty much fixated on the NESCAC. If a school can extend downward a bit they have a higher hit percentage on that large pool of recruits.
However, no question there are other schools in various conferences which offer some great options.
I'm not up to speed on acceptance rates but aren't Johns Hopkins and U Chicago harder to get into than most, if not all, NESCAC schools.

[The Mole]

Lumber, that is why I did not mention either of those--Chicago and Hopkins. Highly selective--ditto would for Carnegie Mellon and Wash U. Schools in the 30-50% acceptance range can make it interesting. I am in the Philly area, many kids will fixate walking on at Patriot League school to "play D1" and get swallowed up as a walk on instead of being a bigger fish in a small pond at a NESCAC or Centennial. The Ivies are viewed as a Golden Ticket that you take, but it has become so difficult--you don't ask them, they'll ask you kinda thing for athletics. That was my experience. 

No question about that Mole but I see countless situations year after year predominantly among New England and Northeast prospects where they are pretty much fixated on the NESCAC. If a school can extend downward a bit they have a higher hit percentage on that large pool of recruits.
However, no question there are other schools in various conferences which offer some great options.
I'm not up to speed on acceptance rates but aren't Johns Hopkins and U Chicago harder to get into than most, if not all, NESCAC schools.