FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[VoodooDoc]

Lumbercat

The Doc only sermonizes when the spirit calls.  Football is about having fun.  You can't have more fun than attending a LSU game in Tiger stadium on a Saturday night, or a Bama game in Bryant-Denny stadium on a Saturday. 

I did note that your favorite quarterback coach was down here in the swamp lands as a part of The Mannings' quarterback camp staff.  With John Grueden returning to the Raiders, the Mannings'  camp is now one of the top rated camps for quarterbacks.

Since the VoodooDoc is also a root doctor from time to time, I can always make him a gris-gris for good fortune.  Eye of newt is in short supply these days, but there a plenty of frog toes around.  In the swamp, there are plenty of crayfish, or mudbugs as they are called in the swamp land from which to add a claw to the mix.  For you New Englanders, mudbugs  are closely related to l;obsters, but are three or four inches long.  When you boil them, they sure are good eatin.

[amh63]

VoodooDoc...so you are a big SEC fan/watcher.  My older brother is also a big SEC fan.  He lives in Huntsville Alabama.  Got two degrees from Harvard...and a PhD from Alabama.  His two sons graduated from Auburn and married 'Bama ladies. Talk about conflicts! Enjoyed your post...though I do not fully understand it.

[Nescacman]

I will boldly take the over and predict that Bates will score at least two points in those four games combined.  I will also take the under as Bates will hold those teams to less than 50 per.

So NESCAC1, we're giving you 200?

[Nescacman]

"Gentlemen"...Nescac posters should not take bets here.  It is not "proper",imho.  Just let the games play....and roll the dice!

That sounds pretty "elitist" amh....just sayin'....

[Nescacman]

I'm sure Nescacman has far more knowledge of who is and who is not coming back, but my rough sense of the league this year is something like this:

Williams, Trinity, Wesleyan and Middlebury -- absolutely loaded with veteran talent, including very experienced and talented returning QBs, the top tier of contenders; there will be some real wars among these four teams (yes, Trinity was well behind these three in 2019, but there is just too much talent on hand for the Bants to stay down). 

Tufts, Colby, Amherst -- the middle tier of the league, but any of them could beat any of the top four on any given day, and certainly, it would not be surprising for any (especially Tufts, who should be much improved, or Amherst, who almost never has two down years in a row but has big at WR and QB) to finish in the top 3.  By including Colby here, I'm assuming that all the hype about the last two years of Cosgrove recruiting will prove to be justified. 

Hamilton -- definitely better than the bottom two but significantly behind the middle tier

Bowdoin, Bates -- most likely gonna be a long year

We'll give our pre-pre overview in the coming days but we think you are directionally correct NESCAC1....more than coincidence that 3 of the 4 top teams in the league also happen to have the least 's at the QB spot in the "league where they pay to play"...in fact, the back-up QBs at MID, Wes and TTUN would most likely start at most of the other teams in the 'CAC.

[lumbercat]

Lumbercat

The Doc only sermonizes when the spirit calls.  Football is about having fun.  You can't have more fun than attending a LSU game in Tiger stadium on a Saturday night, or a Bama game in Bryant-Denny stadium on a Saturday. 

I did note that your favorite quarterback coach was down here in the swamp lands as a part of The Mannings' quarterback camp staff.  With John Grueden returning to the Raiders, the Mannings'  camp is now one of the top rated camps for quarterbacks.

Since the VoodooDoc is also a root doctor from time to time, I can always make him a gris-gris for good fortune.  Eye of newt is in short supply these days, but there a plenty of frog toes around.  In the swamp, there are plenty of crayfish, or mudbugs as they are called in the swamp land from which to add a claw to the mix.  For you New Englanders, mudbugs  are closely related to l;obsters, but are three or four inches long.  When you boil them, they sure are good eatin.

Yeah- Football and Bible thumping doesn't seem to work.

A game at LSU has been on my bucket list for years but based on your post I may head to Bama instead. Lobsters, yes--Anything from a swamp or stagnant pond, No. Don't care what they may be related to.

How bout we find some middle ground with some southern BBQ?

Tongue in cheek here little bit Voodoo doctor- would love to see an LSU home game, and I will.

[Nescacman]

Lumbercat

The Doc only sermonizes when the spirit calls.  Football is about having fun.  You can't have more fun than attending a LSU game in Tiger stadium on a Saturday night, or a Bama game in Bryant-Denny stadium on a Saturday. 

I did note that your favorite quarterback coach was down here in the swamp lands as a part of The Mannings' quarterback camp staff.  With John Grueden returning to the Raiders, the Mannings'  camp is now one of the top rated camps for quarterbacks.

Since the VoodooDoc is also a root doctor from time to time, I can always make him a gris-gris for good fortune.  Eye of newt is in short supply these days, but there a plenty of frog toes around.  In the swamp, there are plenty of crayfish, or mudbugs as they are called in the swamp land from which to add a claw to the mix.  For you New Englanders, mudbugs  are closely related to l;obsters, but are three or four inches long.  When you boil them, they sure are good eatin.

Yeah- Football and Bible thumping doesn't seem to work.

A game at LSU has been on my bucket list for years but based on your post I may head to Bama instead. Lobsters, yes--Anything from a swamp or stagnant pond, No. Don't care what they may be related to.

How bout we find some middle ground with some southern BBQ?

Tongue in cheek here little bit Voodoo doctor- would love to see an LSU home game, and I will.

Any team that wears purple is no friend of ours...

[Trin9-0]

Any team that wears purple is no friend of ours...

There will always be one thing that Nescanman and I can agree on!

[VoodooDoc]

They say that the great religions of the South are Baptist, Methodist, and Football.  Football came to the South in the period after the Civil War and its destruction, and after suffering through Reconstruction. Life was hard, but football helped people to rebuild pride.  There is a line in the Alabama fight song about being "Dixie's football pride - Crimson Tide." This harkens back to the 1920's when Alabama was invited the Rose Bowl.  There was a long train ride from Tuscaloosa to Pasadena and  as the train wound through not only Alabama, but a number of other southern states on its way west, people lined the side of the tracks for miles to cheer and wave to the Alabama team.  In 1970, Southern Cal came to Legion Field in Birmingham to play Alabama at Coach Bryant's invitation.  USC beat Alabama pretty good because  they had very talented Black players.  After that Coach Bryant and the other SEC schools did not have opposition to recruiting Black players.  Whether a religion or not, football has been a mighty tool for social change.

Louisiana not only went through those hard times in the 19th Century, but there is also the heat, humidity, and hurricanes.  Not unlike Mardi Gras, Saturday night in Tiger Stadium at LSU, with 102,000 fans screaming "Geaux Tigers" and enjoying good food and a taste of sheep dip, is a way for people to get away from the harsher realities of life for a while.  A visit to Tiger Stadium is a good item for the "bucket list" and won't disappoint.  For that matter, spending a Saturday in the fall in Tuscaloosa, Gainesville, College Station or any of the SEC stadiums is an experience. 

Finally, mudbugs aka crayfish are boiled so most of the swamp is cooked out.  They are eaten with sheep dip, so they are safe to enjoy.  Remember what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.  Blow the whistle, I'm ready for some football.

[Nescacman]

Any team that wears purple is no friend of ours...

There will always be one thing that Nescanman and I can agree on!

Spoken like a true Wes staff member Hs7-1....maybe living/working amongst the enemy has made you wiser....#rollcards

[Trin9-0]

Any team that wears purple is no friend of ours...

There will always be one thing that Nescanman and I can agree on!

Spoken like a true Wes staff member Hs7-1....maybe living/working amongst the enemy has made you wiser....#rollcards

My dislike of all things purple began long before I started cashing paychecks from Wes. On a somewhat related note, I don't recall if this clip has been posted here before, but for those who haven't yet seen it I encourage you to check out this brief video of the NESCACs most famous football alumnus:

Pay close attention at the :50 mark for my personal favorite answer.

[BigKat]

Belicheat's opinion should reinforce rooting for either A or W

On to more serious matters, will someone ( student) pick up the Nothing But Nescac website mantle? That was a gold mine of all thing Nescac football. Other than that I'm not aware of any other pre season scouting site ( besides here of course)

Like all of you, very excited for the upcoming season. Nescacman's assessment of the league seems pretty accurate given what little we know about the rising soph class and incoming freshman ones.

[The Mole]

I had not seen this, great pull Trin! The Wes AD Whalen does a podcast with Wes alums and they ask a similar round of questions to guests at the end. I love how he just throws the vards away..

Any team that wears purple is no friend of ours...

There will always be one thing that Nescanman and I can agree on!

Spoken like a true Wes staff member Hs7-1....maybe living/working amongst the enemy has made you wiser....#rollcards

My dislike of all things purple began long before I started cashing paychecks from Wes. On a somewhat related note, I don't recall if this clip has been posted here before, but for those who haven't yet seen it I encourage you to check out this brief video of the NESCACs most famous football alumnus:

Pay close attention at the :50 mark for my personal favorite answer.

[Nescacman]

Belicheat's opinion should reinforce rooting for either A or W

On to more serious matters, will someone ( student) pick up the Nothing But Nescac website mantle? That was a gold mine of all thing Nescac football. Other than that I'm not aware of any other pre season scouting site ( besides here of course)

Like all of you, very excited for the upcoming season. Nescacman's assessment of the league seems pretty accurate given what little we know about the rising soph class and incoming freshman ones.

Thank you Kat....much appreciate the kind words....+1 for you.

Our correspondents have been scouring the web (Hudl, Twitter, Instagram et al) and following the players, coaches, teams et al since November of 2019...details to follow but as far as the Classes of 2024 and 2025 are concerned....in sum, the rich get richer and the poor got, well poorer...

MID, TTUN (Ephs for those new to the Boards), HS (Hartford State) and Wes did very well recruiting the last two years and are all good teams that actually got better filling in area's of need (MID-QB of the future/OL, TTUN-WR/DL/OL, HS-QB/RB/Secondary, Wes-OL, LBs, Secondary)....the Original Elephants have improved via recruiting and also benefit from being a full-scale University with graduate programs which enables them to perhaps keep more graduating seniors around for a 5th year...the Lord Mammoths and HCOF Mills typically recruit well, however, they are playing from behind and the resurgence of TTUN hurts their recruiting efforts (they were clearly the #1 beneficiary of the Ephs demise as a result of the failed experiment that was the HCOF Kelton era) although QB Ollie did not have a great year in 2019, his leadership will be tough to replace and it is never easy for a FY QB at any level, regardless of how talented they are....Colby/Cos recruited well (having a legit Coach, being more aggressive with admissions and building the Taj Mahal of NESCAC athletics on Mayflower Hill doesn't hurt)-they are the best bet to move into the middle tier of the league as a result....we see the Conts taking the Mules spot in the lower tier (replacing talented players like Kenny Gray and Joe Schmidt is too much to ask)...the Polars plan to suit up 200 studs from Ohio so they should be better....haha....seriously, we're from Missouri on HC Hammer...we will reserve judgement until we see some game action, but we are skeptical that anyone north of Nick Saban can win there-regardless, even if he brings in some studs, they will be young and it will take a few years for them to gel...more on HCOF Malik later but one of the reasons he is no longer running the UBates program is lack of ability to recruit...the Bobcats are coming off 0-9 and 2-7 seasons and the word is they only have 12 frosh recruits....that's just not going to work when most of the upper echelon have 25-30 studs showing up on campus in a few weeks...could be a long year in Lewiston....

No word on the Nothing but NESCAC crew....they are a bunch of talented students so one would assume they have handed the duties over to other students to carry on...although we certainly enjoy their informative write-ups, we will be returning with our weekly predictions and rankings which we believe are generally more accurate (and more fun!) than the student generated "biased" predictions.

[amh63]

I miss a lot of Nescac football news these days.....but WHAT has happen at Bates?  Their website shows only 4 coaches including an interim HC!