FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[lumbercat]

My son must have taken the SAT 7 times, he was on the cusp of getting to the next band which he eventually did

Yikes- helicopter city.

Not really.  The Ivy coaches, if they like you, will be pretty clear about what band talent they see in you and what SAT/ACT/senior class schedule you need to be in to be able to be recruited (assuming the kid isn't a band 1 talent, which are the handful of P5 guys they recruit each year).




I see can see that in the specific case with the Ivies.- I take back the helicopter barb.

Serves as specific evidence of stricter guidelines in the Ivies with less flexibility. In the NESCAC, if a recruit falls a little short they can readily extend downward and take a kid if they so choose. Not the case in the Ivies where guidelines are clearly defined.

[AmherstStudent05]

My son must have taken the SAT 7 times, he was on the cusp of getting to the next band which he eventually did

Yikes- helicopter city.

Not really.  The Ivy coaches, if they like you, will be pretty clear about what band talent they see in you and what SAT/ACT/senior class schedule you need to be in to be able to be recruited (assuming the kid isn't a band 1 talent, which are the handful of P5 guys they recruit each year).




I see can see that in the specific case with the Ivies.- I take back the helicopter barb.

Serves as specific evidence of stricter guidelines in the Ivies with less flexibility. In the NESCAC, if a recruit falls a little short they can readily extend downward and take a kid if they so choose. Not the case in the Ivies where guidelines are clearly defined.

I'm a little surprised that the NESCAC has not adopted similarly specific recruiting guidelines. Does anyone know if this has been discussed at all?

[polbear73]

The competitive imbalance, particularly in football, is obviously not good for NESCAC.  Does anyone know if this has been discussed at league meetings, be it amongst the ADs or Presidents?

[Conts Fan]

Hamilton hasn't had much success since the early 1990's, but they have beaten Wesleyan twice since 2010, and they beat Amherst as recently as 2019.

From '83 to '96, Hamilton was actually pretty good and averaged close to five wins per season. Since then, not so much...

[jmcozenlaw]

I'm sure Hammer is a very intelligent guy and was a great coach away from the NESCAC...if we were interviewing for the job at Bowdoin, our first question would be "why will things be different with me as a opposed to the last 5 coaches (going back to 1964), including the two most recent HCOFs...Wells and Caputi?"...if he didn't ask the question or do his due diligence, shame on him...if he asked the question and was deceived by the Polar administration (aka "sold a bill of goods"), that is a completely different story...

We think at least part of the issue is these coaches (Hammer, Wells, Murray, Hall et al) are all super confident people who believe they can succeed even in the face of enormous headwinds at some of these schools only to find it is much more challenging (maybe impossible) than they thought...just our opinion...

It's still early in the Hammer regime but early indications are not very positive...we've all seen this movie before, unfortunately for Polar fans...

The Admissions Staff was deeply involved in Hammer's interviewing process and discussions were held regarding guidelines for admitting football players. There  is a disconnect somewhere.

A NESCAC job is very attractive to a coach on the outside, regardless of the circumstances. I agree that Hammer falls into the supremely confident Category and believes he can accomplish succeed where others have failed.

Of note, about 5 Freshman and 2/3 of the Sophomores (Hammer's first recruiting class) saw significant time.  It can be tough for Freshman to make an immediate impact anywhere but skill positions, in part due to the benefits of 4 years of college lifting programs that can make it hard for even a skilled 18 year old lineman to compete.

One person I didn't see on the Polar Bear roster was Freshman Maximus Fisher, who was an undersized (5'11") but stud center for St. Joe's Prep out of Philadelphia.  You know you're good when you are that size and starting at OLine on a team goes 31-2 and makes the MaxPreps national top 20 (4th, 16th and 8th), wins the largest classification in your state your sophomore through senior seasons, and featured several kids that were 4 and 5 star recruits (Marvin Harrison Jr, Jeremiah Trotter Jr, Kyle McCord).  Maybe he has an injury or something keeping him out of football.  If so, that's too bad, as I thought he was a really smart recruiting choice by Hammer & co.

Don't give St. Joe Prep too much credit. They recruit the top talent in PA, NJ, DE and some kids magically move in to the are when daddy gets a "transfer". Winning a state championship against public schools who have defined borders (and who's best players are overtly recruited by these private schools) is like sleeping with your sister, Sure, it's s*#.........................but does it really count? No!!

[SpringSt7]

Williams being tested in a dog fight at Tufts, down 12-7 at half. Either the staff is calling the worst plays of all time or there is something limiting Maimaron today because he has 4 carries at half. Watson is out again and so too is LB Jarrett Wesner. The reality is that Williams has 5 really good players if you include Stola and Rothmann and they're getting just about nothing from 4 of them.

[polbear73]

Doesn't mean that St Joe's isn't a great talent pool for recruiting.

[SpringSt7]

Williams takes a 13-12 lead on a Dan Vaughn TD (insert joke about how brutal the Tufts commentators have been here). Something is clearly wrong with Maimaron as he refuses to look to run between the tackles and take hits, but Tufts is also dealing with an injured QB, as Woodson looks to be done for the day with a knee injury.

[SpringSt7]

Needless to say, I don't think Colby will beat Amherst tomorrow. I really don't even expect it to be all that close. We always seem to match up quite well with them, and that was even (early 2000s) when the overall talent level was more comparable.

This will be a good indicator to see if your grasp of NESCAC football is as good as (self) advertised!

Cue the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme song...

[AmherstStudent05]

Full credit to Colby and NESCACMAN. Colby wins a 10-7 "thriller" (really fun game although not a super well played one).

Amherst threw three interceptions including two in the end zone (including one right at the end of the game when we were driving to take the lead or tie).

Our offense was just never in synch all day. We alternated QBs but neither Peterson nor Breckenridge could ever get anything going. Peterson is too tentative and Breckinridge isn't tentative enough. I'm not sure if receivers weren't getting open or the Colby coverage confused us or if it just wasn't our day. Mark Kassis was huge for Colby, with at least three or four sacks.

Colby scored a touchdown on its very first possession of the game, which I missed entirely due to technical issues, and then only managed a field goal after that, so our defense played well but I do think we are going to get burned if we can't manage to play some tighter coverage going forward.

Again, congratulations to Colby for breaking a two-decade losing streak to Amherst and to NESCAC Man for nailing the huge upset.

Hopefully Amherst can right the ship next week against what seems to be a very formidable Tufts team.

[AmherstStudent05]

Just when I thought there might be a ray of sunshine on my otherwise dreary Saturday, Williams outlasts Tufts in overtime in a true thriller in JumboLand. Maimaron (fully healthy or not) and Stola just too much to handle down the stretch despite a valiant effort from the Jumbos. Needless to say, Tufts will be hungry for their first win of the season next week, and my Lord Mammoths are really going to have to step things up in order to keep Tufts at bay.

[nescac1]

Early candidate for GOTY in NESCAC.  Just a tremendous back-and-forth battle between Tufts and Williams and it was really a dead-even game with about 20 momentum swings.  Both teams had their share of adversity, with Tufts' starting QB suffering what looked like a pretty tough knee injury late in the first half and Williams missing a few key starters plus Maimaron clearly had some sort of issue with his wheels today. 

Heroes for Williams: obviously, frosh kicker Ivan Shuran who was perfect on the day, hitting a clutch 44 yarder off the crossbar and the money game-tying FG, not too shabby for his second college game, on the road.  Joel Nicholas was just a beast getting tough yardage through the middle all day despite fairly limited running room.  He wore Tufts down over the course of the game, earning every yard, and of course ended the game with yet another tough carry up the middle.   He also had some really stellar pass-blocking moments as well.  On defense, LBs Rothmann and Colston Smith and DE Ian Devine tormented Tufts all day, making seemingly every big play on defense between the three of them.  Devine did suffer a late injury, hope he is OK.  Frank Stola made some HUGE catches in the second half after a very quiet start to the game.   And finally, Bobby Maimaron, who was as tough and fearless as always, doing it with his arm today especially late in the game, even though he clearly didn't have his usual range of acceleration and agility to work with.

The question marks for Williams were losing too many guys in pass coverage (some guys were wide open today) and some ongoing struggles with the offensive line, which did, much like against Middlebury, wear Tufts down over the course of the game, but it was tough sledding at times for the first 3/4 of the game.

Tufts had some heroic play of its own.  Both QBs looked very talented and Woodson was tremendous, just sucks for him to get hurt when he'd been playing really well.  Crowley was out of synch with his receivers early but then hit a huge third down deep pass and got into rhythm after that, he's going to be very good.  TB Tyler Johnson was REALLY good for Tufts, tremendous speed and he runs tough despite being small, Ephs could not contain him much of the game.  WR Philip Lutz had some big plays too.  And their front seven on D was really good, making the Ephs earn every yard, very few running lanes, until very late in the game when they wore down a bit, finally, from just hard run after hard run.  Won't show on the stat sheet but Maimaron had to keep a lot of plays alive with his legs just to manage a throw-away.  Just a great game between two very good teams.  Scary to see the hurt Trinity laid on Tufts because Tufts can play.   

Williams, Trinity and Wesleyan are still the three teams to beat, but Trinity, to me, looks like the top of the heap with a passing attack that is flat-out scary.  The Ephs are a different team when Maimaron is running like he did vs. Midd but also you just can't rely on that too much, he won't be able to hold up with that kind of pounding.  He needs to be asked to do a bit less ...

[xPolarDadx]

Williams, Trinity and Wesleyan are still the three teams to beat, but Trinity, to me, looks like the top of the heap with a passing attack that is flat-out scary.  The Ephs are a different team when Maimaron is running like he did vs. Midd but also you just can't rely on that too much, he won't be able to hold up with that kind of pounding.  He needs to be asked to do a bit less ...

Trinity did show some signs of weakness against Bowdoin this weekend, despite having size at literally every position.  WR Reid was unreal for the Bantams, but the QB and Trinity offense seemed to fall apart when the QB got flushed or the running game got forced to the perimeter.  It very easily could have been 10-7 at the half (Bowdoin threw a pick in the end zone on 1st and goal).

Not sure if Hammer reads these boards, or just wanted to see if he could handle it, but Sophomore QB Boels came in on the last drive of the game and ran the ball 3 times in a row.

[polbear73]

It was hard for me to tell if it was an exposed Trinity weakness or that Bowdoin showed some tangible improvement.  Trinity was obviously bigger, stronger, faster an could answer Bowdoin quickly and easily, but there were  several occasions when Bowdoin showed toughness.

[bantamweight]

Trinity did show some signs of weakness against Bowdoin this weekend, despite having size at literally every position.  WR Reid was unreal for the Bantams, but the QB and Trinity offense seemed to fall apart when the QB got flushed or the running game got forced to the perimeter.  It very easily could have been 10-7 at the half (Bowdoin threw a pick in the end zone on 1st and goal).

Trinity was inconsistent and was likely looking past Bowdoin. In spite of that, the outcome was never really in doubt.