FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[The Ghost of John Wesley]

Would you guys relate to yourselves as nerds or terds? Just wondering....

I believe one of the following is more appropriate: scholar, gentleman, peer, aristocrat, patrician, jarl, or voivode.

Also, I think you meant refer to yourselves. Relating to oneself is an act of deep self-reflection and can be quite therapeutic.

*tips hat, shines monocle*

[The Mole]

DEFINITELY Nerds. On occasion, we will hire terds. Send us a resume, will see if there is a spot for another to be flushed

Would you guys relate to yourselves as nerds or terds? Just wondering....

[The Mole]

Ghost, I am with you 100%. Cards have gone from the top of the bottom of NESCAC to the bottom of the top. Knocking on the door, but have to make that next step up. Played a good half (albeit a little sloppy) versus the Bantams, but could not deliver a fatal blow. Trinity made some nice run game adjustments and beat us upfront on both sides of the ball. That is the difference. Wes has to get tougher up front to make that leap. Do they have a good young nucleus to do that? I certainly believe so, but talk is cheap.

. No Purple Cow-style collapse expected in Middletown.

Because you don't have nearly as far to fall.

Huh?

This was actually a pretty good quip.

Nescacman said that Wes wouldn't have a Williams-type collapse next year (comparing Williams' 2021 9-0 season to their performance this year); the retort is that of course Wes won't have that level of collapse, as it's an impossibility--the team didn't have anywhere near the success of the undefeated Williams squad in 2021, so it doesn't even have the space to collapse (i.e. from middling to underperformance is not a collapse.

Honestly, as a Wes fan, I'm all for it. Until Wesleyan can claim an outright league title, the team and its supporters can't expect to talk trash and not get wedgied in return by teams/supporters who have actually won it all.

It's time for Wes to put up or shut up, to be frank.

[BigKat]

Congrats to the Bants on a great season...but pump the brakes Ghost on your " gap" comments on tiers. Jumbos lost by 3 after spotting them 17 on a few uncharacteristic miscues. Furthermore, Trinity held on for dear life to squeak by the Pants. Tufts just hung 65 on the Pants but also lost to the Wooly mammals so it's all relative. With the Maine teams improving, I think league parity continues to improve every year.

[bantamweight]

Would you guys relate to yourselves as nerds or terds? Just wondering....

Don't worry about how we refer to ourselves up here in the C-suite. You just keep referring to us as Boss.

[The Mole]

Here are updated records, win percentage and first and second place finishes for NESCAC play going back to 1992, when only league play began. Goes to show how difficult it is to move up a tier. You could look at this like a top half (those that have winning records versus those with overall losing records) or Top 4, Middle 3 and Bottom 3. Either way, year by year results have not changed the long-term trend that much. The down years by Amherst and Williams are a blip in the long-term data, but worth noting if it will be an extended trend.

1. TRINITY 197-48 (.804) 12 First, 9 Second. Give credit where it is due, purely dominant. Lost less games than bottom 3 have won.
2. WILLIAMS 172-71-2 (.702)  9 First, 6 Second. Will they be down for long?
3. AMHERST 167-77-1 (.682) 7 First, 3 Second. Again, sign of the times or just an anomaly?
4. MIDDLEBURY 154-91 (.628) 5 First, 4 Second. Ritter did a fine job, no reason to see they will not still contend.
5. WESLEYAN 136-109 (.555) 2 First, 2 Second. DiCenzo is 42-19 (.688) and has them on the doorstep. Need to make next step up.
6. COLBY 108-136-1 (.441) 1 First, 3 Second. Another 4-5 season with a $200mm facility, they are committed, but can they elevate?
7. TUFTS 104-140-1 (.424) 2 Second. Maybe best team at end of the year. Civetti started 0-24 but 43-26 (.623) since.
8. BOWDOIN 65-179-1 (.265) 3-6 season and beating Colby in the finale and Wesleyan earlier in year provides momentum.
9. HAMILTON 63-182 (.257) They just do not seem to care about winning. Need a lot of help.
10. BATES 56-189 (.229) 3-6 in First year for Coach Coyne is a step in the right direction.

[SpringSt7]

Nope - internet working fine, thanks for asking.   As with any team, if your team sucks there just isn't much interest - and my team sucks as does Williams!

Ditto on this front - unless anyone is interested on 1000 words each week about uninspired skill position play, trying to figure out why the OL can't block, and crooning over TJ Rothmann for the 78th time, I think we will be hiding over here until the d3hoops preseason top 25 comes out...only 4 weeks until Worcester St...

As an aside, the league title race is shaping to be potentially fascinating. Trinity vs. Wesleyan will be fascinating Week 9 and while both Amherst and Williams are miserable, they both have to navigate emotional and intense Williams and Amherst games in the weeks before that. Advantage Trinity as they get to play that game at the Coop and don't have to play all 3 in 3 straight weeks. Will be fun regardless

Recirculating my post from a few weeks back when called out for a lack of posting---nothing had changed since then on the Williams front except for the emergence of Dan Vaughn. The secondary couldn't cover anyone, the WRs couldn't get open, and it was just overall top to bottom uninspired play until the end. nescac1 is right to point out that injuries affected this team but I would push back on that ultimately being a factor for the failings of this team as they very clearly didn't have the QB play that was required to sustain itself given the fact that the defense, which was expected to be world beating once again, did not perform at a level required for Dickinson et. al to serve as game managers that ran the ball and controlled the tempo. Every game they got behind 7-10 points it felt like the game was over. That didn't change much as the season went on.

Only thing I regret from that post was thinking Wesleyan would give Trinity a run for its money in the league.

[The Ghost of John Wesley]

Congrats to the Bants on a great season...but pump the brakes Ghost on your " gap" comments on tiers. Jumbos lost by 3 after spotting them 17 on a few uncharacteristic miscues. Furthermore, Trinity held on for dear life to squeak by the Pants. Tufts just hung 65 on the Pants but also lost to the Wooly mammals so it's all relative. With the Maine teams improving, I think league parity continues to improve every year.

A team is judged not only by its wins, but by its losses. Near-wins don't really matter. They are still losses. A team is judged by their record, and a record is the sum of their entire season.

There was only one undefeated team and one league champion, and there were no one loss teams. The next best teams were a 7-2 squad and then two teams at 6-3, with both of those of 6-3 teams dropping games to teams at or near the bottom of the league (and Wes won a coin flip game in OT to Amherst). To me, that's a significant gap in quality. There was only one team who consistently won games.

Like you said, there was more parity in the league this season, meaning a clump of bottom or middling teams, and one clear "best" team.

[SpringSt7]

Was there parity this year or did Williams and Amherst just stink? Other than Bowdoin stealing one against Wesleyan, it was the same year it always was for the CBB + Hamilton except they got a few against the purple teams.

Maybe that still defines parity for some but I would caution against using this season as a barometer for the bottom half of the league catching up.

[The Mole]

That was my point by posting the historical records. Not that much has actually changed over 30 years

Was there parity this year or did Williams and Amherst just stink? Other than Bowdoin stealing one against Wesleyan, it was the same year it always was for the CBB + Hamilton except they got a few against the purple teams.

Maybe that still defines parity for some but I would caution against using this season as a barometer for the bottom half of the league catching up.

[The Ghost of John Wesley]

Was there parity this year or did Williams and Amherst just stink? Other than Bowdoin stealing one against Wesleyan, it was the same year it always was for the CBB + Hamilton except they got a few against the purple teams.

Maybe that still defines parity for some but I would caution against using this season as a barometer for the bottom half of the league catching up.

That does define parity. Take two teams that are traditionally at or near the top of the league, have them drop games to teams they historically beat, and what comes out in the wash is a lot of teams finishing the year with records just above or below .500. The league distributed heavily to a mean this season, with only one outlier on the high side (Trinity) and none on the low side (no winless or 1-8 teams). I haven't done all of the analysis, but by just eyeballing prior years, that's parity relative to a typical season.

Also, I was careful to not imply that there's been some kind of tectonic shift that will remake the league for years to come. I fully expect Williams to be a contender again within a season or two.

[The Mole]

I do not think parity is the right word. It implies "equal", and these 10 programs are certainly not equal (admissions, facilities, coaching, budgets, administrative support). Some teams may be performing as well as can be expected given the constraints  Is the league more competitively balanced? For sure, and the bottom teams have improved and there are plenty of coin flip games. An additional out of conference regular season or "plus one" bowl game would shed some light on stacking up versus other conferences. Would love to see Trinity vs Endicott or UMD or Springfield in Round One. Sorry, Charlie.

[jmcozenlaw]

Would you guys relate to yourselves as nerds or terds? Just wondering....

Don't worry about how we refer to ourselves up here in the C-suite. You just keep referring to us as Boss.

There is only one 'Boss'...............and He resides in heaven. The rest of us are just place keepers biding time until we bite the dust.

And unless those in the C-suite (where I worked, miserably, but golden handcuffed, for years, in corporate law.........P&G, PepsiCo, etc........before getting religion, working for myself and managing money for high and ultra-high net worth folks) actually ownt eh company, nobody os the "boss".

My checks never came from the clown who half assed my annual review, it came from the entity. The employees whom I managed did not work for me. I didn't pay them. I didn't own the company. They worked with me, not for me.

Get off the high horse. The C-suite blows. Most who put their backsides in those seats are pompous asses.........and they are nobody's boss.

My bosses are in heaven and so are yours, so live wisely, give plenty of your time and resources.........and drop the C-suite and boss nonsense, it impresses nobody other than the few clowns who are wrongly impressed by it.

Carry on though.

[The Ghost of John Wesley]

Would you guys relate to yourselves as nerds or terds? Just wondering....

Don't worry about how we refer to ourselves up here in the C-suite. You just keep referring to us as Boss.

There is only one 'Boss'...............and He resides in heaven. The rest of us are just place keepers biding time until we bite the dust.

And unless those in the C-suite (where I worked, miserably, but golden handcuffed, for years, in corporate law.........P&G, PepsiCo, etc........before getting religion, working for myself and managing money for high and ultra-high net worth folks) actually ownt eh company, nobody os the "boss".

My checks never came from the clown who half assed my annual review, it came from the entity. The employees whom I managed did not work for me. I didn't pay them. I didn't own the company. They worked with me, not for me.

Get off the high horse. The C-suite blows. Most who put their backsides in those seats are pompous asses.........and they are nobody's boss.

My bosses are in heaven and so are yours, so live wisely, give plenty of your time and resources.........and drop the C-suite and boss nonsense, it impresses nobody other than the few clowns who are wrongly impressed by it.

Carry on though.

You must be a ton of fun at parties.

[lumbercat]

Would you guys relate to yourselves as nerds or terds? Just wondering....

Don't worry about how we refer to ourselves up here in the C-suite. You just keep referring to us as Boss.

There is only one 'Boss'...............and He resides in heaven. The rest of us are just place keepers biding time until we bite the dust.

And unless those in the C-suite (where I worked, miserably, but golden handcuffed, for years, in corporate law.........P&G, PepsiCo, etc........before getting religion, working for myself and managing money for high and ultra-high net worth folks) actually ownt eh company, nobody os the "boss".

My checks never came from the clown who half assed my annual review, it came from the entity. The employees whom I managed did not work for me. I didn't pay them. I didn't own the company. They worked with me, not for me.

Get off the high horse. The C-suite blows. Most who put their backsides in those seats are pompous asses.........and they are nobody's boss.

My bosses are in heaven and so are yours, so live wisely, give plenty of your time and resources.........and drop the C-suite and boss nonsense, it impresses nobody other than the few clowns who are wrongly impressed by it.

Carry on though.

Wisdom from the counselor- smartest guy in the room.