FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[Trin9-0]

Fan5: I completely agree. It's ridicuous that every year we have to hope that the two best teams get to play each other. We almost had this nightmare last year. If Colby had won 1 more game there would have been two undefeated teams who would have had to share a league title.

It's bad enough NESCAC football teams aren't allowed to play anyone out of conference... but they don't even play everyone in their own conference!

If they don't want to add an extra game, why not kick Hamilton out of NESCAC football?

They already don't compete in the NESCAC in several league sanctioned sports including, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's lacrosse, rowing and field hockey. What would be the loss if they didn't play football?

THEY'VE WON 9 GAMES THE PAST 9 YEARS!


This should be a secondary option to simply adding a 9th game. However, if the league administration doesn't want to add another game to the schedule they could remove Hamilton, realign the schedule and keep their precious 8 game season.

Just an idea.

[speedy]

. . .
If they don't want to add an extra game, why not kick Hamilton out of NESCAC football?

They already don't compete in the NESCAC in several league sanctioned sports including, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's lacrosse, rowing and field hockey. What would be the loss if they didn't play football?

THEY'VE WON 9 GAMES THE PAST 9 YEARS!

I have often wondered why Hamilton is allowed to pick and choose NESCAC sports. It seem to me that it should be all sports or no sports the way it is for the other 10 schools. And anyway, Hamilton is in New York state!!

[Bullfrog]

I often wnder why not kick Trinity out, they haven't lost a game and don't play by the same rules as all other NESCAC schools?   It would only make sense, since realistic they aren't going to lose a game. 

How pumped up can you get knowing that on your worst day you can beat most NESCAC schools!   Wouldn't it be great to see the NESCAC bully play other teams, betcha they wouldn't be undefeated!

[Trin9-0]

I often wnder why not kick Trinity out, they haven't lost a game and don't play by the same rules as all other NESCAC schools? It would only make sense, since realistic they aren't going to lose a game.

Bullfrog: What exactly are these rules the Trinity football program isn't following? Why does Trinity's dominance always have to be explained by some mysterious cheating conspiracy? It seems to me that they have recruited more talented players who have worked hard for its achievements. Why punish a team for its success?

I'll guarantee you the players and coaches at Williams, Amherst and Colby would much rather play Trinity and compete for a chance to knock-off the Bantams, than to beat-up on Hamilton (again).

How pumped up can you get knowing that on your worst day you can beat most NESCAC schools! Wouldn't it be great to see the NESCAC bully play other teams, betcha they wouldn't be undefeated!

I know first hand how pumped up you can get to beat each and every NESCAC school and be rewarded for a years worth of hardwork and dedication. It would be great to see a NESCAC champ play teams out of conference, but Trinity can only beat the teams it plays... and they have, for 30 straight games.

[Bullfrog]

First of all, if I was in the same boat as Trinity I wouldn't be complaining.  It's not a knock on their program.  However, what other NESCC school CONSISTENTLY takes kids with 800/900 on their boards or gets kids accepted when they have barely gotten bye at their respective high schools or colleges.  No other NESCAC team is even in the same ball park as the Bants.

Please don't give me th BS that doesn't happen! 

Again, I can honsetly say if I could get away with that I would, but after awhile you want to get some better challenges, if you like competition.  That is the problem with this league in football they don't want to get to that next level and Trinity will not get to that next level in this league. 

As far as other teams wanting to play the Bants don't kid yourself.  Many of these coaches complain and whine just like all of us. 

The one thing I definately agree Trinity is 30-0 and will probably be 38-0 after this season, unless new coaching staff screws it up.  Talent on this team does not compare to that first big year under Priore.  Trinty can start their second team and still have a shot at going 38-0. 

Gee I get pumped!

[tmerton]

It is strange to me the way the NESCAC seems to play football by different rules than the other sports.  The schools go all out in other team sports such as hockey and lacrosse - nonconference games, DIII playoffs and the whole bit - and they don't seem shy about success in those sports (e.g., Middlebury's championships in hockey and lacrosse).  I know some of the schools constantly battle pressure about the tips given, especially in football.  Is this the price they elected to pay for continuing with football - i.e., keep the tips but keep football low profile?  Reading comments in places like the ephblog one can see the level of concern, even hostility, in some quarters about this issue.

[Trin9-0]

Bullfrog: Unless you work in the Trinity College admissions department, are a member of the Trinity football staff or happen to be a high school guidence counselor for numerous current and former Trinity football players there is no way you could possibly substantiate your claims that Trinity...

CONSISTENTLY takes kids with 800/900 on their boards or gets kids accepted when they have barely gotten bye at their respective high schools or colleges.

I still have some very close ties to the coaching staff at Trinity and can assure you that there have been VERY few, if ANY students accepted to Trinity who had less than 1000 on the boards, and anyone who was close would have had numerous extenuating circumstances (ie high class rank, gpa, extra-curricular activities etc.)

NUMEROUS times we've addressed the issue  that the majority of NESCAC schools have higher admissions standards than Trinity. However, there are no conferences anywhere, at any level that all have identical standards. Even the Ivy league has its "safety schools".

The Trinity football program does an outstanding job of working WITH its admissions department and WITHIN the NCAA and NESCAC rules to recruit players who are academically qualified to attend one of the best liberal arts schools in the nation.

Again, I can honsetly say if I could get away with that I would, but after awhile you want to get some better challenges, if you like competition. That is the problem with this league in football they don't want to get to that next level and Trinity will not get to that next level in this league.

The league has made the decision to disallow non-conference play and post season participation in football. Therefore, the only marker for success is to win all of your scheduled games. You can't assume the players and coaches at Trinity don't like competition and wouldn't love a chance to prove themselves against teams outside of the NESCAC because doing so would be against league policy.

As far as other teams wanting to play the Bants don't kid yourself. Many of these coaches complain and whine just like all of us.

The one thing I definately agree Trinity is 30-0 and will probably be 38-0 after this season, unless new coaching staff screws it up. Talent on this team does not compare to that first big year under Priore. Trinty can start their second team and still have a shot at going 38-0.

Gee I get pumped!

Let them whine, but any true competitor would rather play a great team and have a chance at beating them than play an awful team and win because the other team was terrible.

Trinity's teams are very talented, but your assumption that the Bantams second string players would dominate the NESCAC is a knock on every starting player at every other school in the league. Based on your logic the all conference teams should be the first 2 columns of the Trinity football depth chart.

I find that hard to believe, and insulting to the players at other schools who work very hard.

I'm curious, have you ever played competetive athletics?

[Bullfrog]

This is my last post as you appear to believe that people are morons and oblivious as to what is happening over in Bant country.  (You are only lying to yourself)   

Furthermore,  I have never questioned coaches work ethics or meant to insult players.  Most coaches including myself (hint)would love to get to  WORK with Admissions and have a pool of candidates that no one else has in thre league.  That doesn't constitute work or make you this great recruiter.  Now Chuck was smart enough to expand horizons and get national players with the same academic guidlline that has always been in place.

Please folow oyur own advice on any true comp,,

PS I played FB and it was at a higher level than this league!

[formerbant10]

Well I didn't play football but I like to think I know a thing or two about the game.  The way I like look at the whole academics argument...which has been on this thread pretty much all the time....is that the games are not won in the classroom.  Sure talent has something to do with it, but I don't see anybody posting on how the kids at their school get outworked by the Trinity players off the field. 

These guys are the most dedicated bunch of athletes at the school and they deserve the credit they get.  It's obvious that people will continue to hate on the Bants till they are finally defeated.  But the Trinity supporters should also know that everyone is trying to knock the Bants off in anyway they can.  If they can't do it on the field, they'll question the integrity of the program or the legitimacy of the recruits....whatever comes to mind.

But when its all said and done, I doubt that 50 years from now anyone will be questioning what the SAT scores of the starting O Line in the year 2002 was. 

But Frog, if attempting to demean Trinity's football club makes you feel better about yourself, by all means continue.

[speedy]

It is strange to me the way the NESCAC seems to play football by different rules than the other sports.  The schools go all out in other team sports such as hockey and lacrosse - nonconference games, DIII playoffs and the whole bit - and they don't seem shy about success in those sports (e.g., Middlebury's championships in hockey and lacrosse).  . .

NESCAC teams were banned from playing in the NCAA post-season play-offs in hockey for years. (The same ban may have applied to other team sports but I am only familiar with hockey.) I believe that it was not until the mid-1990s that the NESCAC hockey teams were first allowed to participate in the NCAA play-offs. Even then they had to choose between the ECACs or the NCAAs (this was before there were organized NESCAC play-offs). There was actually one year when Williams had a superb hockey team and skipped the ECACs (because they had to choose one or the other and the ECAC bid had to be accepted before the NCAA bids were known), thinking it was a lock for an NCAA bid. It ended up with no NCAA bid and no post-season play.

I think that the initial approval of participation in NCAA post-season play was meant to be provisional but became permanent very quickly.  Middlebury started reeling off national championships in hockey and lacrosse right away and all kinds of NESCAC teams started getting into post-season play in a wide range of sports. And then these post-season opportunities started generating tons of community support and fan interest (like hockey at Middlebury and women's basketball at Bowdoin). I doubt that anyone would have imagined that women's basketball would become all the rage in Brunswick. And much of the success of the program is due to the post-season opportunities.

Football is always going to be a different kettle of fish because the football NCAAs run for 5 weeks and do not finish until the third week in December.  And since most NESCAC schools (except for Trinity) see little or no chance of their being selected for post-season play, there really isn't any group of institutions that could carry such a proposal through the NESCAC process. Whereas with the autobid and at-large bids for hockey, soccer, basketball, field hockey, and lacrosse, there's broad interest in post-season opportunities for those sports.

I suppose there might also be a concern that the NESCAC schools would become more serious about football if there were post-season opportunities just as they have become more serious about hockey and women's basketball. And then the NESCAC would be back to trying to police football recuruiting, which seems to be the most challenging of the sports because of the sheer numbers involved.

[tmerton]

Thanks, speedy - I wasn't aware of the history with lax, hockey, etc in the NESCAC.  Even with the ban on post season play, I still don't quite understand why they limit football to 8 games.  The one thing it does do, I suppose, is let the kids have a full summer free.  Since they don't start playing until after the middle of September I imagine practice doesn't start until late August. 

[mariner75]

You are correct.  NESCAC football games start the third Saturday in September so formal practices cannot start not more than 30 days prior to that...

[bant551]

I had about a high B, low B+ average in high school, combined with an 1180 on my SATs.  Coach Farley from Williams called me up after I told him "thanks for all of your help and time, but I chose Trinity", and he told me "You are making the biggest mistake of your life".  Screw him, he called my mother and she told him "My son told me he'd feel more comfortable at Trinity the next four years" to which he responded "I hope four years is worth the rest of his life".  Condescending crap, and its completely irrational.  Trinity is still an elite school, and kids go to State schools and end up being doctors, lawyers and politicians.  What a bunch of elitist, gutless pukes.  The type of person who whines and cries all the time instead of getting results is going to be a cubicle jockey the rest of their lives, no matter what school they went to.

My experience: I went through one 5-3 year, and two very tought 4-4 seasons, before our 7-1 season in 2002.  It was ALL coaching and philosophy.  Priore went great lengths to "weed out" all the kids who didn't truly want to treat it as if it were a D-I program, albeit, in no way breaking rules in the process... just a matter of entire dedication year-round to success over the course of 8 games.  The kids who remained on those 4-4 teams and the 7-1 team know exactly how legit and clean Priore's program was.  The only difference is that Trinity naturally can get kids into its school that Williams cannot, because it is not "as elite" as the other NESCAC schools.  However, the advantages go both ways, as those higher-ranked schools usually get the 'tweeners, who are choosing between Trinity and Williams (hence the hole comments about "making biggest mistake of your life"; a gutless puke comment from an elitist who coach I thanked profusely for having me visit, but told him no thank you).  The posters from Trinity here who graduated in my year and in previous years know exactly what I'm talking about.  It took alot of effort and determination to remain on, especially since his approach was so intense.  Kids quit left and right, and the ones who remained stayed because they could take it.

Those were some gritty seasons, and it takes years for a philosophy like Chuck's to kick in.  It is very copmlicated system, particularly in terms of the offensive line's blocking schemes, and the running backs must learn it as well.  Everything is intricate... he makes the running backs know the blocking schemes like the linemen do, and employs a system that I can best compare to the Denver Broncos zone blocking scheme.  This takes a long, long time, and the 7-1 record was largely a result of mixing veterans with experience in the system with young talented players... but still only players who weren't abnormally athletic for the NESCAC.  The ONLY reason Chuck didn't belong in the NESCAC is that he recruited nation-wide (something all the schools could do if they put in the ridiculous amount of time it takes), and he had a vastly superior offensive system compared to the high school offenses employed at other schools.  Look at the players on the roster as a whole, and honestly tell me Trinity has, on the whole, vastly superior athletes.  Not the case.

The offensive line scheme is AMAZING.  I remember how skeptical I was when I got there.  The foot movement didn't make ANY sense AT ALL (taking steps backwards on running plays, pulling without turning your body at all, reading defenses and being expected to know what the RB behind you was going to do, etc.).  I had NO CLUE about how to work within the system until my third year, when I started (I'm not the elite athlete you are referring to, a 5'11" offensive guard).  But I knew the system by then, and that was my strong suit.  I played next to a far superior athlete, size-wise, who was only a sophmore.  But since I knew the system cold, he didn't have to know EVERYTHING about it.  I told him what to do, and he did an outstanding job.  And guess what happened the next year?  He was doing the same for the new starter at guard.  He was a monster by his senior year.  HOWEVER, he was a kid who wouldn't have gotten ANY playing time at Williams.  Just a gritty, big, hardworking kid who bought into the system.

I knew almost all of the kids who starred on the subsequent 8-0 teams in 2003 and 2004.  They weren't supermen, but they were good athletes who bought into Priore's system BIGTIME.  I can't really blame you, because there is no way for you to understand the culture Priore created in and around the football program, INCLUDING an emphasis on getting in players' faces when they aren't getting the job done in the classroom.  Ask some of the older Trinity posters on this site that stuck through it, only to go 4-4 for two seasons while the system took its root and the positive attitude spread throughout the team.  That took dedication, knowing that they were playing out their careers on a team that would eventually rule the league (we knew how good Priore was, and how good the team was going to be, even when we were in the process of losing all 9 or so games he lost in his career!).

There is nothing but sour grapes at play here, and Trinity is the perfect targets for elitist, gutless pukes who wants to blame extreme success on academic standards rather than a winning culture and elite offensive scheme put in place by Priore and the assistant coaches who coached under him.  I can tell you that Priore made it so difficult to play there at first that only truly dedicated players remained.  He also held the practice squad kids in high regard, telling them to give the starters a hard time.

Jealousy and envy, period.  When I was riding the pine for a 5-3 team that got creamed by a Williams team that had a quarterback who had an NFL tryout (Keenan), I didn't sit there and cry about how Williams gets kids like Keenan because they are a better school.  I sat there infuriated and hoped that one day we would be able to beat them, and advantages notwithstanding.

Grow up.  I hope you don't take that loser mentality with you in your professional career.  Step one is not to look for other people to blame.  Be a man and go out there and win.  Unless, of course, you have substantive statistics and/or facts that are indicative of rules being broken at Trinity under Priore.  Got facts?

[bant551]

EXAMPLE:

I mistated the facts above.  I started only my senior year, not my junior year (just a typo).

Although I followed the offseason conditioning program to a "T" the previous 2 summers under Priore, I went nuts before my senior year, because I knew younger kids were there that Priore wanted to get PT over me (Priore is one honest mother-f'er, he told me I was a very bad athlete and needed to be perfect to start).

Priore and the staff taught us PERFECT power-lifting techniques, and really dug into us when we used bad form.  And the program was amazing.  Our program called for windsprints as a "warmup" to our heavy squat days, including "frog-jumps" for 40 yards, etc.  I spent a ****load of time practicing the very unique (and highly unconventional) offensive line footwork Priore employed (and that Priore promised the team that one day would make us dominant).

I had a job that kept me at work from 3 pm- 9 pm.  It was perfect.  All I did was lift and practice footwork.

Oh, by the way, as a basis of comparison... I saw a starting offensive lineman at Williams at the local gym where I did my powerlifting.  The dude would come into the gym, shoot the sh*t with me for 20 minutes in between my power cleans or squats, then go ride a bike for 20 minutes and peace out.

Don't tell me we are superior athletes that only got in because of lower academic standards.  Trinity kids worked their butts off, and people such as myself, whose penciled-in starting positions were very tenuous (which Priore would point blank tell us at the end of the year meetings "Youre F*ed if you don't have a great summer), didn't treat it as if it were a league slightly better than high school football.

You can't blame kids for treating it like a job, and completely buying into a program.  I am a Jets fan and absolutely abhor the Patriots... but that team mentality takes their decent talent to heights unprecedented in the history of the NFL.

Grow up, you are making opinions based on pure speculation.  The kids I played with (who were part of those 8-0 teams) wouldn't necessarily have started at Williams or Amherst.  They were just good kids and good athletes who played in the system. 

What is most abhorrent about your gutless puke comments is that you base them on speculation when in reality the success is a result is purely based upon a great coaching philosophy combined with the work ethic that Americans used to be proud of.

[Ephs1991]

Bant551,

Great posts!  You hit it exactly right.  If teams, Williams included, don't want to work as hard as Trinity then they should just shut the hell up.  People are jealous of others' success and typically will do everything in their power, rather than working hard and being selfless, to try and bring successful people, teams, companies, etc. down.  A good majority of the Williams student body and practically all of the faculty were apparently "embarassed" when we started having some success in the late 80's and early 90's since in their minds you can't have football and academic success.  I love proving them wrong.