FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[Ralph Turner]

I found this survey of 50 colleges interesting.  Williams Seniors are less knowledgeable about American civics than the Freshman counterparts.

Click this hyperlink to the Wall Street Journal's,  opinionjournal.com

[bant551]

That actually doesn't surprise me.  While I had plenty of good Poli Sci professors at Trinity and generally learned about the political/lawmaking system enough to give a good little background for law school... most of the "factual" knowledge about real politics, political history, etc., can only really be learned by reading the papers and watching the news, and reading books.

I guess that is also emphasized more in high school as well.  They tend to go further into political theory in college, and the legislative process isn't really emphasized.  I actually didn't learn much about that until after college.  But I can't really fault the professors or curriculum because (for whatever Poli Sci itself is worth), we were learning substantive material the whole time.

[Trin9-0]

Redtackle, with the relative obscurity of our league (at least in terms of national football recognition) I am curious as to whether this will be your first glimpse of live NESCAC football or if you've seen teams from our league play before.

If so, I hope you enjoy a great game but would like to know what, if any, preconcieved notions you have about NESCAC football?

If not, what are your thoughts on the level of play as compared with other D3 programs.

[Ephmen1991]

Redtackle -

I've had some luck finding dog friendly places at petswelcome.com.

[dirtybirds30-0]

PREDICTIONS OF THE WEEK:

Trinity - 17
Williams - 14

- Defense will be the winner in this battle of the titans.  Williams will be a tough competitor for a young Bantam squad but in the end the Dirty Birds come out with a hard fought 32 in a row on their way to another 8-0 season.

Amherst - 31
Bowdoin - 14

Amherst continues to roll through the league until their last two game of the year!

Weslyan - 17
Hamilton - 7

A much improved Weslyan defense takes care of Hamilton, while the offense finds a way to ut some points on the board.

Colby - 35
Middlebury - 0

The Mules are frusterated after last weeks loss to Trinity.  They hold nothing back and make a statement that they are the second best team in the league.

Tuft - 10
Bates - 13

This is my upset prediction of the week.  Bates needs to turn the program around, now is their chance to start.

5-0 in week one!

[formerbant10]

This week seems a little bit tougher to predict, but here it goes.


Tufts 21....Bates 14....can't go against family.

Colby 28....Midd 7.....good rebound game for Mules.

Wesleyan 13.....Hamilton 0.....is this game necessary?

Amherst 24....Bowdoin 10......Jeffs are pretty good.

Trinity 17....Williams 10....Bants are too good.

[Senor RedTackle]

Redtackle, with the relative obscurity of our league (at least in terms of national football recognition) I am curious as to whether this will be your first glimpse of live NESCAC football or if you've seen teams from our league play before.

If so, I hope you enjoy a great game but would like to know what, if any, preconcieved notions you have about NESCAC football?

If not, what are your thoughts on the level of play as compared with other D3 programs.

Trin....I do believe this would be my first game as a spectator in an all-NESCAC matchup. When I was playing for RPI as a freshman in 1990, we played Hamilton in a JV contest so that was about as close as I have come to your conference. I don't really have any preconceived notions other than the curiosity factor of wondering how the players deal with not having a chance to go to the NCAA playoffs. That incentive is a huge motivator for us at RPI, as I'm sure it is the majority of the schools that compete at the D3 level. I recognize that the greater purpose of your institutions is to provide an upper echelon education as the priority...I still believe that you can strive to do that while endeavoring to compete in a post season format. As a product of RPI, I am acutely aware of the rigorous demands of being a student athlete and was glad to have the opportunity to compete.

On a more tactical level, my personal jury is still out on the quality of the NESCAC versus the other conferences because I haven't seen the teams to make the educated comparison. I don't subscribe to the  tactic of arbitrarily writing off a conference because of its geographic or academic standing but I do see some trends in comparing various conferences/regions. For example, Upstate NY football is as strong as its ever been in as long as I've been following it (about 20 years). I believe that from top to bottom, the E8 and Liberty League are stronger than the NESCAC or any other league in the Northeast other than the NJ conference....but that's my opinion. I'm looking forward to calling the game to see how the talent stacks up for myself.

I will stand by my belief that the NESCAC doesn't get as many of the star natural athletes as the other conferences do because of the more rigorous admission standards. There are some bandito teams in the Upstate NY geography that I'm used to  (And I won't name names    )

Good luck to both squads and looking forward to the ambiance!!

[Pat Coleman]

Frank Uible, I'd like to meet and chat either before the game or at halftime if you're around on Saturday.

[Trin9-0]

I'll make this quick, cause I'm late getting on the road to Williamstown.

The winners are:

Colby

Tufts

Wesleyan

Amherst

Trinity 24-21

GO BANTS!

[labart96]

Good luck to TGP's hometown Hartford Bants!

This article appeared on the front page of today's LA Times Sports Section:

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-trinity30sep30,1,1999409.story?coll=la-headlines-sports&ctrack=1&cset=true

Hope everyone enjoys the game up in Williamstown today!

[bant551]

Congrats to Williams.

[RHFandyouknowit]

Congrats to Williams players and coaches

[nescac1]

Payback is sweet, even if it comes a decade later ... congrats to the Ephs on a winning margin no one could have predicted.  And congrats to Trinity on an amazing streak. 

The obvious turning point is the inexplicable decision by the Trinity coach to punt on 4th and 2 in Williams territory in fourth down, down 8 (doesn't he read the Tuesday Morning QB on espn?).  At that point, the next few plays were: shanked punt, 70 yard touchdown for Williams, Trinity gets the ball back and quickly throws an INT to a d-tackle, then Williams quickly scores on another passing touchdown.  In about two minutes, went from Trinity driving for a potential tie score to being out of contention, quite an amazing sequence of events.  But Williams, it sounds like, dominated the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball for most of the game, something which hasn't happened to Trinity in a long, long time.  Congrats to all of the Ephs, and in particular the linemen, for stepping up big time. 

Good job on broadcast, D3football.com.  Glad to hear you think the best of NESCAC (which looks to be Amherst and Williams this year) could be competitive with some of the other top 25 schools. 

[frank uible]

Could d3football.com have been disingenuously flattering to NESCAC? My estimate is that Mt. Union is very roughly 30 points better than any NESCAC college.

[frank uible]

Pat Coleman: Sorry I missed you.