FB: New Jersey Athletic Conference

[dlippiel]

Let's go Rowan!!!

[umhb2001]

Let's go Rowan!!!

Great opening drive for Rowan. Your boys came to play, but the Cru did what they do and make quick adjustments. From my POV, Rowan reminds me of UMHB several years back when we ran really well but didn't pass a whole lot. Get more balance and get stronger on D and you'll be in good shape. Marcelin is a stud. Even though he didn't have a great game, I see his talent, and y'all will be back.

[D3MAFAN]

Let's go Rowan!!!

Great opening drive for Rowan. Your boys came to play, but the Cru did what they do and make quick adjustments. From my POV, Rowan reminds me of UMHB several years back when we ran really well but didn't pass a whole lot. Get more balance and get stronger on D and you'll be in good shape. Marcelin is a stud. Even though he didn't have a great game, I see his talent, and y'all will be back.

Many teams know the formula, but may not have the talent or just like what they do on offense. I always thought to win the D3 championship, you need balance.

[umhb2001]

Let's go Rowan!!!

Great opening drive for Rowan. Your boys came to play, but the Cru did what they do and make quick adjustments. From my POV, Rowan reminds me of UMHB several years back when we ran really well but didn't pass a whole lot. Get more balance and get stronger on D and you'll be in good shape. Marcelin is a stud. Even though he didn't have a great game, I see his talent, and y'all will be back.

Many teams know the formula, but may not have the talent or just like what they do on offense. I always thought to win the D3 championship, you need balance.

Yep, and a bit of humility. Lots of posts about how we wouldn't score much on their O and that they had played teams like UMHB all season long. Not quite...

[bman]

Let's go Rowan!!!

Great opening drive for Rowan. Your boys came to play, but the Cru did what they do and make quick adjustments. From my POV, Rowan reminds me of UMHB several years back when we ran really well but didn't pass a whole lot. Get more balance and get stronger on D and you'll be in good shape. Marcelin is a stud. Even though he didn't have a great game, I see his talent, and y'all will be back.

Many teams know the formula, but may not have the talent or just like what they do on offense. I always thought to win the D3 championship, you need balance.

Yep, and a bit of humility. Lots of posts about how we wouldn't score much on their O and that they had played teams like UMHB all season long. Not quite...

Not sure where that came from...Rowan has been average to slightly above average all season.  The NJAC was nothing like it has been in the past...

[dlippiel]

Dlip knows the Profs have been anything but consistent this season. They got embarrassed today and Dlip knew it was gonna happen.

[Kelly Boggs]

Congrats to Rowan on a sucessful season.

[Pat Coleman]

The NJAC will need to be thinking about taking Wesley's call now.

http://www.d3football.com/notables/2014/01/cortland-joins-archrival-in-empire-8

[gordonmann]

Maybe I'm recalling incorrectly, but I thought one major sticking point was the NJAC has a 100-person roster limit and Wesley has had well over 100 players in recent years.  Is that not right?

If that's correct, which side would relent first?

Wesley would have to make a significant financial concession by agreeing to the roster cap.  The NJAC would have to make a significant parity concession by giving up the roster cap, knowing a couple schools will have really big rosters and others much smaller ones. 

The NJAC has had a lot more parity from top to bottom in recent years and adding Wesley would end that. Most of the teams in this conference (and most others) will not be competitive with Wesley in the near future. While Rowan and Montclair State have beaten Wesley in the last few years, even those programs have not been consistently excellent like Wesley has.  Is it worth adding Wesley to keep an AQ if you only have a shot to win it once every couple of years?

[Knightstalker]

I do not think that Wesley will want to deal with a 100 player roster limit.  They are a national power as a pool B team, why would they want to change that?  I think that the NJAC needs to get Frostburg and Salisbury to join.  I saw on the E8 board someone mentioned CNU, but that would be a ridiculous road trip for every school in NJ.

[jknezek]

I do not think that Wesley will want to deal with a 100 player roster limit.  They are a national power as a pool B team, why would they want to change that?  I think that the NJAC needs to get Frostburg and Salisbury to join.  I saw on the E8 board someone mentioned CNU, but that would be a ridiculous road trip for every school in NJ.

Not that much worse than Southern Virginia is already going to be...

[wally_wabash]

I do not think that Wesley will want to deal with a 100 player roster limit.  They are a national power as a pool B team, why would they want to change that?  I think that the NJAC needs to get Frostburg and Salisbury to join.  I saw on the E8 board someone mentioned CNU, but that would be a ridiculous road trip for every school in NJ.

Not that much worse than Southern Virginia is already going to be...

Oh man, I think I may have derped on this.  SVU is joining the CAC, except that they will be an affiliate member of the NJAC for football in 2014 because the CAC doesn't sponsor football.  Correct?  I think I've got that straight now.  Now, I believe SVU becomes championship eligible in 2015, yes?  So even with the loss of SUNY Cortland, the NJAC will still have the required 7 teams to be Pool A eligible.  The crisis isn't as big as I thought.  Unless I'm missing something (totally possible). 

One other thing- what's the deal with the roster limit of 100?  I know the NJAC isn't the only league to have such a stipulation, but do we know why this exists?  Rowan and Kean have both recently beaten Wesley despite in spite of Wesley's roster size. 

Side note on Wesley's roster size- I counted 119 players on their 2013 roster...17 of which are listed as injured and don't have numbers.  So they've got 102 "active" players.  That's hardly overwhelming. 

[jknezek]

Southern Virginia is a stop gap measure for the NJAC. Those schools aren't going to want to make that trip. Wesley, Salisbury or F'Berg are probably all preferable schools for the conference. I'll be very interested to hear where Wesley is landing in a conference. Strange they emailed they are going to one, but not which one. I wonder what other news has to drop before they announce.

[wally_wabash]

Southern Virginia is a stop gap measure for the NJAC. Those schools aren't going to want to make that trip. Wesley, Salisbury or F'Berg are probably all preferable schools for the conference. I'll be very interested to hear where Wesley is landing in a conference. Strange they emailed they are going to one, but not which one. I wonder what other news has to drop before they announce.

Bingo.  I either think they knew that this Cortland thing was coming and have been talking (informally) with NJAC officials about going there (which of course now would more formally need to go through an invitation/vote of approval process) or the CAC is going to sponsor football, which people at Wesley would also obviously know about.  I'd lean toward for the former. 

[gordonmann]

Wesley only lists 112 players on the roster now but its preseason roster is much larger.  The team had 137 players on the first day of game action in 2012 according to the data they submitted to the federal government.  It's fair to assume they had more than that when they started training camp.  And those are the numbers that matter financially because, even if 20-30 kids leave the team, they're already on the hook for at least one semester.

I always assumed the roster limit was to bring some element of parity between schools that can attract and support more players and and those that can't or don't want to. Roster size doesn't guarantee success but there's definitely a correlation between strong or improving programs and higher roster sizes.