D3 vs. NAIA

[sjujohnnie]

I thought about going, but just streamed it at home. Had the place to myself with all the amenities & none of the heat! My wife went to Morningside & we live down in Sergeant Bluff. That stinks for Kooima! I hope they can still bring home the title for the GPAC & northwest Iowa! Out of curiosity, how do you think Morningside & Northwestern over the last few years would match up to St John's with Erdmann, Bartch, & company? I'm guessing Bethel will be St John's toughest competition going forward with St Thomas no longer in the MIAC.

[hazzben]

They'd be fascinating games to watch. Morningside was better a few years back in 2018. I don't know that this years team is their best, which is kinda nuts because this team is crazy good, especially up front. IMO, they were 1 CB short of winning a third National Title.

I think NWC has better WR talent than SJU did in 2019, just ask Morningside, who held the AA to 0 catches (by doubling him the entire game), and had another WR torch them for 300 yds  . And I'd take Erdmann over Kooima at QB. But I'd take the Solsma/Niles combo over any of them, hence why I think Morningside from 2018 is probably my pick for who would win.

The Morningside v. UWW series from a few years ago was very telling. They had two incredibly close battles, when both programs were top 1/2 in NAIA/D3. So that said, I think seeing Morningside vs SJU would have been great to see, but probably favors Morningside. Them vs. NCC would be the matchup I'd really have wanted to see. If you could have paired 2018 Solsma (5,391 yds passing, 72 TD's, 14,033 career passing yds) vs. 2019 Rutter (4,591 yds passing, 56 TD's, 14,265 career passing yds)... that'd be some insane QB play and two very complete Championship teams.

Bottom line, Erdmann, Kooima, Solsma, and Rutter are all ridiculous talents.

[sjujohnnie]

NAIA #3 Morningside is up 55-7 on the road against Hastings with 0:59 remaining in the first half. Is Morningside that good or is their competition that bad? Does the coach just run up the score against opponents? In the first four games of the 2021 season Morningside has not scored less than 56 points. I really wish there wasn't an NAIA!

[hazzben]

NAIA #3 Morningside is up 55-7 on the road against Hastings with 0:59 remaining in the first half. Is Morningside that good or is their competition that bad? Does the coach just run up the score against opponents? In the first four games of the 2021 season Morningside has not scored less than 56 points. I really wish there wasn't an NAIA!

I was at the Morningside vs NWC Semi-final game this Spring (weird thing to write about fb). Morningside is really, really good. They are very much a UWW/Mount/UMHB type program at the NAIA level. NWC is really the only competition they have each season before the second round of the playoffs.

There's a fair amount of talent along the I-29 corridor. With UNO not having football any longer, and all the D2 teams in S. Dakota being sub-elite, they get some very good recruits.

[02 Warhawk]

Yeah, Morningside is usually a top 5 program in the NAIA. Back in '15 and '16 UWW had home/home series against them, the Warhawks beat them both times. The big story line for the 2015 game was that both teams were ranked #1 in their respected divisions (D3 and NAIA).

The Hawks earned the bragging rights for D3 that year. 

[sjujohnnie]

I was at the game in Sioux City that year. Wasn't that Whitewater's first season without Leipold? Morningside's head coach, Steve Ryan, is a Wheaton alum. Seems as if there's not much discrepancy between the top of Division III & the NAIA. Will always wonder, as a St John's alum & massive fan, how they would look against each other & the rest of the top Division III teams like Whitewater, Mount Union, UMHB, & North Central as of late & how their conference opponents would fair. Guess it'll always be a what-if. Are they recruiting the same caliber talent? Same caliber student academically?

[Ron Boerger]

I was at the game in Sioux City that year. Wasn't that Whitewater's first season without Leipold? Morningside's head coach, Steve Ryan, is a Wheaton alum. Seems as if there's not much discrepancy between the top of Division III & the NAIA. Will always wonder, as a St John's alum & massive fan, how they would look against each other & the rest of the top Division III teams like Whitewater, Mount Union, UMHB, & North Central as of late & how their conference opponents would fair. Guess it'll always be a what-if. Are they recruiting the same caliber talent? Same caliber student academically?

NAIA can offer athletic scholarships - for football, up to 24 FTE which are split among recipients (D2, by comparison, allows 36 FTE).  The NAIA rules for athletic scholarships say you must meet two of three criteria:  NAIA has three requirements of which a prospective student-athlete must meet at least two of.  (1) at least an 18 on the ACT or an 860 on the SAT (2) a 2.0 GPA on a 4.0 GPA scale (3) graduate in the top half of your high school class.  Homeschool student require a 20/950 (source).  Morningside also offers a $5K yearly "talent scholarship" to participants in a wide variety of athletics of which athletics is one, and an additional $1K/year discount if you make an official visit.  As those are both available to the general student body they probably don't count against the athletic scholarship totals.

My guess is that athletic scholarship recipients at NAIA schools don't have to meet the same standards as other prospective students, just like many scholarship athletes elsewhere, but set me straight if anyone knows that not to be the case.  Morningside's general admissions profile is similar to at least some of the schools you mention.

[02 Warhawk]

I would think the talent pool would be similar to D3. Most of the NAIA school are located around the middle of the country.

Yeah those two years were the first two without Leipold. UWW didn't make it to the Stagg Bowl either years, so technically Whitewater wasn't even the best D3 had to offer then.

I heard awhile back that after the top 10-15 ranked teams in the NAIA, there's a big drop off in talent. I think their top teams will matchup great to our top teams. But after that I think D3 has the edge.

[hazzben]

I would think the talent pool would be similar to D3. Most of the NAIA school are located around the middle of the country.

Yeah those two years were the first two without Leipold. UWW didn't make it to the Stagg Bowl either years, so technically Whitewater wasn't even the best D3 had to offer then.

I heard awhile back that after the top 10-15 ranked teams in the NAIA, there's a big drop off in talent. I think their top teams will matchup great to our top teams. But after that I think D3 has the edge.

To be fair, Morningside didn't win the title either of those years either.

I think NAIA goes deeper than just top 10-15. Top 25 are probably similar. The creativity of aid packages at most top D3 schools would be competitive with an NAIA package. In the GPAC, multiple schools have considered a move to D3, and each came away with the conclusion it would be more expensive to run their athletics Dept as a D3 school.

One major difference is that D3 is over 3 times the size of NAIA, so the bottom of D3 is worse than the bottom of the NAIA, IMO.

One place of clear D3 superiority, our national website. Pat and crew are light years ahead of VSN.

[02 Warhawk]

Depends who you ask. When Morningside played UWW those two years I created an account on the NAIA boards to see their thoughts on the games. I cited that each year D3 typically has a winning record against  NAIA  schools. They came back with "beyond the top teams the rest of the NAIA is pretty bad. That's why D3 wins most of the time."  Not saying I agree with that, but that's the view of fans who follow that division. I don't follow the NAIA as close as they do, so I can't say for sure if they're wrong or right.

[Baldini]

Depends who you ask. When Morningside played UWW those two years I created an account on the NAIA boards to see their thoughts on the games. I cited that each year D3 typically has a winning record against  NAIA  schools. They came back with "beyond the top teams the rest of the NAIA is pretty bad. That's why D3 wins most of the time."  Not saying I agree with that, but that's the view of fans who follow that division. I don't follow the NAIA as close as they do, so I can't say for sure if they're wrong or right.

I don't really agree with that comment, D3 and NAIA are very similar in that they have top, middle and bottom tiers. At all 3 levels when playing a similar tier the games will be evenly matched. We do not have much to go off of in 20/21 COVID year, but this is the 2019 season.

Vs. NAIA  (11-6)

St. Thomas 69  Trinity International 3
St. Scholastica 42  Mayville St. 35  OT
Hendrix 28  Lyon 20
Lawrence Tech 34  Wisconsin Lutheran 14
St. Scholastica 41  Presentation 13
Anderson 27  Cincinnati Christian 23
Austin 27  Southwestern Assemblies 26
Buena Vista 27  Concordia (Neb.) 24
Valley City State 67  Minnesota-Morris 7
UW-Whitewater 28  St. Xavier 20
UW-Platteville 41  Thomas More 10
Dickinson St. 23  UW-La Crosse 17
Waldorf 27  UW-River Falls 24
Dakota St. 38  UW-Stevens Point 21
Brevard 40  Allen 9
Emory and Henry 49  Bluefield 21
Olivet Nazarene 69  Greenville 8

When a top D3 plays a bottom feeder NAIA we have St. Thomas against Trinity International, when a top NAIA plays a lower end D3 you get Valley City State over Minnesota-Morris. The mid level games should be the telling games to support how similar the two products are. Dickinson State, Waldorf and Dakota State all played UW system teams and came away with wins in evenly matched games.   

[hazzben]

Depends who you ask. When Morningside played UWW those two years I created an account on the NAIA boards to see their thoughts on the games. I cited that each year D3 typically has a winning record against  NAIA  schools. They came back with "beyond the top teams the rest of the NAIA is pretty bad. That's why D3 wins most of the time."  Not saying I agree with that, but that's the view of fans who follow that division. I don't follow the NAIA as close as they do, so I can't say for sure if they're wrong or right.

I think they'd argue Top 25 is their sense of Top Teams, not just Top 10-15. I interact on their board and with people who are pretty heavy NAIA followers (and even coaches), and I think that would be more along the lines of their take. I think they'd also argue, like we would, that there are tiers. The team ranked #20 in D3 isn't likely a great game against a Top 3-5 team, and same for NAIA.

The trick is we rarely get clean data points ... like #1 ranked UWW vs Morningside, for a comparison. Or a Top 15-25 D3 versus a Top 15-25 NAIA.

[sjujohnnie]

Morningside is up 77-7 over cross-town rival Briar Cliff with 11:28 remaining in the 4th quarter. St John's got their 3rd consecutive shutout of the season today with a 56-0 win over St Olaf. They had backups in early & kept the ball on the ground for most of the second half so they wouldn't run up the score further than it already was. Can the same be said about Morningside? I would love to know what their opponents think about the program & hear some insights into it!

[02 Warhawk]

Based on their message boards, they aren't well liked.

[sjujohnnie]

Morningside had a 12-7 halftime lead over Dordt. Dordt was up 28-19 at one point in the 2nd half & had a 28-26 lead with 1:18 remaining in the 4th quarter when they chose to go for it. Didn't convert & with 0:43 left Morningside punched it in the endzone & converted the 2-point attempt. Morningside held on to win 34-28.