FB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[DuffMan]

That game was everything I expected of it.  Incredible.  Aurora is good.  I thought Zimbleman started the game a little slowly, but man, he really showed why he's an AA.  He made some ridiculous completions under intense pressure.

Syverson impressed me.
I hope Ravi's injury is minor.
The defensive backfield needs major work (this is likely the best QB they'll face).
O-line played well.
Trost continues to impress, and Vouk looked impressive, too.
We've got a kicker!!!
Kudos to Novak for calling the TO right before Aurora snapped the ball on 4th and goal.  Zimbleman would have scored.
Receivers need to clean up some of the dropped passes, but SJU showed some good depth there.
Having a 6'7" TE is almost unfair.

Go Johnnies!

[sju56321]

Didn't Witworth have a TE around that size who was an AA a few years ago?

[OzJohnnie]

Great game.  Too tense.  But the Johnnies looked pretty good for the first game with a lot of easy improvement available through eliminating simple mistakes.  It was only secondary that seemed lacking.  I think the secondary will look much better against most other competition but (knock on wood) if the Johnnies make the post-season then they will be tested again.  Work to be done there.

The offense looked great.  Syverson has skills.  Was really nervous about the post-Erdmann world.  And Larson (the TE) is unfair, as duffman says.


Around the MIAC, the Johnnies played in the least of the shootouts, surprisingly.  GAC beat Buena Vista 80 - 56.  Did they have 11 playing on defense in that game?

[OzJohnnie]

Oh, and heartache for CON.  I just looked up what happened there because I saw they had come back from being down 19-0 at the half to lead 32-25 with eight minutes to go in the fourth.  Unfortunately they let Valley City tie game with only :51 seconds to go off a short field and then CON tossed an interception on the next drive with only :21 seconds to go.  Valley City had a single 8 yard run that saw yards tacked on for a personal foul by CON and Valley City kicked a FG with :00 on the clock to win the game.

And a home game for Concordia.  That's a kick in the guts, there.

[MadRedFan]

That game was everything I expected of it.  Incredible.  Aurora is good.  I thought Zimbleman started the game a little slowly, but man, he really showed why he's an AA.  He made some ridiculous completions under intense pressure.

Syverson impressed me.
I hope Ravi's injury is minor.
The defensive backfield needs major work (this is likely the best QB they'll face).
O-line played well.
Trost continues to impress, and Vouk looked impressive, too.
We've got a kicker!!!
Kudos to Novak for calling the TO right before Aurora snapped the ball on 4th and goal.  Zimbleman would have scored.
Receivers need to clean up some of the dropped passes, but SJU showed some good depth there.
Having a 6'7" TE is almost unfair.

Go Johnnies!

Good stuff, we hit most of these in our breakdown in our group of experts at Clemens  .

Syverson ends up with less than 50% completion percentage, but assume there were at least 4 drops (think there were more), and his % is better than Zimbleman (who's a beast, and pulled the Fran Tarkenton escape several times today).

Won't call out the one Johnnie DB specifically, but he didn't see the field again after getting whooped for the 3rd or 4th time in the 2nd quarter.  I know there's another side to this and guys are coached this way, but lots of DB's don't seem to turn to look for the ball and don't give themselves a chance to break up a pass.  But this guy was also getting smoked by the AU receivers and was always in catch up mode. For quite a while, Johnnie D backfield seemed to have no one protecting the middle, lining up outside to match the AU 5 wide outs.  Crossing routes were killing them, always playing catch up.   Later, they put a safety in the middle and were able to shut that stuff down.

We've always thought Blake Patrick is underutilized and his not catching a pass today testifies, and he looked open several times. Get him involved!

No pass receptions by RB's. Another thing to work on to diversify the O.

God bless the new kicker!

But all in all a good day at the office vs. a very good ranked team.

Oh, and the sound system will need some work, the ref's mic was crappy, and the men's chorus was messed up with echoing or delay from the sound system or something. Will chalk it up to working out the bugs.

[sjusection105]

- Have a freshman kicker.  Looks good.  (Yeah... ok)

Ha ha ha!

Frosh Kicker (Conor Pavelko) is from Sioux Falls (O'Gorman), and I've seen him play. Solid on FGs and has the ability to consistently drive the ball to the goal line on kickoffs. Several times he put it through the back of the end zone.

He had a D1 offer to play at South Dakota State, and is very committed to his craft.

+K on Conor Pavelko debut. The coaching staff should have let him try a couple FG in the 1st half when inside the 20 and going for it on 4th down and coming up empty.

[sjusection105]

Attention Pat, Frank et al D3 Poll Voters: Aurora deserves to stay in the Top 25 and perhaps move up, they are a quality squad.

[sju56321]

Next week the Aurora v NCC game will be an interesting marker-albeit early in the season-how good is NCC and can Aurora stay with them. Would be nice if they could so the SJU win would look even better.

[corn horn]

Oh, and heartache for CON.  I just looked up what happened there because I saw they had come back from being down 19-0 at the half to lead 32-25 with eight minutes to go in the fourth.  Unfortunately they let Valley City tie game with only :51 seconds to go off a short field and then CON tossed an interception on the next drive with only :21 seconds to go.  Valley City had a single 8 yard run that saw yards tacked on for a personal foul by CON and Valley City kicked a FG with :00 on the clock to win the game.

And a home game for Concordia.  That's a kick in the guts, there.

Yeah, it felt like all too many Concordia / St. John's games over the years. It was really a needless push out of bounds of a VC receiver that resulted in them even being in field goal range at the end.
The big takeaway to build on is the tale of two halves. VC played a season last year and had one game under the belt this season (with 20 starters returning), and it showed in the opening half. Cobbs took over in the second half. The other positive is while they were forced out of the clock control game, they did muster about 400 yards through the air, so maybe not as one-dimensional as recent history would lead us to expect.

[hazzben]

Is it just me or does Concordia and Horan have an unusual amount of weird and heartbreaking losses over the years? I can think of several against BU and SJU alone.

[corn horn]

Is it just me or does Concordia and Horan have an unusual amount of weird and heartbreaking losses over the years? I can think of several against BU and SJU alone.

SJU has had the most headflippers with Concordia by far! I felt for Aurora yesterday, because that ending was so reminiscent of a few Johnnie victories clutched from the hands of defeat versus the Cobbers over the years. The only Bethel trainwreck I recall was the lost interception and TD due to CON players going on the field (penalty) to watch the end of the pick-six run, only to have Bethel score for the victory in the following closing seconds. Were there others versus Bethel I am not remembering?

[OzJohnnie]

The Top 25 is out. (https://d3football.prestosports.com/top25/2021/week1)

The Johnnies remain at #6.
BU drops to #17 (Wartburg moved ahead of them).

Aurora moves up two spots to #21, a fitting position.  I think they will finish in the teens.

No other MIAC team received votes.

Notables from around District 9.  Sorry, region 6.

MHB at #1
UWW at #3
HSU at #7
UWO at #11
Linfield at #12 (yes, the newly reformed and rebalanced region structure has put 50% of the top 12 into 1/6th of the field)
Chapman at #18
Whitworth at #24


As an aside, I don't know how they will structure a post season with six regions instead of something factorable by four, but assuming they still want to balance the playoffs with travel and intra-region play for the first round or two, region 6 is now obviously going to be a slaughter house before getting to the other regions.  Something really looks broken.

[OzJohnnie]

They've basically set up the system were region 6 is the SEC and whichever two survive have a very good shot, region 5 is the ACC and there's one out of there and region 2 is the Big 10 and MUC is Ohio State.  Once in a while a Pac 12 or Big 12 team shows something but they get squashed utterly.


Has anyone seen the vision for how they plan to seed the playoffs?

[sjusection105]

The Top 25 is out. (https://d3football.prestosports.com/top25/2021/week1)

The Johnnies remain at #6.
BU drops to #17 (Wartburg moved ahead of them).

Aurora moves up two spots to #21, a fitting position.  I think they will finish in the teens.

No other MIAC team received votes.

Notables from around District 9.  Sorry, region 6.

MHB at #1
UWW at #3
HSU at #7
UWO at #11
Linfield at #12 (yes, the newly reformed and rebalanced region structure has put 50% of the top 12 into 1/6th of the field)
Chapman at #18
Whitworth at #24


As an aside, I don't know how they will structure a post season with six regions instead of something factorable by four, but assuming they still want to balance the playoffs with travel and intra-region play for the first round or two, region 6 is now obviously going to be a slaughter house before getting to the other regions.  Something really looks broken.

Aurora's next game is against North Central 

[Pat Coleman]

Attention Pat, Frank et al D3 Poll Voters: Aurora deserves to stay in the Top 25 and perhaps move up, they are a quality squad.

Our voters are pretty good on that.

(I had had them 16 on my preseason ballot.)