FB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[AO]

I never yell criticisms nor would I single out a player in a negative manner. This is small college football, for all you know that player you just blasted could have a family member sitting next to you!

The parents likely have thinner skins than the players.  I always enjoyed playing against a hostile crowd.  If you're insulting your own teams players, you should move to the "designated idiot section", but if you're mocking the opposing team's players, blast away.  Obviously you might want to avoid profanity and other indecent unrelated remarks, but feel free to make fun of ridiculous haircuts and quarterbacks that throw like Tebow, etc....

Sorry, but I have to disagree. To me, that just show poor sportsmanship - I wasn't brought up that way and will never mock and opposing team's player.

Sportsmanship depends on how funny it is.  It's fun making people opposing fans mad, but if you can both get a chuckle out of something, I don't see the harm.

[ExTartanPlayer]

Jumping back a few pages on the board, I have always said "Yell for your team, not at them!" When I went back to Minnesota for some games back in 2003 my father came with me to the Concordia game and the Bethel game. His comment afterwards was that he didn't realize I was so loud at games. When I am at a game and my team is struggling, I firmly (and delusionally) believe that they need me to cheer harder and louder to help them rally. I never yell criticisms nor would I single out a player in a negative manner. This is small college football, for all you know that player you just blasted could have a family member sitting next to you!

Excellent points and well said.  "Yell for your team, not at them" is exactly what I was trying to convey. 

I also believe in the bolded passage, although all my yelling this week could not QUITE get the Carnegie Mellon offense into the endzone one more time   But somehow I am convinced that it is MY fault for not cheering hard enough.

You also make a good point on the family members, especially at high-school and D3 games.

[hazzben]

Any idea how Wartburg is in at 6-2?

Same should be asked about St. John's.

Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me if St. Thomas is ranked 18th overall while St. John's isn't even ranked in the top 25, how is St. John's ranked in the top 10 regional rankings and not St. Thomas? I know St. John's beat St. Thomas in head to head, but that was only 1 game and it was because of a missed field goal.

It's because Tommies suck. Even the selection committee knows that.

UST and SJU must be in a near dead tie for 10th. They have the same record and have both dropped thier games to other regionally ranked teams. The HTH is the differentiating factor.  If UST beats CON then they move into the rankings, I would think.

So what's the justification for St. Thomas being ranked 18th overall and SJU not even being ranked?

The justification is that the Top 25 plays no role in the regional rankings. As in ZERO. It seems strange in the Top 10 from this standpoint as well. There the order is Linfield, Bethel then UWW, but in the RR it is reversed.

But the criteria for Regional Rankings doesn't take this into consideration. It's SOS, DIII Win percentage, Results against Regional Ranked Opponents, H2H, Regional Record, etc. In the case of unbeaten teams with primary criteria that can't be separated, the committee can look at the previous years playoffs results. That's a sampling of the criteria that go into this.

And keep in mind, part of what helps UST stay ranked at 18 is that they started the year at #2 (and got all the way to #1 according to some posters  ). So they've had a lot more 'cushion' for their losses. Where SJU was unranked and never cracked the Preseason Top 25 and peaked at 18 (I think). Which is a good reason why the Top 25 shouldn't be criteria. Some teams benefit from name recognition, preseason hype and previous years performance. You shouldn't penalize an undefeated team with a great SOS that started the season unranked and has surprised some people but is stuck behind a log jam of other good teams at say, 11. When it comes to these regional rankings, I'm ok excluding Top 25.

Now, if they committed to doing no poll until, say the 4th week of the season, you could argue there'd be more reason to use it as criteria. But I'm still fine with it not playing a part.

[BC79BU08]

3.  Damn, it was cold

Were you at the SJU/Coe game in 2002?  That day made the 2003 SJU/Bethel game seem balmy.  I still refused to wear long sleeves. 

It didn't seem that cold on the field...but then, it usually doesn't.

PLU in '00 & Central in '07 seemed way colder. The latter especially because I didn't wear waterproof footwear and had soaking wet feet to go along with the freezing rain hitting my face 

Best part was apparently the Central radio guy making comments about our guys warming up in jackets, insinuating the cold was going to affect us more than Central. Later in the game he 'retracted' his statement...something along the lines of 'I guess the cold hasn't been real detrimental to Bethel after all' 

I was frozen to the bleachers - it was wet and cold.  But still a great game.  Warmed up after the game.

[hazzben]

Wally_Wabash has his predictions up on the Pool C thread. He's pretty good and does a fair amount of in-depth analysis.

He's got UW-Oshkosh, Concordia-Moorhead and Pacific Lutheran getting C's from the West, coming off the board in that order.

This is all based on him projecting a UST loss on Saturday. Interesting none-the-less.

[AO]

And keep in mind, part of what helps UST stay ranked at 18 is that they started the year at #2 (and got all the way to #1 according to some posters  ). So they've had a lot more 'cushion' for their losses. Where SJU was unranked and never cracked the Preseason Top 25 and peaked at 18 (I think). Which is a good reason why the Top 25 shouldn't be criteria. Some teams benefit from name recognition, preseason hype and previous years performance. You shouldn't penalize an undefeated team with a great SOS that started the season unranked and has surprised some people but is stuck behind a log jam of other good teams at say, 11. When it comes to these regional rankings, I'm ok excluding Top 25.

Now, if they committed to doing no poll until, say the 4th week of the season, you could argue there'd be more reason to use it as criteria. But I'm still fine with it not playing a part.

Timing plays a part, but the top 25 voters also rank St. Thomas higher than St. John's because they largely believe St. Thomas would be favored if they played tomorrow.  They can ignore things like a chip shot field goal or a leaving the sidelines too early penalty.  There just aren't enough comparable games to go solely based upon SOS and win pct. 

[SJUrube]

@MIACathletics: Upset alert! No. 4 @SJUJohnnies defeats No. 1 @GustieAthletics 2-1 in the #MIACMSOC #MIACplayoffs semifinals. SJU advances to title game!

Redemption for Saturday? If only. Congrats to the soccer team though. As the PA announcer at the football game mentioned multiple times GAC soccer had a perfect conference record. Guess that only applied to the regular season.

[OzJohnnie]

2-1?  Wow.  A scoring bonanza.  I should check out the box score. There may have been as many as eight shots on goal in the game. Crazy.

[Robert Zimmerman]

1391696_10151783963132695_507795493_n by wardo78, on Flickr

Win number 409 against Bethel, 10 years ago on Friday.  I remember it like yesterday.  Three things that stuck:

1.  Scott Kirchoff being taken off the field in an ambulance
2.  Johnnies won
3.  Damn, it was cold

Notice 5 defenders converging on Blake Elliott.  He was the playmaker that took St. Johns from a "good" team to a national champion team.

I'll be dusting off the DVD of this game over the weekend.

Go Johnnies!

I also remember that the game was supposed to be a home game for Bethel and they allowed it to be played at SJU.  Classy.

[bennie]

Excellent points and well said.  "Yell for your team, not at them" is exactly what I was trying to convey. 

And to think I'm also a Oregon Duck fan!

[Pat Coleman]

Any idea how Wartburg is in at 6-2?

Same should be asked about St. John's.

Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me if St. Thomas is ranked 18th overall while St. John's isn't even ranked in the top 25, how is St. John's ranked in the top 10 regional rankings and not St. Thomas? I know St. John's beat St. Thomas in head to head, but that was only 1 game and it was because of a missed field goal.

It's because Tommies suck. Even the selection committee knows that.

UST and SJU must be in a near dead tie for 10th. They have the same record and have both dropped thier games to other regionally ranked teams. The HTH is the differentiating factor.  If UST beats CON then they move into the rankings, I would think.

So what's the justification for St. Thomas being ranked 18th overall and SJU not even being ranked?

Often the Top 25 is interested in looking at how a team trends, as in what have you done for me lately.

[OzJohnnie]

Excellent points and well said.  "Yell for your team, not at them" is exactly what I was trying to convey. 

And to think I'm also a Oregon Duck fan!

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

[sju56321]

I was there also and it was cold and had snowed a few days before, right? Coming from illinois, it was cold.

[bennie]

Excellent points and well said.  "Yell for your team, not at them" is exactly what I was trying to convey. 

And to think I'm also a Oregon Duck fan!

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

That's it!! Your on my list!!! The question is which one!

[OzJohnnie]