FB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[OzJohnnie]

And another thing, that first season is loaded for backend relevance.  GAC in week 5 and BU, Con and Championship in weeks 8, 9 and 10.  It looks like the first two weeks of the season are open for out of conference play?  Does that look right to you as well?

Regardless, the back end is loaded and meaningful.  High drama.  I actually quite like that year's schedule when I look at it.

EDIT: And I really like it because the qualifier isn't settled until the last weekend.  No dead matches for two or three weeks to finish the year now.  Makes the conference play highly relevant again.

If you're just worried about the qualifier then those week 8 and 9 BU and CON games don't matter at all.  If you might have lost another game on the schedule and things don't look good for the pool C, it would be wise to rest your top players or use a limited game-plan and save the best for the championship game.

That may be they way they play ball down at Northwestern...

At worst that's no different than playing Hamline and Carleton to finish out the season.

[Texas Ole]

I think this is a great day for the MIAC.  It brings some stability to the conference.  I am not convinced that St. Thomas is the only school leaving the MIAC.  I have a strange suspicion that another school is leaving the conference.  There are a few schools I could see leaving the conference to move up a division or to a new conference.  I could even see a school dropping athletics or even ceasing operations.  I am not going to make predictions for any school, but I do expect a major change within 10 years for at least 1 school.  Adding a football and hockey hockey school preserves the auto bid which was needed.  The interesting one is that the MIAC stays as a 12 team league for women's sports which is rather large for a conference.  I thought there was rumor that St. Catherine would eventually merge with UST.

I think the divisional structure might not be perfect, but it does make some sense in terms of the split.  The names are a little strange considering the 3 southern football teams are in the Northwoods division.  I think the divisions help a ton with scheduling.  There is now an opportunity for SJU to play Bethel or Concordia as a non-conference game.  That will help a ton with travel for non-conference games.  I think even when Carleton and Macalester are not scheduled as conference games they will still play each other in the non-conference.  It makes for shorter bus trips.  The longest trips for football are limited.  The 3 southern schools likely only have to travel to Concordia once every 4 years versus every other year.  That will be nice for those schools.  The loss of the bye week may turn out to be an advantage or disadvantage.

[SJUrube]

Interesting news. The biggest advantage for existing conference teams is it eliminates the need to schedule a third non-conference game following UST's decision to leave the MIAC. The divisions will take some getting used to but with the championship/playoff games the number of non-conference games stays at two.

There will be no shortage of speculation around who benefits from the division schedule. Each division has a clear favorite. In the Northwoods GAC and Olaf would be the two best bets to make a leap. The Gusties have been at the top of the second tier for what feels like 20+ years and Killian and Olaf are in prove it territory. Concordia and the Auggies are the likely leapers in the Skyline. The Cobbers of late have been the perennial bridesmaid but never the bride, with Lemke Lamker trying to regain the glory of his playing days for the Auggies. .

It looks like the crossover portions of the schedule weren't done by accident. GAC/SJU vs Bethel/Concordia are two of the crossover games for each team so it's relative strength vs strength. SJU's third crossover game is vs Augsburg, meaning MAC and Hamline avoid them. Bethel has a similar third game vs Olaf, making it so Carleton and Scholastica don't play a traditional nationally ranked team.

For the fun of it I looked at total 5 year W-L records for teams in each division and what the combined division W-L record would be over the same span. There's likely not a lot of takeaways, though Scholastica's raw record is significantly more impressive than MAC.

Northwoods 5 year W-L record
CAR 9-41
GAC 30-20
SJU 53-9
STO 18-32
CSS 36-15

Skyline 5 year W-L record
AUG 15-35
BU - 34-19
CON 32-18
HAM 13-37
MAC 25-35

Northwoods
2019 35-19
2018 32-21
2017 25-26
2016 25-27
2015 29-24

Skyline
2019 20-30
2018 24-29
2017 24-26
2016 26-24
2015 25-25

[SagatagSam]

I am not convinced that St. Thomas is the only school leaving the MIAC.  I have a strange suspicion that another school is leaving the conference.  There are a few schools I could see leaving the conference to move up a division or to a new conference.  I could even see a school dropping athletics or even ceasing operations.  I am not going to make predictions for any school, but I do expect a major change within 10 years for at least 1 school.  Adding a football and hockey hockey school preserves the auto bid which was needed. 

C'mon, we are all for rank speculation on this board. No sense in being coy about who you think may close or move up a division. Heck, I suggested that 98% of college football would be back to normal with full stadiums on or before October 1 of this year.

Frankly, I don't see another MIAC school looking to move up divisions, so I'm not sure where that is coming from. But, schools closing, I think that is definitely more of a possibility now than it was four months ago. A few days ago I posted Forbes 2017 piece on the financial health of private colleges and universities. I hate to say it, but things aren't looking great for Hamline based on that metric. HU ranked lowest in the MIAC, and seem the most susceptible to an economic shock like we are experiencing right now.

[ChicagoTommie]

Interesting link about the devastating global Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 and football was played.

https://tommiesports.com/sports/fball/2019-20/releases/20200506lmfwml

Johnnies suck...

[OldAuggie]

Interesting link about the devastating global Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 and football was played.

https://tommiesports.com/sports/fball/2019-20/releases/20200506lmfwml

Johnnies suck...

Thanks for the link to the articles Chicago Tommie and that does sound familiar to the times we currently find ourselves in.  Golden Gophers were 5-2-1 that year in the Big Ten.

[faunch]

Cross your fingers that MPLS/STPaul doesn't burn to the ground tonight!!!

[MUC57]

Cross your fingers that MPLS/STPaul doesn't burn to the ground tonight!!!

faunch

Got 'em crossed! 😟

[SUMMIT!!!!!]

Football divisional realignment FAQs-   https://www.miacathletics.com/sports/fball/2019-20/releases/20200527wdv96g

So Concordia & SJU could meet in back-to-back weeks in  2021 & 2022? Every future year is set up for Week 8 of league play being a rematch of Week 7.

[OldAuggie]

Cross your fingers that MPLS/STPaul doesn't burn to the ground tonight!!!

Stay safe Mr. Faunch, this will be a tough night.

[AO]

Football divisional realignment FAQs-   https://www.miacathletics.com/sports/fball/2019-20/releases/20200527wdv96g

So Concordia & SJU could meet in back-to-back weeks in  2021 & 2022? Every future year is set up for Week 8 of league play being a rematch of Week 7.

I guess we can forget what I said about the potential years where you don't play the powers from the other division.  The Johnnies might go decades without playing Macalester or Hamline under this system.

[faunch]

Cross your fingers that MPLS/STPaul doesn't burn to the ground tonight!!!

Stay safe Mr. Faunch, this will be a tough night.

This might be out of place and inappropriate here but I'm going to post it anyway...they need to bring that sadistic cop in and string him up by his balls on Lake street and let the street justice prevail and lock up the other three cops up for 50 to life. What the hell was he thinking??
I am at a loss!!!

[Texas Ole]

I wonder if certain MIAC schools might play other schools in the conference as non-conference opponents.  Carleton and Mac come to mind as one of those games.  St. Olaf versus Augsburg and Concordia also comes to mind.

Football divisional realignment FAQs-   https://www.miacathletics.com/sports/fball/2019-20/releases/20200527wdv96g

So Concordia & SJU could meet in back-to-back weeks in  2021 & 2022? Every future year is set up for Week 8 of league play being a rematch of Week 7.

I guess we can forget what I said about the potential years where you don't play the powers from the other division.  The Johnnies might go decades without playing Macalester or Hamline under this system.

That might be one of Macalester goals.  Not a shot at any school, but some of the MIAC losses were are reason they left the conference years ago.

[RussellT22]

Can someone explain to me why this scheduling model was even necessary? Why can't there be a 9 week conference schedule with a round robin format. Everyone plays everyone. Champion gets the automatic bid. It truly does not get easier than that.

With this format, we are going to have the "championship" be 2 teams who have just played each other within the last 2 weeks essentially rendering the first game meaningless. This is coming up with a solution to a problem that doesn't even exist.

The bottom of the league should just put out a joint statement saying "We have no desire or intention to compete at a high level. Nor do we have a vision or plan to do so. This scheduling model gives us the opportunity to prop up our football program and give the illusion of success."

[hazzben]

Can someone explain to me why this scheduling model was even necessary? Why can't there be a 9 week conference schedule with a round robin format. Everyone plays everyone. Champion gets the automatic bid. It truly does not get easier than that.

With this format, we are going to have the "championship" be 2 teams who have just played each other within the last 2 weeks essentially rendering the first game meaningless. This is coming up with a solution to a problem that doesn't even exist.

The bottom of the league should just put out a joint statement saying "We have no desire or intention to compete at a high level. Nor do we have a vision or plan to do so. This scheduling model gives us the opportunity to prop up our football program and give the illusion of success."

It also serves the teams/schools that want to be competitive nationally. A 9 game rd robin schedule would have pulled down SOS numbers. Plus with adding Mac and CSS, and subtracting UST, you aren't adding great competittion ( no offense intended) to the playoff resumes of any MIAC teams looking to compete in the postseason.

My initial impression is that this isn't perfect, but it's actually a decent way to add teams back in, protect SOS of better teams, and keep teams that have different goals from having to consistently get stomped (at least until they get more competitive and are then on the rotation with the better teams). It also preserves the ability of teams to add appropriate Non-con games. Whether those are of the weaker variety in attempts to get an extra W or the kind designed to bolster a potential playoff resume.