FB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[MiacMan]

Ah Plums....last time I was there a rat run under my chair on the back patio....good times!

That was my nephew's little dog "Eddie" he just looks like a rat.

[miac952]

Unbelievably, I'm torn about the mismatched competition between the top and bottom of the MIAC.  I can empathise with how some of the lesser teams may feel. It's like they signed up for amateur boxing night and find themselves in the ring across from Mike Tyson.  But then it's an open weight division and boxers are encouraged to do their best.

So I settle on thems the breaks, it's just too darn bad. As long as Tyson isn't putting the amateurs at undue risk due to the mismatch then it's game on.  Maybe if a trail of broken bones are left in the wake of the top teams then something should be done, but until that point nope.

It's a tough spot to be in. UST and SJU (and Concordia and Bethel) need the rest of the conference to survive, but UST and SJU are building to compete for national championships and Concordia and Bethel are building to get to the playoffs. I think Gustavus with their stadium, and St. Olaf with their coaching hire, is working towards being competitive, but I don't see Hamline and Carleton giving much more effort, and Augsburg is sort of a victim of their resources and will always just kind of have to do more with less. If Hamline and Carleton bail for the MWC or UMAC (or Carleton cuts football all together), then the MIAC will be forced to bring schools in, which is something I think they should consider exploring now. I think Northwestern and St. Scholastica (despite the lopsided loss to SJU) are looking to be decent fits. Northwestern seems to be a natural rival for Bethel and has MIAC level facilities. CSS lacks the facilities, but will be the sole DIII school recruiting the Duluth area heavily, and could have an opportunity to steal some central lakes kids.

If you don't agree with me, then I'll just fire up my UST and SJU/CSB should leave for the Pioneer League/Horizon League argument again. JK.

Not going to happen Bench. Hamline has a strong MIAC hockey program and Carleton is very competitive in MIAC basketball. Need to think bigger picture than just MIAC football when evaluating teams and schools. Yes UST has been super successful in all athletics but that does not diminish what these two have accomplished in winter sports. Toss those purple shaded glasses in the garbage dude.

You bring up interesting points. If schools can compete in high scale sports like Basketball and Hockey, why not football too? How did Hamline just flip the switch in hockey with no national reputation leading up to it?

I guess my question in all of this is what was the recipe for success for Carleton in a season like 2008: http://www.d3football.com/teams/Carleton/2008/index ? The dynamics haven't changed that much in the last decade. It really is the same players involved.

Carleton beat CCM and Bethel and lost at the wire (literally) to UST & SJU. They had a solid QB along with a dynamic TE and Safety. Granted, these weren't Top 5 & Top 10 UST / SJU teams quite yet, but nevertheless Carleton competed (5 seconds from a MIAC championship). An institutional commitment, along with some good coaching and a handful of talented athletes will go a long ways. This isn't just a $ game. UST didn't jump ahead strictly because of financial commitments. Caruso came, and within 2 years (before any significant $ was spent), the program was competing on a national scale. SJU didnt throw any new big $$ at basketball the last couple years. They found a coach that could build a dynamic program.

[USTBench]

I'd look at 2008 Carleton as more of an anomaly. A combination of well-coached, decent players, going into their senior season, building on incremental success over a 4 year period, striking gold.

Caruso could maintain a 7-3 UST program on just UST's location, mediocre facilities, and lukewarm commitment to football. But to get to 14-1 and a Stagg Bowl berth required a significantly more substantial commitment from the university as a whole, especially with a 4 time national champion going after the same players.

Ramler did all he possibly could with the resources available to him, and Carleton's stadium should be named after him for going 7-3 that year. It was probably the greatest coaching job in the history of college football given Carleton's horrendous football facilities and nonexistent commitment to football. But it was clearly not sustainable, there's no way it could be.

I think for Carleton to be even remotely competitive in the MIAC would require an influx of several million dollars into the program, which would include a football specific facilities that DON'T FLOOD. They just aren't going to do that. I would not be surprised if the powers-that-be haven't discussed cutting football, or going the way of Macalester playing an independent schedule or joining the MWC or UMAC.

[sjusection105]

Caruso could maintain a 7-3 UST program on just UST's location, mediocre facilities, and lukewarm commitment to football.

Because of his coaching style?
Previous regimes were up & down with the aforementioned facilities & lukewarm commitment from the university. So you're saying 7 more wins are due to the university's commitment? 

[USTBench]

Caruso could maintain a 7-3 UST program on just UST's location, mediocre facilities, and lukewarm commitment to football.

Because of his coaching style?
Previous regimes were up & down with the aforementioned facilities & lukewarm commitment from the university. So you're saying 7 more wins are due to the university's commitment?

I'm saying with his acumen, passion and recruiting style, he'd be 7-3 or better typically. I mean, he went 11-2 his second year, with the same guys and the facilities weren't any better. That's two years removed from losing to Hamline and going 2-7. That's better than all of his predecessors dating back to about 1948. Throw in a new weight room, locker room, field turf, jumbo tron, Nike relationship, game in Target Field, 4 or 5 extra games a year, and trips to Italy, and all the other bells and whistles, and UST is pretty much set up for success for the foreseeable future.

Roney wasn't exactly handed the keys to a Cadillac, but he sure couldn't drive an Acura either. Caruso drove the Acura as well as it could be driven, so they gave him a Cadillac.

Tom Journell was given a AMC Gremlin with a hornet's nest in it and no engine.

[jamtod]

Calling it a 7-win difference feels like a bit of a stretch, even though it's technically accurate.
Consider a 7-win baseline (as in, occasionally overachieve and make the playoffs, with maybe 1 win in a good year), bump that up by 2 or 3 and you are consistently in the playoffs with a chance to win additional games. That is a much different 7-win difference than 2-8 to 9-1 (although maybe no less challenging).

[miac952]

The other thing to recognize is that this is a VERY GOOD DIII football conference. We know what we need to about UST (perennial top 5) and SJU (perennial top 10), but beyond that you have Concordia and Bethel. In 2016 Concordia outplayed and SHOULD have beaten what might have been Caruso's best UST team. If not for a dime pass on an end of game post route, Concordia wins. The same UST team that probably wins the Stagg if Fenske doesn't throw 5 uncharacteristic interceptions against UWO. Concordia has scheduled and gone toe to toe with Whitewater 2 years in a row. Add in Bethel (minus the last couple years) and this is one of the 2 to 3 toughest conferences in DIII football when you account for the top 4 teams.

Losing by a lot to the big fish should not be surprising. Look at what Bama did to Ole Miss on Saturday. Teams like Gustavus, St Olaf, and even Hamline should be strong. They excel at other high visibility DIII sports and have much better than average facilities. They just haven't found the perfect recipe in the last decade. The lopsided scores stink, but they exist across all of DIII in all sports. Thats why Im not a fan of the football decision for Mac. Should UST take their tennis team to a different conference because Gustavus knocks them around? Its a really bad precedent for a single sport. I get that its high visibility, but they have paved their way back to mediocrity now.

[USTBench]

Calling it a 7-win difference feels like a bit of a stretch, even though it's technically accurate.
Consider a 7-win baseline (as in, occasionally overachieve and make the playoffs, with maybe 1 win in a good year), bump that up by 2 or 3 and you are consistently in the playoffs with a chance to win additional games. That is a much different 7-win difference than 2-8 to 9-1 (although maybe no less challenging).

I'm not saying UST's old facilities and commitment to football vs Carleton's current facilities and commitment to football is worth +7 in the W column. But, it was probably worth +4.5 wins with Don Roney. If facilities and university commitment stayed where it was at with Roney while Caruso as head coach, you're talking +7.5 to +8.5 more wins that Carleton per year. But you'd never get Caruso to stay if something wasn't done by the university to commit to football in a bigger way. So, as it currently stands, it's something like +11.5.

Not an exact science. I'm just saying, it's going to take a HUGE commitment from Carleton to average just 5 wins a year, that's counting their two non-conference games against Mac and some other team. You can pretty much look at GAC as the barometer. A new stadium (one of the nicest in the country for DIII IIMO) and new facilities and they're pretty much where they've always been. Trying to stay in the MIAC's second tier.

[AO]

MIAC PICK-EMS
WEEK 3 STANDINGS


WEEK 4 Sep. 22
Non-Conference: 2pts
UW-Eau Claire (+28.5) @ #3 St. Thomas

Conference: 3pts
Augsburg (+3.5) @ St. Olaf
Hamline (+42.5) @ Concordia
Gustavus (+14.5) @ Bethel
Carleton (+50.5) @ #9 St. John's

National: 1pt
Westminster (Mo.) (+14.5) @ St. Scholastica

[Mr.MIAC]

They just haven't found the perfect recipe in the last decade.

So a recipe calls for ingredients. What are the primary ingredients when it comes to building and sustaining a successful D3 football program? I'm thinking things like:

Winning
Facilities
Recruiting
Coaching
Community Support

The right combination of these ingredients can lead to long-term success, and UST has made advancements in each area.

There are secondary factors that also contribute to whether a program performs well. I'm thinking things like:

Campus Environment
Location
Career Prospects
Social Networks
Culture

UST has advantages in many of these areas. Maybe it would be difficult to replicate UST's success without these advantages. If so, I think it's important to consider institutions as whole entities when assessing their football programs and the prospects for long-term success.

[OldAuggie]

Once upon a time, starting in 1947, there was MIAC wrestling. Overall Augsburg dominated the league and SJU was also good as the Johnnies won the MIAC many times themselves. UST on the other hand was not as successful and as a matter of fact Macalester won more MIAC wrestling titles than UST. One night at a meeting UST dropped their wrestling program with several locals in attendance.  It has been said that since they were unable to beat Swenson's Auggie teams they might as well drop wrestling.

Sometime after that, the MIAC wrestling conference was also dissolved. Currently Augsburg wrestling competes Nationally with the combination of a D2 dual meet schedule and tournaments with various D1, D2 and D3 schools, the WIAC schools, IIAC schools, dual meets with the left over MIAC schools and of course the Battle of the Burgs. For qualifying purposes they sort out the teams and individuals in the Upper Midwest Region and that is basically our version of a conference.

There is precedence here; a slippery slope with UST randomly dropping sports and I don't think teams leaving the MIAC in football is a good idea as we might end up losing the AQ spot or the MIAC itself in the future if the gap grows larger and the Blue Blood schools decide to compete on a National Level, e.g. D3 versions of Notre Dame.

[USTBench]

Once upon a time, starting in 1947, there was MIAC wrestling. Overall Augsburg dominated the league and SJU was also good as the Johnnies won the MIAC many times themselves. UST on the other hand was not as successful and as a matter of fact Macalester won more MIAC wrestling titles than UST. One night at a meeting UST dropped their wrestling program with several locals in attendance.  It has been said that since they were unable to beat Swenson's Auggie teams they might as well drop wrestling.

Sometime after that, the MIAC wrestling conference was also dissolved. Currently Augsburg wrestling competes Nationally with the combination of a D2 dual meet schedule and tournaments with various D1, D2 and D3 schools, the WIAC schools, IIAC schools, dual meets with the left over MIAC schools and of course the Battle of the Burgs. For qualifying purposes they sort out the teams and individuals in the Upper Midwest Region and that is basically our version of a conference.

There is precedence here; a slippery slope with UST randomly dropping sports and I don't think teams leaving the MIAC in football is a good idea as we might end up losing the AQ spot or the MIAC itself in the future if the gap grows larger and the Blue Blood schools decide to compete on a National Level, e.g. D3 versions of Notre Dame.

But what does the school who leaves care if the MIAC loses its football AQ?

They're the one getting pummeled/or bored with the MIAC. Not sure if the OAC has the same conversations about Mount Union, but the conversation has definitely come up in the MIAC meetings. Additionally, the OAC doesn't have a Macalester or Carleton in its conference, with a national reputation to protect. We can talk about GAC being dominant in tennis all we want, but let's be honest, only a handful of people care. You're not going to make national news for getting shut out in a tennis match (dual? meet? game?), but you might for losing 80-0 or having a bored tight end throw a 2pt conversion behind his back against you like Pistol Pete.

I think for this reason, Caruso closes out games much like he did against Hamline the other night. Freshmen fullbacks plowing straight ahead for entire quarters and QBs throwing less than 10 times a game.

[OzJohnnie]

I reckon it's the full contact nature of football (and potentially hockey if an MIAC team became a Middlebury of old) that causes the problem.  I suspect no one cares if someone is dominant in baseball or golf or tennis because you don't have the emotional triggers of guys out there getting their a$$es literally beaten.  In all the other sports you give it your best effort and have a good time, no harm no foul if a squad assembles really skilled sportsman.  But on a football field your face is literally being rubbed in the dirt.  With extra sauce.  Perhaps that's why football (and potentially hockey) is different.  The mismatch is more visceral.

As I think about it, hockey is unlikely to have such huge physical differences since the pro and semi-pro leagues are so well developed.  Any physical brutes in that sport are unlikely to find their way to a DIII squad where as DIII football still finds top 2000 athletes and a small number of teams can attract a healthy concentration of those athletes.

[OldAuggie]

In the near future USTBench you will procreate and bring in to this world a couple of little athletes. They will grow up to be young people, and of course you will be in the wealthy section of South Dakota or wherever you live, let's just say Sioux Falls.  Those little athletes are going to say "Dad I know you were a football player but football is not cool. I want to play tennis. I want to go to Gustavus Adolphus and play tennis Dad".

Then you will care. 

[sjusection105]

Roney wasn't exactly handed the keys to a Cadillac, but he sure couldn't drive an Acura either. Caruso drove the Acura as well as it could be driven, so they gave him a Cadillac.

Tom Journell was given a AMC Gremlin with a hornet's nest in it and no engine.

I'm really starting to wonder if you attended UST (I know you did,but I'm concerned) you need to know your luxury automobiles.
UST = German or Italian luxury automobiles. At minimum insert BMW where Cadillac currently resides....