FB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[MiacMan]

We got a glimpse of how good UST can be this season and it was fun to watch. UST looks pretty good all around, with the exception of the backup QB position. I fee like the offense just doesn't move as well when Perra is out of the game. Jones has had some time with the 1's, but he looks average at best running the offense. It may be time to move on and see what you have with guys like Frankl, Nolan, or the freshman QB from Loyola Academy who was highly recruited.

Agreed. Somebody on the live stream noted that Frankl was not dressed as the #3 but Dolan was. I can't confirm that though.

Comparisons to Perra is not really fair. Perra right now is one of top QBs in the country. He's made tremendous strides and we are being treated to something special. If he continues to play at this level, the sky is the limit for  this team.

[Tom Thumb]

I'm not sure if this is by design, but UST seems be a little lighter on the OL this year. They're still big in the middle with Beck, Ruggeri, and Green all around 300 pounds, but tackles Rice and Wawracz are 273 and 268, respectively. I'm not sure if they are placing more of an emphasis on athleticism over size or if they are adapting to new defensive schemes. Whatever the case, they are working pretty well together and have only given up two sacks all season. Perra has had all day to throw. This time last year, the OL gave up 11 sacks. The running game has looked pretty good too. I was impressed to see Parks running well between the tackles against Concordia. His 38 yard TD run was right up the middle.

[MiacMan]

The supply of 300lb linemen available for D3 teams  is dwindling.

[sjusection105]

The supply of athletic 300lb linemen available for D3 teams  is dwindling.

There, I fixed it. There are plenty of 300lb flabby couch potato college kids to go around 

[MiacMan]

The supply of athletic 300lb linemen available for D3 teams  is dwindling.

There, I fixed it. There are plenty of 300lb flabby couch potato college kids to go around 

True 105, true

Although even that fact,  is drifting, it seems that the D1's and 2's are willing to take a chance on any of these kids based solely on size alone. Which means D3 can't even get the flabby unathletic 300 pounder  anymore.

[repete]

Can anyone explain what St Thomas has done to make their program dominant since Carusso took the helm? What is St John's not doing that has given St Thomas the edge? Did anyone see St Thomas entirely dominating Concordia-Moorhead? They were up by more points at halftime than St John's was over Augsburg.

Once upon a time, the MIAC was 90% Minnesota kids. SJU was 99% Minnesota kids and the 1% had some kind of family connection the SJU. John G. did not recruit,not even central MN,yet the talent kept coming. Albany,Becker,Holdingford,Piez,ROCORI,Sartell all had great high school programs and the best of those programs made their way to SJU. Look back at how many St. Cloud Times Players of the Year played at SJU. Then Eden Prairie started to dominate the big school football scene and some of those kids name their way to SJU.

When Carouso came in he saw that UST was a sleeping giant and needed some players, he had recruiting connections from previous stops as assistant at FBS schools. He tapped into his recruiting pipeline and got a commitment from the administration and donors and the MIAC arms race was set in motion.

When Gary took over at SJU there was a commitment made to recruiting and out of state talent is part of that. Damien Dumonceaux is the architect of the recruiting program SJU has now. The coaching staff has doubled since John's days and Brandon Novak,Kole Heckendorf , Josh Bunkum and Mike Orts along with others hit the road to find these kids in California,Texas,Arizona, Florida and Nebraska. Some of these kids are kids SJU recruited out of high school but went the D1 or D2 route and after a year transferred to SJU.

The talent gap is shrinking and I feel good about where SJU is as far as facilities goes. The woods and large campus is a deal maker or a deal breaker for some kids so that location can be good or bad.

Yup, your coaching staff size remark brought up a hazy memory from the 1976 title game (made hazier by a non-stop road trip through wet and dry Southern counties en route to Phenix City, Ala.) But when they introduced Towson State, there was a head coach with 12 assistants in matching double-knit gold and black polyester, John had a couple of guys in street clothes. It was quite a scene. And this was when the game was on ABC.

[art76]

Top 25 is out. Tommies locked in at #3. The Johnnies get leapfrogged by Whitewater to stay at #9, which is a bit interesting to me.

How in the world did Linfield stay in the top 25?

Concordia Moorhead and St. Olaf each also received a vote. Neither of these teams have beaten a top 25 team, or beaten a team that has beaten a top 25 team, yet this season. I would have thought that Bethel might start getting some votes, as they beat Simpson who just beat Wartburg, who has been in the top 25, or just outside it until this week's poll. I guess we'll have to wait until after next week's game with the Johnnies, win or lose, before people start paying attention to Bethel in the polls again. I am not confident that Bethel is going to win the game this coming Saturday, but I am sure hoping it is a bit closer than the Tommie-Cobber game yesterday.

[OldAuggie]

Congrats to the Johnnies, I watched the first half online yesterday and I was again startled at the difference in play. Not that long ago this game "appeared" more evenly matched, especially with Ayrton Scott and a senior loaded line. Who knows.

[art76]

It was another blowout weekend in the MIAC with the victors outscoring the vanquished by a combined score of 187 to 14. This upcoming week it looks like there might be a couple of competitive games. More on that in a moment. This week finds the Oles idle. They are one of the four remaining unbeaten teams in the conference through week 5. On to week 6 games.

The beat down game for the upcoming week has Augsburg visiting St. Thomas. Even though the Cobbers were humbled this past week by the Tommies, they'll rebound and take out their frustration on the Gusties this week. This might also be a shut-out game, but the game is at home for Gustavus, so maybe they'll figure out how to score against the Cobbers defense.

The first competitive game in the MIAC this week has Hamline travelling down to Carleton for the battle at the bottom of the standings. Neither of these teams has any more non-conference games on their upcoming schedules, so this is the first chance this season for either of them to start to establish the bottom half of the pecking order among the four winless teams in conference play for this season.

The game of the week has St. John's coming down to the cities to take on Bethel for their homecoming matchup. This game matches up two teams that are both undefeated. Both squads had already blanked Carleton, while Bethel shut-out the Gusties but the Johnnies allowed them 13. If you look at the conference stats, the Johnnies are the number 2 team in the conference. Historically, these two teams have always played closer in person than the teams looked on paper. As a BU alum, I sure would love to see the Royals come out on top, but they have to have the ball bounce the right way for that to happen.

[jamtod]

We got a glimpse of how good UST can be this season and it was fun to watch. UST looks pretty good all around, with the exception of the backup QB position. I fee like the offense just doesn't move as well when Perra is out of the game. Jones has had some time with the 1's, but he looks average at best running the offense. It may be time to move on and see what you have with guys like Frankl, Nolan, or the freshman QB from Loyola Academy who was highly recruited.

Agreed. Somebody on the live stream noted that Frankl was not dressed as the #3 but Dolan was. I can't confirm that though.

Comparisons to Perra is not really fair. Perra right now is one of top QBs in the country. He's made tremendous strides and we are being treated to something special. If he continues to play at this level, the sky is the limit for  this team.

Absolutely. I wouldn't be confident that we could go toe to toe with Mount Union and UMHB this year with anybody under center other than JP. But I at least want to feel good that the next man up can help us beat the Johnnies and win a few playoff games. Time will tell.

[jamtod]

I just watched Concordia's hype/highlight video and now I'm not sure who won on Saturday anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfoMiYt3SaQ

Lots of shots of the crowd, a few incomplete passes, a couple nice runs, and a TFL. Very nice. Dominating performance.

[miac952]

We got a glimpse of how good UST can be this season and it was fun to watch. UST looks pretty good all around, with the exception of the backup QB position. I fee like the offense just doesn't move as well when Perra is out of the game. Jones has had some time with the 1's, but he looks average at best running the offense. It may be time to move on and see what you have with guys like Frankl, Nolan, or the freshman QB from Loyola Academy who was highly recruited.

Agreed. Somebody on the live stream noted that Frankl was not dressed as the #3 but Dolan was. I can't confirm that though.

Comparisons to Perra is not really fair. Perra right now is one of top QBs in the country. He's made tremendous strides and we are being treated to something special. If he continues to play at this level, the sky is the limit for  this team.

Absolutely. I wouldn't be confident that we could go toe to toe with Mount Union and UMHB this year with anybody under center other than JP. But I at least want to feel good that the next man up can help us beat the Johnnies and win a few playoff games. Time will tell.

Frankl is a good QB prospect. Tall and fast and a strong arm. We'll see if that translates to in-game success when play its meaningful. But he moved his way up to #3 on the Iowa State depth chart before transferring. Not all that dissimilar than Perra actually. His setback was tearing up his knee his sr year in HS, which prevented him from getting some of the lower level D1 offers.

On top of Frankl and the Loyola kid, you also have Cade Sexauer. He's a giant 6'3, 220 ish QB that carried South St Paul on his back his sr year. His dad was the head coach.

The coaching staff loves the lunch pail, blue collar tough kids; as hard as that is to believe from a guy who grew up in Greenwich, CT and went to Ithaca. An All-State coaches kid from a true tough guy town like South St Paul will find his way on the field at some position soon.

[nkwest]

I just watched Concordia's hype/highlight video and now I'm not sure who won on Saturday anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfoMiYt3SaQ

Lots of shots of the crowd, a few incomplete passes, a couple nice runs, and a TFL. Very nice. Dominating performance.

To be fair, UST's highlight videos in losing efforts are also designed to ignore the opponent's performance and the result of the game, though the Tommies have typically had more in those situations to be excited about than Concordia did on Saturday.

[jamtod]

I just watched Concordia's hype/highlight video and now I'm not sure who won on Saturday anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfoMiYt3SaQ

Lots of shots of the crowd, a few incomplete passes, a couple nice runs, and a TFL. Very nice. Dominating performance.

To be fair, UST's highlight videos in losing efforts are also designed to ignore the opponent's performance and the result of the game, though the Tommies have typically had more in those situations to be excited about than Concordia did on Saturday.

Absolutely. I don't fault them for it. I'm just amused.

It's been a little while since we've had a beat-down like that though.

[miac952]

With the talk of program's elevating I wanted to reflect back on the two coaching searches at UST and SJU.

We passed the 10 year from Caruso's hire date in January. Early in January 2008 four finalists were brought in for public speeches and conversations. From Shooter back then:
Pssst: Finalists for the University of St. Thomas football coaching job: former Gophers offensive line coach Gordie Shaw; Division III national champion Wisconsin-Whitewater offensive coordinator Jim Zebrowski; Morningside College head coach Steve Ryan and Macalester College head coach Glenn Caruso.

Zebrowski and Caruso were really thought to be the two real FINAL finalists. Zebrowski ended up getting pushed out of the U of M by Tracy Clayes, followed by a local stint at Hamline (mostly to keep close to the kids) but has now followed Leipold out east to Buffalo. By the way, his son is an absolute stud QB for East Ridge this year. Reminds me a bit of Keating or a poor man's Baker Mayfield. The Zebrowski hire might have been a good one, but Caruso has set a whole new bar for the program. A couple of posters on this board warned as much back when: http://www.d3boards.com/index.php?topic=4550.35445

SJU will hit the 6 year mark since Fasching's hire in December. At the time Fasching wasn't necessarily the most popular pick ( I remember some split camps between Ramler and Grant), but he quickly gained favor. He tweaked the program where he thought it had veered off course or fallen behind, while maintaining a strong relationship with his legendary predecessor. All in all a fantastic hire, and this is coming from a rival fan.