FB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[sfury]

Author of 2 books, numerous articles, and somewhat scandalous Top 10 Lists in the JWP school newspaper, but this might be my favorite piece of sfury writing.  It is like reading "The Night Before Christmas," every December.  It is not Johnnie-Tommie week until I have reread this post from a couple of years ago:


Johnnie-Tommie week has spilled outside the ring and now the combatants are fighting in the stands! Look out, folks! That's Faunch and USTBench delivering haymakers to each other, one after the other. Faunch is doing it while chewing on a printout of the picture the Tommies took on the 50-yard-line while Bench -- his body covered in grotesque scars left over from the barbs received during the Roney era -- is decking him with a right hand that sports a bracelet reading WWGD. And...what's this, from the locker room we've got Retired Old Rat sprinting out to lend a hand and he's absolutely clobbering Bench from behind with a steel chair, a loaf of Johnnie Bread and a special-edition DVD of the 2003 SJU championship season. Now Reverend and Double O have joined the festivities and they're each carrying large placards that indicate how many girls go to St. John's: Zero. And they're now hitting RoR over the head with the cardboard weapon, and that fascinating fact that may or may not speak to SJU students' orientations.

AO continues to watch the festivities from the announcer's table and is now offering odds on the outcome of the fight.

Pat Coleman watches the brawl via Skype and simply wants to let fans of both teams know he hates both schools and is out to get them.

Duffman contemplates joining the fight, but instead sits back with an imported beer, and loses himself in the memory of the Trinity playoff game in 2002. He weeps.

Touchdown Tommy briefly stops by the broadcasting table to announce that he always liked St. Thomas more anyway and thinks they're going to win the brawl.

Oz Johnnie watches from halfway around the world and compares Bench's fighting technique to a kangaroo and a rugby player no one's ever heard of who died in 1953.

56321 logs in to watch the fight and complains about Faunch's offensive calls and a disturbing lack of intensity on defense. "Someone needs to lose their job," he adds.

Dusty says the entire situation is developing.

Robert Zimmerman says You that build all the bombs, You that hide behind walls/You that hide behind desks/I just want you to know/I can see through your masks and everyone else says, thanks, Bob, but it's 2015 now and, by the way, we couldn't understand you anyway.

105 would like to remind you that on his way to the airport he got his shoes shined by a very nice gentleman who graduated from St. Thomas in 1998. Good kid, seems happy with the gig.

Art76 has just written 2,000 words about a fight coming up next week between Augsburg and St. Olaf.

wildcat11 says the Johnnies could win the fight if they put Blake Elliott in the pistol and just let him do his thing.

And here's Chicago Tommie, he's just driven 12 hours and is yelling at Bench and the other combatants, "They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way!" Only he includes 15 ellipses and 25 exclamation points.

This could go on for awhile.

Had forgotten this! Should maybe get an update...

[Kilted Rat]

Long time lurker, first time (in a long time) poster.
Love you guys, love your show.

Making a brief return from my hiatus to share a quick John story.

Spring 2004 Theory of football class. Blake Elliott comes in after having recently worked out for NFL teams. John is having him talk about what the experience was like.
Blake says "they had me do the usual drills like the 40 yard dash and..."
John interrupts, "Now for the ladies, explain what the 40 yard dash is."
Blake with a very awkward look, "Well you run 40 yards as fast as you can."
John "Oh, that's it? I thought it had to be something more complicated than that as much as they talk about it. I figured the ladies knew what the hell it was, but I couldn't admit that I didn't know. So how did you do?"
Blake "I ran a 4.6" (No clue what he actually said for a time.
John "Oh, 4.6. is that good or bad?"
Blake "it's pretty good, but not amazing."
John "I bet I could have run a 6.0 in my prime, that's why I'm a coach."

RIP John, greatest coach in college history.

Tommies suck.

Prediction for Saturday: Triple Monkey Stomp Shutout. 63-0 Johnnies.

KR Out!

[DuffMan]

Wow!

[OzJohnnie]

Wow!

x2.  That was like Jesus showing up in your toast.

[jamtod]

Got my room booked for Friday night, not too far from campus for an early start Saturday morning.

[sowilson]

As a Buddhist I am not in mourning for the passing of coach Gagliardi.  Yes, his body has quit working, but the man still lives, as vibrant today as he was weeks and years ago.  He lives in his works and to the many people who were touched by him.  He's reborn every day in the works of his former players who are now coaches and what they are teaching young men and women who never knew coach Gagliardi.  So let us be happy and joyous for his past life and for his new life which will stay with us always.  Truly a life well lived.

On to other things.  I saw Gustavus JV take on St. John's JV at St. John's tonight.  Gustavus won 28-14 and dominated both sides of the ball; hmmm, what can it mean?

Ok, a few pages back someone asked about the Gustavus Concordia game.  I've been rather hard on the Gustavus program because I believe that they can be much better than their normal 5-5 record.  I believe that St. John's, Gustavus, Concordia, and Bethel are roughly equivalent in their talent and St. Olaf is probably a year or two out from being part of that group. What separates the teams in this group are coaching, facilities and system.  St. John's has the best system because they try to fit a system to the players they have, instead of fitting players to a system - this is always the best way.  Concordia and Bethel (to a lesser degree) have the run dominate their system which is probably the best way to go in any level of college football outside of the upper echelon of D1 FBS, Power 5 conference teams.  Although the Gustavus coach says he wants a balanced run/pass attack the effect is an over reliance on trying to throw the homerun ball - great when it works, but it doesn't work often.  Augsburg tends to suffer from this malady too.  The inevitable result is a team that can put up lots of yards and even score points but that rarely, if ever, dominates the time of possession.  The goal should be to have either equal or dominate the time of possession and to that you need the ability to grind out first downs.  If you don't, then your defense in on the field too long and eventually will start leaking yards and points.  You can see this in most Gustavus games in that they may be competitive in the first half but then the second half (when the defense is already dead from playing too much) sees them giving up yards and points and the inevitable lopsided score.

So, in the game against the Cobbers the Gustavus offense was working well in the first half.  Passes were generally on target and caught and the running game was reasonably effective.  Gustavus also owned the time of possession.  On defense, they were fresh and able to explosively go after the Cobbers offense.  Gustavus has a number of individuals who are good at NG and DT and running up the middle is very hard to do against the Gusties.  Gustavus's defense being fresh from not being on the field all the time caused havoc on the Cobbers, couple that with some bad plays and other mental errors and you have the result you see on the scoreboard in the first half.  In the second half Gustavus had a couple of mental errors that lead to points by the Cobbers and left them with the will to fight.  The Cobbers were somewhat productive in the passing game but really never got the running game going.  The Gustavus defense was able to play the second half pretty fresh, something rare for the program.  Time of possession and the general lack of mental errors were the keys to the Gusties victory in my opinion.

[Mr.MIAC]

As Tweeted by SJU:

Tailgating Info for Saturday: The SJU Outdoor Athletic Complex lot will be closed to all parking from 7 pm Thursday, Oct. 11-10 am Friday, Oct. 12. Vehicles remaining in the SJU Outdoor Athletic Complex lot after 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 11, will be towed at the owner's expense.

The lot will open for vehicles to enter from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 12. There will be several members of the @SJUAlumni team on site to manage the parking of vehicles in preparation for Saturday's events. The parking lot will reopen Saturday morning.

No mention about pitching tents on the baseball field...

I hear you can pitch a tent pretty much anywhere in Collegeville. The whole place is just a bunch of deprived dudes pitching tents...

[sjusection105]

sfury and Kilted Rat showing up on the same page, this is a momentous occasion! Now if Touchdown Tommy and Ritz72 show up that would be amazing!

[DuffMan]

Another John story:
The recent MIAC weather policy reminded me of the 2002 SJU/UW-Eau Claire game.  It was a night game, but it was really hot and muggy.  I was one of the captains that week, and as I was stretching, John beckoned me over.  "Jeez, Ryan," he said, "it's pretty miserable out there.  Tell the guys that we're doing warmups without pads and helmets."  So, we went out and did our normal warmup routine in t-shirts.  Ahead of his time, once again.

[DuffMan]

Kilted Rat had to take a break from his GB Packer tweets to make a Post Pattern cameo. 

[USTBench]

Speaking of coaching with "NOs", I remember my first game suited up against the Johnnies in 2000.

Roney was justifying his coaching techniques to me one day before practice that week and said: "I mean, say what you want about the tenets of a padded practice, USTBench, but at least it's an ethos."   

Then came game day.

Me: Are these the Johnnies Coach Roney?
Roney: No USTBench, these men are nihilists. There's nothing to be afraid of.

Then we scored zero points and committed Donny's mortal remains to the bosom of the Pacific Ocean, which he loved so well.

[AO]

MIAC PICKEMS

WEEK 6 STANDINGS


Week 7 Oct. 13

The Holy Grail: 4pts
#3 St. Thomas @ #8 St. John's (+6.5)

Conference: 3pts
Gustavus @ Hamline (+40.5)
Bethel @ St. Olaf (+20.5)
Carleton (+7.5) @ Augsburg

National: 1pt
#23 Muhlenburg @ Thomas More (+14.5)

[jamtod]

Reading a lot of reminiscing and stories about John. He truly took a different approach to coaching and I know that Coach Fasching follows his mold in a lot of ways.
I also know that the Johnnies approach to recruiting has evolved.

How have some of the other trademarks from Gagliardi changed with a new coaching staff?
Is there still no hitting or blocking in practice?
I imagine there is a bit more emphasis on weight training. What else?

[warhawkguard]

I just gotta pop in a say how much I just enjoyed the banter between Johnnie and Tommie fans on here. Those were some pretty legit burns written with both grace and power simultaneously. Most impressive. I literally laughed - OUT LOUD!

We don't see much of that at all in the WIAC boards. Great to see you guys zinging each other without getting all butthurt.

I imagine this game will determine the team to face our champs at the end of the season. Good luck to both. And, Go Warhawks!, of course...

[Mr.MIAC]

Reading a lot of reminiscing and stories about John. He truly took a different approach to coaching and I know that Coach Fasching follows his mold in a lot of ways.
I also know that the Johnnies approach to recruiting has evolved.

How have some of the other trademarks from Gagliardi changed with a new coaching staff?
Is there still no hitting or blocking in practice?
I imagine there is a bit more emphasis on weight training. What else?

That's a very thoughtful question. I have a slightly less thoughtful question for the Johnnies. I'm sure the Bennies grow restless as Tommie-Johnnie week progresses, and no one wants to see anybody get hurt. How are you planning to transport them over to Collegeville on Saturday? Are you going to mount up the horses and drive them over, or is it safer to send them by rail?