FB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[USTBench]

Looking for a little historical perspective here from folks who've followed the MIAC for longer than I have (2012 til now).  Monkey stomps per season have increased significantly in the last 4 seasons.    UST and SJU are the powers, and Bethel and Concordia fall in behind.  Is the top of the conference playing at a level consistent w/ prior decades and it's the bottom dwellers who've gotten worse?  Or has the top of the conference, pulled forward by UST and SJU just launched into another competitive level?  Or both?

I know coach-speak is going to say a rising tide lifts all boats, but just trying to get other points of view.  I'll hang up and wait for your answer.

I will go ahead and just limit this dating back to about 2000, as that was my first season, and probably a good start for the transformation of MIAC football into what it is today.

Back then, Bethel had really started to turn a corner under Steve Johnson and would jockey with SJU for conference dominance. Gustavus, Concordia, UST and St. Olaf would battle for the best of the lousiest and the lousiest of the best. St. Olaf's "heyday" was from 2005 to 2007 where they posted 3 consecutive 8-2 seasons, then a brief regression to mediocrity until posting another 8-2 record in 2011 and a 7-3 record in 2012 before the wheels completely fell off. Concordia had two playoff appearances in 2004 and 2005, then had a brief regression to mediocrity, then became a pretty consistent bridesmaid dating back to 2012. Gustavus has been consistently non-descript nearly every year, even after building their awesome new stadium. They've been a pendulum swinging back-and-forth between 4-6 and 6-4 as long as I can remember.

The Day that Shall Live in Infamy

Things changed for-better-or-worse on November 3, 2007, when Hamline beat UST 41-34. That was the beginning of the end for Don Roney. The next week St. Olaf pummeled UST 54 - 28 to end the season and the week after that, no more Don Roney.

Don Roney was a nice guy, but he wasn't a "face of the program" guy, or a "leader of men." He was probably best suited to being a position coach, or coaching his first love, baseball. Roney SEEMED as though he was just as content going 7-3 as he was going 3-7 (I doubt he really felt that way, but this was the vibe), and either record seemed entirely plausible going into the season where there was a very competitive second tier of teams. The best year I experienced at UST was 2001, my sophomore year when we went 7-3, we lost very competitive games to Bemidji State and SJU, and ended the season getting blown out by Bethel in the Metrodome. We did this with many juniors and sophomores at key positions, and were slated to be very formidable in 2002; we went 5-5.

That was UST in a nutshell. After Macalester nearly dropped football and bolted for an Independent schedule, Roney decided to do an odd thing that showed you the requisite competitive culture of UST at the time:  He only replaced Macalester on the schedule for the first two seasons (with UW-Stout), then dropped UST down to a 9 game schedule because we got spanked by UW Stout 51-3 in 2003, pretty much refusing to schedule anymore WIAC teams. This strategy worked for one year, 2004, when UST won its first non-conference game under Don Roney against Coe, but losses to Concordia and SJU left UST out of the playoffs at 7-2. UST followed up 2004 with a 4-5 record, and finally added a second non-conference game in 2006 playing Central and Loras out of the IIAC, and finished a Roneyesque 6-4.

2007 was the final straw. UST went 2-8 managing only to beat Carleton and Augsburg. That year, Glenn Caruso, had basically transformed Macalester's football program into something less-than-embarrassing, and that was enough to sell Steve Fritz.

There are a number of things that were VERY reminiscent about what the Coalition of Losers endure on a daily basis during my time at UST: an 85 year old man calling our offense (we once had 3 delay of games on one offensive series until our QB just started calling plays); having to climb the retaining wall to access our field before a game because somebody locked the gate to the stadium during a pre-game lightning delay ("Here comes your University of St. Thomas Tommies!!!!" *a bunch of guys climb the retaining wall); and the unexplained retirement of long-standing traditions that have been re-kindled since Caruso came back (as annoying as some of you might find that bell and think it's a Caruso thing, I will have you know I walked by it on my way to the practice field every single day of my college football career, saying to myself "I wonder what that bell is all about?").

Either way, UST decided to make some changes, as did STO. STO was EXTREMELY competitive for nearly a decade but decided it didn't want to compete for a conference crown anymore. UST decided it wanted to not only compete for a MIAC title, it wanted to be nationally relevant. Now STO is organizing a Coalition of Losers to bounce UST, a founding member of the MIAC, out the conference it helped create, because STO's team quit mid-game two years ago.

tl/dr  Blame Hamline for beating UST on November 3, 2007

[johnnie_esq]

Esq, perhaps a discussion for another slow news days, but I'm willing to consider that concussion fears are over blown.  Like silicon breast implants, SARS or mobile phone interference on airplanes, the fear hype could be well out in front of the reality.

Anyways, something for us to perhaps consider here when we don't have the Tommies to kick anymore.

I don't disagree with you.  But we're not the ones who are making that decision.

[bluestreak66]

Looking for a little historical perspective here from folks who've followed the MIAC for longer than I have (2012 til now).  Monkey stomps per season have increased significantly in the last 4 seasons.    UST and SJU are the powers, and Bethel and Concordia fall in behind.  Is the top of the conference playing at a level consistent w/ prior decades and it's the bottom dwellers who've gotten worse?  Or has the top of the conference, pulled forward by UST and SJU just launched into another competitive level?  Or both?

I know coach-speak is going to say a rising tide lifts all boats, but just trying to get other points of view.  I'll hang up and wait for your answer.

The top has lifted. D3 football nationally has undergone a wild arms race. I primarily blame UWW and UHMB.  To have a team which is competitive against those programs will destroy the bottom half of the MIAC.  The real gripe here is the rapid professionalisation of D3 sports on a national scale, football in particular.

UST's (and SJU/BU/CON) has the challenge of convincing its MIAC colleagues to support an agenda of national football competitiveness. It has to do this without making them feel abused or like patsies. Is that burden unfair?  Should they just support UST regardless as they are league allies?  Perhaps, but that's the burden of leadership.

The question here for UST, et al, isn't what's right or fair but how do they get what they want, which is a conference that both supports their ambitions and gives their students a meaningful sporting schedule in a wide range of sports, both men and women.  A big step to achieving that outcome is to listen to league concerns and to take genuine actions toward resolution. Any reasonable person can see that a nationally competitive program will be utterly dominating against almost any other competition.  How do you achieve that competitiveness without destroying your less nationally ambitious conference colleagues by turning them into laughing stocks?  That's the challenge. Maybe UMU should be invited to the conversation to learn how they have largely squared that circle.

There are thousands of people that have spent hundreds of millions of dollars who are deeply affected by how well the football coaches and administrations can resolve this issue. This goes far beyond football which is why I think cooler (better?) heads will prevail.

From the perspective of a UMU conference member, I would say that there are probably a few reasons. It might be possible that the bottom of the OAC just isn't as bad as the bottom of the MIAC. I don't know how that could be proven, but even when Mount plays their starters, they don't really post 60 in the first half (during the 2017 championship season, their first half totals against the bottom of the league were 56 vs. Capital, 42 vs. Wilmington, 24 vs. Muskingum). Still very large leads, but maybe not as bad as some MIAC games? I do think the biggest reason has to be the MIAC traveling roster limit. If you can only go two deep, there are only so many players you can actually play. Where UST has no choice but to play 2nd string, UMU can throw in 3rd or 4th stringers, so the other team at least has a fighting chance to keep them out of the endzone

[Gregory Sager]

Looking for a little historical perspective here from folks who've followed the MIAC for longer than I have (2012 til now).  Monkey stomps per season have increased significantly in the last 4 seasons.    UST and SJU are the powers, and Bethel and Concordia fall in behind.  Is the top of the conference playing at a level consistent w/ prior decades and it's the bottom dwellers who've gotten worse?  Or has the top of the conference, pulled forward by UST and SJU just launched into another competitive level?  Or both?

I know coach-speak is going to say a rising tide lifts all boats, but just trying to get other points of view.  I'll hang up and wait for your answer.

From a HS coach perspective, the D3 "Haves" have really upped their game significantly.  Meanwhile, the "Have-Nots" have seen the floor go out on them, likely due to the declining number of players playing football overall at the HS level.  Thus, the talent gap will continue to widen, as HS players with talent will continue to want to show their game in competitive situations, while players who just want to enjoy playing the game will end up where they can do so.

Ding ding ding! OzJohnnie and hazzbeen suggested that the growing disparity is a case of the Haves getting better rather than the Have-Nots getting worse, but I think that you've squarely hit the nail on the head as to the reason why they're right. College football has always been a sport of attrition for in-game reasons -- it's a violent sport that produces a lot of injuries, so the program that has depth in both quantity and quality is typically the one that prevails in the long run. But now that the number of students overall is declining -- and the number of high-school football players is declining far more steeply than the general student population decline, due to the fears over CTE -- that gap is only going to grow wider in favor of the schools that put a premium upon football success and who are willing to aggressively recruit to make that success happen, even if it's to the detriment of other aspects of the school.

Further, with concerns about head injuries, it is no surprise that D3 academic-first schools are significantly struggling in football: students aren't going to risk a good career for the love of a Saturday afternoon experience.  And thus the cycle continues.

I think that there's some truth to this as well. It may also be one small reason (not a big one, but a small one) as to explaining why so many of the elite institutions in D3 that can't or won't put together a good football program can find success in men's soccer, a sport which directly competes with football in terms of playing season and which thus forces a youngster (or his parents) to choose between them. Carleton, Macalester, and St. Olaf have all had very solid men's soccer programs over the past few decades; within the last ten seasons alone, each has been to the D3 tourney three times, and Carleton and Macalester have won three MIAC titles while St. Olaf has won two.

[SJUrube]

[AO]

Reusse says Augsburg is the key vote towards the end of his podcast.

https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cDovL2ZlZWRzLmZlZWRidXJuZXIuY29tLzE1MDBlc3BuL3BvZGNhc3QvcmV1c3Nl&episode=N2I3MGI5MDYtNGM5My00ZGUzLWJhOTAtNTY1NWVkNjE4MDU5

[SUMMIT!!!!!]

After all, UST has done extremely well in baseball and basketball for a long, long time.  No one threatened to kick them out for that success.  But I don't think there were any timeouts getting called at the end of a basketball blowout to try a buzzer-beating three-point attempt under game conditions.  I suspect it may be behaviour like that on the football field that has caused some in the conference to say, "We don't have to put up with this s***."

You know who else essentially said that Oz, circa 2008?  UST.  They hired Caruso, they committed to facilities, they raised a bunch of money, they engaged alumni, they busted their a** on the recruiting trail, and got results.  The rest of the MIAC?  Several schools snoozed thru the last 10 years, and here they are. 

If UST can do it, several other MIAC schools can do it too.

This is just plainly incorrect. To say that the reason the bottom dwellers are bad is because they don't try is misrepresenting the situation. A school like Carleton can never become an athletic powerhouse for many reasons. It is a very expensive school (60+ k) and they do not lower their academic standards (which are extremely high) to win a few more football games like St Thomas. It is much easier to turn around a struggling program at a premier University in the heart of the metro, with a massive student body, low academic requirements, large scholarships, and history of success than it is to recruit 80 quality players to a school like Carleton.

With that said, it has been this way for sometime, as schools like Carleton have accepted the structural disadvantages that will never make them a powerhouse. The change has apparently come after losing 80-0 every time they play St Thomas. You seem to want schools with no realistic chance to out-recruit UST to be happy getting embarrassed (behind the back trick play, anyone?) year in and year out. Clearly St Thomas does not share any institutional similarities or ambitions as the rest of the league and it is time for them to play schools with that same passion to emphasize the "athlete" in student athlete.

If this is so "incorrect"-- how do you explain Williams, Amherst, Wash U, Johns Hopkins etc?   They are every bit as pricey as Carlton,.  every bit as academically oriented/rigorous  as Carlie/Mac/Ole proclaim themselves to be and yet they ARE athletic powerhouses! So it can be done and is being done.  If those school can be far beyond competitive on the athletic fields...why cant Carleton/Mac/Olaf?  How is losing 80-0 to UST different from losing 79-0 to SJU? or 76-0 to Bethel?

[OzJohnnie]

Reusse says Augsburg is the key vote towards the end of his podcast.

https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cDovL2ZlZWRzLmZlZWRidXJuZXIuY29tLzE1MDBlc3BuL3BvZGNhc3QvcmV1c3Nl&episode=N2I3MGI5MDYtNGM5My00ZGUzLWJhOTAtNTY1NWVkNjE4MDU5

I assume key vote means that AUG is a swing voter, the last institution to not state it's intentions.  So, there are already 8 lined up to change the by-laws?  Who are they?

* Certain outers: STO, CAR, HAM, GAC, MAC?
* Certain inners: UST, SJU
* Three of these: CSB (assuming the ladies have a mind of their own and they haven't stated intentions), Kates, SMU, BU, CON
* Last to decide: AUG

Well, I hope UST is following the maxim: Seek first to understand then be understood.  The UST position is well know, through demonstration and alliteration.  Who is the one institution they can flip.  Seeing as AUG is last to decide they could be fence sitting on a UST proposal.  What could UST offer AUG that is compelling on this issue?  Joint training facilities initiative?  UST could use more space and AUG would surely like some world-class facilities to match their world-class wrestling team.  There's no rule that says schools cannot share resources like that (see SJU/CSB).

Now that would be good if there is some high quality politicking going on like that.  Something where UST comes with a proposal that lifts the MIAC in a non-football related space.

Oh, the intrigue.

[OzJohnnie]

I don't know about you, but when someone said that the big argument between coaches was between Horan and Haege, I assumed it was Horan mad at Haege for pushing to leave.  But maybe instead it was Horan mad that Haege wouldn't leave.  Or maybe it was Haege mad at Horan for putting AUG on the spot somehow (such as being named the swing voter).

Need more ITK gossip.  Pronto.

[hazzben]

I don't know enough about other programs to speak to this, but I do know that Bethel's offseason program, aka strength and conditioning is light years beyond what it was 20 years ago. Both from a scientific standpoint and a buy-in standpoint. When I played we were just starting to get to the point where the expectation was that you needed to be lifting and working out hard all offseason, across the roster. And there was a decent amount of player accountability. But our program was pretty run of the mill.

Now you've got a very scientifically run program, from weights, to plyometrics and speed work, to nutrition. And the buy-in even greater. If you want to see the field you'll have to work harder and smarter. I think SJU made a significant leap forward in this regard post-Gags (not meant as a dig on the great man), as well as more investments in recruiting.

I wonder if the same can be said for the also-rans of the conference?? No idea, but my guess would be that your typical Carleton or Hamline football player isn't in the same kind of team lead off season program as a typical player at UST, SJU, Bethel, etc.

Agreed with Gregory as well, the decreasing participation rates makes for a scarcity of resources. Combine that with a less exhaustive, less mandated off season program and you have a bad effect. >> Fewer players (especially of significant talent) + (perhaps) less 'buy in' to be great and willingness to put the work in = a widened gap and a recipe for greater in season attrition for the have - nots.

NB: I'm not implying players at Hamline don't care or work hard. I'm sure there are some that do. But I know that as one of the harder workers on the team in the off season, my ad hoc program isn't nearly as effective as the program directed one the team now goes through. Which means a team that gets better talent to start with, now develops that talent more efficiently. Our 18 year olds are better than yours and we've got more of them, ergo our 21/22 year olds are eventually WAY better than yours.

I don't know about you, but when someone said that the big argument between coaches was between Horan and Haege, I assumed it was Horan mad at Haege for pushing to leave.  But maybe it was Horan mad that Haege wouldn't leave.  Or maybe it was Haege mad at Horan for putting AUG on the spot somehow (such as being named the swing voter).

Need more ITK gossip.  Pronto.

My assumption is that Horan was mad at Haege for pushing to leave. Horan strikes me as a competitor to the core. Also fits with the ultimatum given to the GAC/BU/Cobbers.

But maybe it was Horan mad at Haege for the ultimatum. Sort of, I get why the academics have convinced themselves they can't compete, but what's your excuse?! Wrestling figured it out, why are you putting a gun to our head.

As someone just said (esq??) the UMAC wouldn't be a terrible landing spot for Augsburg & Hamline, which would leave the left behind MIAC schools in the lurch. 

[miac952]

And as others have noted, how football coaches feel or what they want may not be worth $.02 when the President's gather. Heck, Julie Sullivan may disagree with her coaches and see this as her opportunity to make the leap to D1. She came from a Catholic school that took a similar path.

[OzJohnnie]

It's just that "Give us what we want on football or we'll run you out of business" argument which will lose this vote for UST.  If the complaint is "We want you out because you're a bully" and the response is "Bully? You ain't seen nuthin' yet" then why bother having the vote (as I first said)?  Either UST sympathises with its colleagues or it gracefully bows out. There's no need to force the issue and increase bad blood all around.

[carletonknights]

Allow me to chime in quickly.  Comparing Carleton to Northwestern, Notre Dame, and Stanford is just silly, let's not do that anymore.  Comparing Carleton to Williams and Amherst and any other NESCAC school is also silly.  They only play each other, who knows how good or bad any of them are.  Now obviously Johns Hopkins is really good (and Wash U to a lesser degree) but they don't compete in the MIAC and I think that is important for understanding how these programs came to be in their respective situations.

Have you ever gone to the beach and built a sand castle with your kids?  If they start too close to the water, the waves will destroy their castle immediately.  They can start over but every time they begin to get a little progress a new wave comes in a forces them to start over.  That is how I view the MIAC.  If you are at the bottom of the conference and you're trying to build a program, it's hard to gain any traction and when you do, it is a lot harder to hang on and keep from getting knocked back to square one.  Carleton does recruit nationally (I think I saw someone say earlier this morning that they didn't, but they should?) and a lot of the kids they're recruiting are choosing between Carleton, Johns Hopkins, Wash U, Mac, and the NESCACs.  I'm sure it is a hell of a lot harder to convince a kid to come to Carleton and get their asses handed to them four games out of the year, when they could go to Wash U and compete for a chance to get a tournament berth and upset North Central.  Now I'm not as well educated on the other D3 conferences or their histories as some of the other poster on here but these are my impressions: Wash U plays in a good-decent conference, the Centennial conference is mediocre.  JHU has won their championship almost every year since 2001.  Perhaps not trying to claw their way up from the bottom of one of the toughest conferences in D3 football can help explain why they are in such a drastically different position than Carleton finds itself in now.  Again, I'm not saying this to make excuses for Carleton's lack of success, after all, as previous posters have mentioned, they did climb to the top (in '92 and closely in '08).

Speaking of 2008, some asked how they could have plummeted so quickly back into the depths?  I don't know exactly why.  One reason has to be that around 2007 Carleton raised its admission standards significantly (this really seemed to impact the women's basketball team, they've never been the same), but I also think it's important to remember that the '08 season was an outlier.  A perfect storm of a season with a 3 year starter at QB and some experienced roleplayers + a possibly weaker than normal MIAC field?  Here are the records for Carleton before and after the 2008 season:  2-8 in '04, 4-6 in '05, 4-6 in '06, 7-3 in '08, 3-7 in '07, 3-7 in '09, 3-7 in '10.  Then Rambler was gone and Pagel was hired.  In Pagel's second year he took the team to 5-5, it seemed like Carleton had found their new coach.  But when Killian left Dick Tressel followed and it became clear who was responsible for the brief resurgence.  Pagel and his staff were poor coaches, poor recruiters, and became hostile with the administration.  They wasted terrific recruits that Tressel and Killian had lured to Northfield and left the cupboards bare for Journell and when they did get good recruits, they couldn't keep them on the team or on campus.

Do I think St. Thomas should be booted?  It depends what argument is presented.  To be honest, I don't lose a moment of sleep over the beatdowns St. Thomas, St. John's, and Bethel put on Carleton.  As long as they beat Mac and St. Olaf, I just want them to enjoy themselves.  As some of you former players can attest to, the friendships you make with your teammates are some of the closest bonds we will ever have.  And when we get together and reminisce, we don't talk about the games we won and lost we talk about the funny moments in practice, at parties, or in team meetings.  I also think the "Coalition of Losers" is very disrespectful.  Some of you mentioned liking D3 because of its purity and I agree; these kids are playing football for no other reason than their love for the game.  They're not "losers", they're having fun with their friends and then in a few years they're going to join us in the workforce and begin changing the world. 

There was probably more I wanted to say, but I got thoroughly sidetracked at the end and need to get home.  There's no way I miss a single minute of tonight's game.  Go Cavs

Oh one last thing:  People on here are assuming that Poskanzer has aligned himself with Anderson.  How do we know that?  Is it being assumed just because they're a "bottom dweller"?  As people have posted earlier that is a very football-centric view.  Carleton is competitive in the MIAC in the majority of its sports and as someone posted earlier has the third most conference championships across all sports in the past decade or so.  After being so strongly against leaving the MIAC 5 years ago, why would they suddenly reverse course when nothing has changed from their perspective?

[OzJohnnie]

Ok, I've switched.  I'm in the UST out block.  They don't fit.  Too much money, too much growth, too much different from MIAC.  DII or DI or bust for the Tommies.  I wish them well.  I think they would do their fellow institutions a favour by leaving gracefully instead of waiting to be kicked out, but I imagine that's unlikely of them.

It's a damn shame, too.  I love the Johnnie-Tommie rivalry.  I assume it will last for a little longer, but it's effectively over.

As for the Johnnies, maybe this takes a little of the super charger off the football program, but I still expect they will strive to be nationally relevant and have regular deep runs.  Perhaps the Arden Hill Star Quest Dancers will replace the Summit Ave Cake Eaters as the big rivalry.

(This is the last time I change my mind.  Until I change it again.)

[Gregory Sager]

Allow me to chime in quickly.  Comparing Carleton to Northwestern, Notre Dame, and Stanford is just silly, let's not do that anymore.  Comparing Carleton to Williams and Amherst and any other NESCAC school is also silly.  They only play each other, who knows how good or bad any of them are.

That's just football. In all of the other sports ... well, let's let the people behind the Learfield Directors' Cup explain it to you:

https://nacda.com/documents/2019/3/26/DIIIMar28Overall.pdf

https://nacda.com/news/2018/5/31/Williams_Captures_Division_III_Learfield_Directors_amp_8217_Cup_Title.aspx

Forget about football. Williams and Amherst (and several of the other NESCAC schools, especially Middlebury and Tufts) are good at pretty much everything across the board in athletics. Quibble if you will with the Learfield Directors' Cup methodology (I do), but it makes a serious case that Williams is the premier all-sports school in D3, and that Amherst isn't far behind.

Now obviously Johns Hopkins is really good (and Wash U to a lesser degree) but they don't compete in the MIAC and I think that is important for understanding how these programs came to be in their respective situations.

Have you ever gone to the beach and built a sand castle with your kids?  If they start too close to the water, the waves will destroy their castle immediately.  They can start over but every time they begin to get a little progress a new wave comes in a forces them to start over.  That is how I view the MIAC.  If you are at the bottom of the conference and you're trying to build a program, it's hard to gain any traction and when you do, it is a lot harder to hang on and keep from getting knocked back to square one.  Carleton does recruit nationally (I think I saw someone say earlier this morning that they didn't, but they should?) and a lot of the kids they're recruiting are choosing between Carleton, Johns Hopkins, Wash U, Mac, and the NESCACs. I'm sure it is a hell of a lot harder to convince a kid to come to Carleton and get their asses handed to them four games out of the year, when they could go to Wash U and compete for a chance to get a tournament berth and upset North Central.

Wash U has only been an associate member of the CCIW for football for one season, so your comment really doesn't have a history behind it. And, again, that's just football. In the vast majority of its other sports, Wash U is a member of the UAA, which is a circuit of Wash U's true peer institutions: Chicago, Case Western Reserve, Rochester, Emory, Brandeis, NYU, and Carnegie Mellon, all of which are (like Wash U) urban-based national research universities that are members of the prestigious AAU (Association of American Universities), which is the hoity-toity, members-only yacht club of American universities.

And, yes, those of us who follow CCIW football found out this past season that Wash U's pretty good, or at least the Bears were good in 2018. But that's not entirely shocking; Wash U, like Williams and Amherst and Johns Hopkins, is good at just about every sport.

Now I'm not as well educated on the other D3 conferences or their histories as some of the other poster on here but these are my impressions: Wash U plays in a good-decent conference,

The CCIW is pretty good at football. The UAA is very good at all of the sports that that league sponsors. In other words, Wash U gets a heckuva lot of competition in just about every sport in which it competes.

Wash U, Williams, Amherst, Johns Hopkins, Middlebury, Tufts ... as the Learfield Directors' Cup standings indicate, they all compete on a national level in multiple sports. I really don't see any indication that that is the case with Carleton, although, as you said, the Knights hold their own within the MIAC in a bunch of sports.

My points aside, good post, carletonknights.