FB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[MIAC23]

Regarding Reusse. I am an avid Gopher football follower and the majority of us have an extreme dislike for his writing and his radio call in segments......he rips the Gophers every single chance he gets. Many Gopher fans will not click on his Twitter feed or articles from the Strib because he is just shamelessly generating clicks and this MIAC debacle is no different for him. He is kind to the MIAC teams overall and that softens my dislike for him but he is a die hard Gopher hater. He claims he was a big time fan of Big Ten football in the 60's but something soured him, probably the Gophers losing! I think it has to do with his desire to come up with click bait. He is kind of an A-hole and obviously you guys are able to see this bad writing, nice job.

I wouldn't qualify it with "kind of". Reusse is a straight up A-hole troll, no qualifications needed, regarding the gophers.

Reusse obviously is a straight up troll. Not only are the Gophers on the upswing talent-wise, but all the community events that they partake in receive zero media attention.

I guess nobody else would talk to him, so he had to interview a guy who made it less than a year as an MIAC admin.

[hazzben]

I'm guessing Killian hates the narrative. But if UST gets the boot I think Olaf with Killian at the helm  gets competitive really fast in that version of the MIAC.

[GoldandBlueBU]

Regarding Reusse. I am an avid Gopher football follower and the majority of us have an extreme dislike for his writing and his radio call in segments......he rips the Gophers every single chance he gets. Many Gopher fans will not click on his Twitter feed or articles from the Strib because he is just shamelessly generating clicks and this MIAC debacle is no different for him. He is kind to the MIAC teams overall and that softens my dislike for him but he is a die hard Gopher hater. He claims he was a big time fan of Big Ten football in the 60's but something soured him, probably the Gophers losing! I think it has to do with his desire to come up with click bait. He is kind of an A-hole and obviously you guys are able to see this bad writing, nice job.

I wouldn't qualify it with "kind of". Reusse is a straight up A-hole troll, no qualifications needed, regarding the gophers.

Reusse obviously is a straight up troll. Not only are the Gophers on the upswing talent-wise, but all the community events that they partake in receive zero media attention.

I guess nobody else would talk to him, so he had to interview a guy who made it less than a year as an MIAC admin.

I'm mixed on Ruesse.  I hate his constant trolling, negativity on Fleck (you don't have to love the guy, but it annoys me how he hates him just because he isn't his personal flavor), and much of his general demeanor.  He is certainly an A-hole part, or perhaps most of the time.

That being said, I do appreciate his ability to speak about so much MN sports history at levels from HS all the way to pro.  He's un-matched in that regard.  I also appreciate that he pays attention to the MIAC, which nobody else seems to do consistently, even though he knows the audience is more limited than it would be for many topics.

[TheChucker]

Regarding Reusse. I am an avid Gopher football follower and the majority of us have an extreme dislike for his writing and his radio call in segments......he rips the Gophers every single chance he gets. Many Gopher fans will not click on his Twitter feed or articles from the Strib because he is just shamelessly generating clicks and this MIAC debacle is no different for him. He is kind to the MIAC teams overall and that softens my dislike for him but he is a die hard Gopher hater. He claims he was a big time fan of Big Ten football in the 60's but something soured him, probably the Gophers losing! I think it has to do with his desire to come up with click bait. He is kind of an A-hole and obviously you guys are able to see this bad writing, nice job.

I wouldn't qualify it with "kind of". Reusse is a straight up A-hole troll, no qualifications needed, regarding the gophers.

Reusse obviously is a straight up troll. Not only are the Gophers on the upswing talent-wise, but all the community events that they partake in receive zero media attention.

I guess nobody else would talk to him, so he had to interview a guy who made it less than a year as an MIAC admin.

I'm mixed on Ruesse.  I hate his constant trolling, negativity on Fleck (you don't have to love the guy, but it annoys me how he hates him just because he isn't his personal flavor), and much of his general demeanor.  He is certainly an A-hole part, or perhaps most of the time.

That being said, I do appreciate his ability to speak about so much MN sports history at levels from HS all the way to pro.  He's un-matched in that regard.  I also appreciate that he pays attention to the MIAC, which nobody else seems to do consistently, even though he knows the audience is more limited than it would be for many topics.

I pay attention to Reusse on small college, HS, and outstate stuff where he can be very good; and occasionally the Twins as he has historically been a good baseball writer and hasn't gone full-blown troll on them. Other than that, I won't touch his stuff with a ten-foot pole.

[wm4]

I find it very bizarre nobody from the Coalition of Losers is trying to step-up and steer the narrative in a more favorable direction. You have to be pretty incompetent to inadvertently drum up sympathy for the Evil Empire and make us look like the good guys. The great irony: this was about the bad press these institutions were getting from lopsided football scores. Now they're getting bad press from being inexplicably shrouded in secrecy, acting like the kid who takes the ball and goes home, and to top it off, you see 97-0 in every article.

If Reusse, McFeely, Kolpack or whoever is writing about this has it completely wrong, then step up to the podium and explain yourself. This is getting dumber by the minute.

So bizarre, but it must be how the Passive Aggressive handbook reads, which sits on President Anderson's desk. 

BTW, talked to a couple Tommies who were starers in 2017 and these blowouts.  They had an interesting perspective in that no matter the score, situation or opponent, you were always being graded on your play.  The camera never went off and the grading never stopped.  You *never* wanted to be that player called out in film review for not doing your job. 

Also, the 2's and 3's were working hard and competing to make the playoff roster and travel with the team.  Anything you could do on film to better your chances, you did it. 

[USTBench]

I find it very bizarre nobody from the Coalition of Losers is trying to step-up and steer the narrative in a more favorable direction. You have to be pretty incompetent to inadvertently drum up sympathy for the Evil Empire and make us look like the good guys. The great irony: this was about the bad press these institutions were getting from lopsided football scores. Now they're getting bad press from being inexplicably shrouded in secrecy, acting like the kid who takes the ball and goes home, and to top it off, you see 97-0 in every article.

If Reusse, McFeely, Kolpack or whoever is writing about this has it completely wrong, then step up to the podium and explain yourself. This is getting dumber by the minute.

So bizarre, but it must be how the Passive Aggressive handbook reads, which sits on President Anderson's desk. 

BTW, talked to a couple Tommies who were starers in 2017 and these blowouts.  They had an interesting perspective in that no matter the score, situation or opponent, you were always being graded on your play.  The camera never went off and the grading never stopped.  You *never* wanted to be that player called out in film review for not doing your job. 

Also, the 2's and 3's were working hard and competing to make the playoff roster and travel with the team.  Anything you could do on film to better your chances, you did it.

That's the other part of this that has been lost in the narrative. Anecdotally speaking: the occasions when our starters put a game sufficiently out-of-reach and I was playing full series, as a 19/20 year old college football player desperate for more playing time, I didn't much think about my opponent's feelings. I was focused on doing my job correctly so that particular opportunity became a more frequent occurrence.

If you stick out fall camp, off-season weights and conditioning, study the playbook, show up to film, buy into the concept of team, and avail yourself to every special team, and you're still a back-up or buried on the depth chart, then your reward is playing time. There's no surprise scholarship coming.

[TheChucker]

I find it very bizarre nobody from the Coalition of Losers is trying to step-up and steer the narrative in a more favorable direction. You have to be pretty incompetent to inadvertently drum up sympathy for the Evil Empire and make us look like the good guys. The great irony: this was about the bad press these institutions were getting from lopsided football scores. Now they're getting bad press from being inexplicably shrouded in secrecy, acting like the kid who takes the ball and goes home, and to top it off, you see 97-0 in every article.

If Reusse, McFeely, Kolpack or whoever is writing about this has it completely wrong, then step up to the podium and explain yourself. This is getting dumber by the minute.

So bizarre, but it must be how the Passive Aggressive handbook reads, which sits on President Anderson's desk. 

BTW, talked to a couple Tommies who were starers in 2017 and these blowouts.  They had an interesting perspective in that no matter the score, situation or opponent, you were always being graded on your play.  The camera never went off and the grading never stopped.  You *never* wanted to be that player called out in film review for not doing your job. 

Also, the 2's and 3's were working hard and competing to make the playoff roster and travel with the team.  Anything you could do on film to better your chances, you did it.

It's not realistic to ask players to let up. Coaches can definitely impact the results by in-game tactics though. Bethel, St. Johns and St. Thomas beat the bottom 4 opponents (STO, Carl, Aug, Ham)  on average by 46/53/62 points respectively per game last fall. In 2017 it was 42/49/69. I guess Johnson and Fasching are slightly more sympathetic than Caruso, but only slightly.

Overall, D3 athletics (amplified by football) is becoming more broken by the year in terms of competitiveness within leagues. It's not just the MIAC. UMHB beat the bottom four teams by 59 points this year on average. In D1, some parity was accomplished by limiting scholarships a number of years ago. D2 and NAIA limit scholarships nationally, but there are big differences among schools and conferences in how many scholarships are actually funded; still, the disparity in results doesn't seem so striking. There are no scholarships to limit in D3, so I'm not sure what the answer is.

[TheChucker]

So, hypothetically, I wonder how many top athletic D3 schools would fly to D2 or NAIA if the NCAA was to 1) outlaw all "leadership" and similar type scholarships, and 2) mandate that all academic scholarships must be based on standardized objective criteria like ACT/SAT/GPA?

[OzJohnnie]

The solution isn't to put an anchor on UST.  The solution is to help the other programs lift themselves up.

[USTBench]

The solution isn't to put an anchor on UST.  The solution is to help the other programs lift themselves up.

Conference welfare? Even distribution of victories so everyone goes 4-4 in conference play.

[TheChucker]

The solution isn't to put an anchor on UST.  The solution is to help the other programs lift themselves up.

How? Telling all schools they must spend a minimum of $X,XXX,XXX on athletic budgets and financial aid for athletes? In the end, the schools that 1) offer the most financial aid, 2) build the best facilities, 3) recruit the hardest, 4) hire the best and most coaches, and 4) have the most appealing institutions (for scores of reasons) will have the best athletic programs.

Almost all these factors involve big $$$, though the first factor (financial aid) also involves a school's philosophy on how merit aid is allocated. This philosophy issue is where the huge rift is I think.

It's my understanding that Carleton and Mac, and St. Olaf to a lesser extent, only give out financial aid based on very strict formulas and have little to no flexibility on lowering academic standards for athletes and never will. It's my understanding that St. Thomas is at the opposite end of this spectrum in that it places a very high value on athletics and backs it up with financial aid philosophy (because it can) and infrastructure (because it can). The other schools all fall in the middle somewhere based on financial resources and philosophy.

That rift seems pretty damn big now and getting bigger and not just in the MIAC. D3 has no way to limit scholarships to promote competitiveness because (technically) there are none. The D4 alternative was thrown out years ago. These schools just might need to realign with more like-minded schools; extra travel be damned.

[wm4]

It's my understanding that Carleton and Mac, and St. Olaf to a lesser extent, only give out financial aid based on very strict formulas and have little to no flexibility on lowering academic standards for athletes and never will. It's my understanding that St. Thomas is at the opposite end of this spectrum in that it places a very high value on athletics and backs it up with financial aid philosophy (because it can) and infrastructure (because it can). The other schools all fall in the middle somewhere based on financial resources and philosophy.

That rift seems pretty damn big now and getting bigger and not just in the MIAC. D3 has no way to limit scholarships to promote competitiveness because (technically) there are none. The D4 alternative was thrown out years ago. These schools just might need to realign with more like-minded schools; extra travel be damned.

In the D3 division, scholarships for athletes can't differ much from scholarships for the general student population. 

[miac952]

Chucker - the scholarships get audited by the NCAA against the non athlete student body every year. This has been brought up baselessly on here a few times already.

Also, note UST Football's rise came long before any facilities. Caruso had them in the NCAA quarters long before the facility developments were a reality. At that time they had rusting weights in a hot box of a weight room that small high schools would ridicule today. They won a national championship in hockey playing in a horse barn at the fairgrounds. They dominated track and field while in one of the saddest indoor facilities in the conference. Baseball won a national title while having to move 7 man blocking sleds into foul territory before games started, leaving huge ruts in the outfield; also the location for hammer and shot put by the way. You really test your mettle as a center fielder shagging fly balls while dodging hammer throws from the throwers.

Meanwhile, St Olaf has had some of the best facilities in the MIAC for some time. The gigantic fieldhouse with a 2nd deck, the $10 million ice arena, and the separate football training facilities. Yet, they are the ringleader of this mess. Let's not forget they had a football program rolling up huge scores on teams in the last decade, while building a recruiting pipeline from Dade and Broward counties, leading to skepticism from the rest of the conference. Note, this was all under President Anderson's watch by the way. The other schools didn't decide to cut and run. 

[OzJohnnie]

The solution isn't to put an anchor on UST.  The solution is to help the other programs lift themselves up.

No, no welfare or mandatory spends. Instead I'm thinking the conference should consider offering more than group insurance rates and a transport scheduling service.  They should consider high-end coaching and administration learning, area networking, recruiting planning and marketing air cover, that sort of stuff.  In short, I'm thinking the conference should consider becoming a professional sports association for minnesota private colleges, akin to a chamber of commerce, rather than a local scheduling service.

The MIAC has served well to create a conference where like minded schools could compete with each other for 100 years.  But competition in sports is no longer local. It's national. And the next step in d3 conference athletics is that the conferences will start competing with each other.

"Join any school in the MIAC, it's a better sporting environment than ARC" for example. Or, "if you don go to UHMB then why would you go anywhere in the SAC?"  That sort of thing. And help the programs get exposure to the sort of advice and learning they need to improve.

That won't mean that Hamline can beat UST any time soon, but it does mean that athletes who wouldn't consider hamline May now as they would like to get into the MIAC for the quality of sports they have there. Not just the sporting capacity of a few schools. That's my suggestion.
That

[Mr. Ypsi]

Regarding the athlete/non-athlete financial aid comparisons (to protect D3 from athletic scholarships): unless the NCAA enforcement is much more 'deep-dive' than I would expect, this would be an easy violation to cover up.  Got a 'sure-fire AA QB' recruit you're drooling over - give him a full-ride 'academic' scholarship, then shave a small amount off of your 60-70 least important recruits' financial aid.  I assume that the basic comparison is athlete average vs. student body average, so there goes any discrepancy.  Since he would be fairly useless unless he has at least adequate runners, receivers and line protection, it is not QUITE that simple, but judicious juggling of financial aid packages should be able to cover up a lot of shenanigans.  In other sports, shenanigans should be even easier to cover up.

Please note, I am NOT accusing UST (or anyone else) of doing this, but the protections against 'athletic' scholarships seem rather porous to me.