FB: USA South Athletic Conference

[crazylegs33]

I have never seen such a chopped and mixed bracket. I don't know if you can even give it a cardinal direction. As in the "West Bracket". Technically UW-Whitewater is a West team. We are south obviously along with Thomas More. Then thrown in some east teams (salisbury, kean and W. New England) and top it off with Albion and Franklin from the North.

Not sure why they avoided sending us to Salisbury (closest in proximity). Then Kean couldve played Western New England (Short drive). To me that makes sense. Maybe the NCAA didnt want the rematch?

Either way, I think we can make some noise. It's hard to say how good they really are. We will find out saturday that's for sure.

I know I will be there. Any other CNU crazies going to the game?

[crazylegs33]

Another side note. I just checked the UMHB bracket which includes west, south and east teams. They have a texas sub-bracket (Trinity vs. McMurry) and a west coast sub-bracket (Linfield and Cal Lutheran). No big deal. What is odd is the team the west coast teams have to play next. Either Wesley(Delaware) or Hobart(New York)! Wow. Guranteed at least one cross continental flight coast to coast.

This is for sure the oddest overall playoff bracket I have ever seen.

[Captain Bob]

I might have made the drive up to see the Kean game, but will be heading west to St. Louis to follow the volleyball team to the national championship instead.

In football news, Kelchner got the Coach of the Year nod.  A very balanced lineup for conference honors imo, with the top player awards going to four different schools.

Full details:  http://cnusports.com/news/2011/11/16/FB_1116114006.aspx

The local paper also did a great article on Kelchner's take on the Penn State scandal:
http://www.dailypress.com/sports/colleges/dp-spt-teel-column-kelchner-paterno-20111109,0,1485514.column

[CNU85]

A lot of CNU action this weekend in sports. I wish I was a little further along in post surgery I would be on the the way up to NJ right now. I def will be listening tomorrow on radio. Good luck Captains.

Now time to go follow volleyball.

[crazylegs33]

Turnovers...will...kill...you

With 1:30 left in the 2nd quarter the score was 14-7 Kean over CNU. Then we hand the game to Kean by throwing 3 picks inside our own 40. The sick thing is that in the 2nd half, Kean did not even get one first down. CNU defense was overall outstanding and only allowed one drive all day. Everything else started inside the 30 yard line. It's a sick way to lose a ball game.

[crazylegs33]

Kean amassed an impressive 18 yards in the 2nd half.

[narch]

maryville makes it official...they are looking for a head coach

http://www.maryvillecollege.edu/athletics/sport/football/news/details/4178/

[abnrgr]

That's about 8-9 families on the street right before the holidays. Good timing Maryville.

As the Director of comms said "it's not about W/Ls". Sure honey......

NOW I remember why I did not have the guts to be a college coach for more than one season. Ruthless

[narch]

looks like coach i isn't really pleased that he's looking for a job, either...http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2011/nov/28/tony-ierulli-blames-political-correctness-for/

[batteredbard]

Had a few request for The Daily Times links on the Ierulli saga. These will get you to the originals.

Nov 23 - Dismissal story
http://www.thedailytimes.com/Sports_News/story/MC-dismisses-football-coach-Tony-Ierulli-id-018025

Nov. 23 column
http://www.thedailytimes.com/Marcus_Fitzsimmons/story/Silence-ensures-it-wont-be-all-right-id-018009

Nov. 29 correction column
http://www.thedailytimes.com/Marcus_Fitzsimmons/story/Fessin-up-when-you-done-wrong-id-018210

Nov 28 - Official release story
http://www.thedailytimes.com/Sports_News/story/MC-Ierulli-asked-for-delay-in-announcing-dismissal-id-018167

Nov 30 - AD says, coach says story
http://www.thedailytimes.com/Sports_News/story/Ierulli-questions-dismissal-AD-says-it-wasnt-personal-id-018209

[batteredbard]

For the moment Locke, Hayes and Elliott are still employed by MC full time.
We were told they are out recruiting and that an interim head coach will not be named.

I can't help but think its going to be a hard sell to talk to players about coming to a school with no coach and no guarantee the guy talking to them will be there in the fall.

The part timers that wish to be are being retained until a coach is hired and decides on them as well.

Search committee chaired by Joe Dawson meets today.

[abnrgr]

Bard
Thanks for the updates.

SHE may be getting ready to dump football next. Nobody in their right mind wants to step into a hole that is awaiting them.

"Nothing personal" means "I would like to whack you". When you fire a coach it is usually supported by empirical data. "Nothing personal" LOL!!....it screams BS. As soon as she mentioned that she was a female she let that puppy out the bag....nothing personal....whatever

Nice school and town.

Crying shame

[narch]

i think it was bill walsh who once said that at around 10 years the message stops getting through...maybe the ad ascribes to this theory

while i feel bad for coach i and his staff, every coach knows that there is about a 90% chance that he/she will be fired at some time when they get into the profession...there aren't many who get to ride into the sunset on their own terms - at this point he should start firing off his resume...he'd make a heck of a dc for someone

[Ralph Turner]

Bard, thanks for the coverage of the story...

Looking at the success to date at Maryville, Coach Ierulli was on his way to having a tremendous legacy as a head coach.

He took the school into an affiliation with the conference it would eventually join, after the university had been instrumental in developing its own conference (GSAC) that just did not quite get off the ground for the men.

Going from 5-25 in the 3 previous years to a 24-25 in the USA South in 7 seasons and 39-50 overal tells me that he was accomplishing the goals that are not stated in the won-loss column for his alma mater.

He saw what was not working this season and changed course to take the program where it needed to go.

The critical areas that AD Schram will need to address will be:

-- retention among the football players in the current class. In a school such as Maryville, the loss of 25 undergrad players who are not replaced in this coaching turnover may mean (25 players times $20,000/yr net revenue times 2 years) $1 Million in revenue. In this economy, that will be hard to make up.  I suspect that Maryville had a major attrition of freshmen football players who realized that they could not make it in D-III college ball. The success of Maryville as a college experience is what would keep that former student-athlete as a student.  If there is a bad taste among the "25" or more, then AD Schram will be scrambling to retain the revenue producing bodies.  Losing upperclassmen hurts a program because 18-year-old freshmen are not as big as 22-year-old seniors.

(We finally got our senior class back this year at McMurry.  Look at our 2000 "decade of disaster" when the wheels fell off the program because of a departure of one coordinator to start the Louisiana College program and the tragic ugly agonizing death from colon cancer of the Head Coach Steve Keenum's (father of UH's Chase Keenum) friend and other coordinator.  It took 3 head coaches and a shift in the direction of the university to break out of that tailspin.)

-- keeping the faith and the funds of the friends and alums.  Football is the South; the South is Football.

I anticipate that this will be hard.  The wheels fell off but we had trouble fixing the football program amidst general success in the athletic department. From our experience at McMurry where we had winning programs in Men's and Women's Hoops, a perennial power in Track and Field (Men's National Champs in 2008 led by the first Female Head Coach, Barbara Crousen, of a Men's National Championship team in NCAA history), a winning baseball program, and competitive programs in M/Wcross country,  M/W tennis, volleyball, M/W golf and M/W swimming,  Football was the key in Texas.  That may not be the case in east Tennessee, but that is SEC country and they love their football, at any level.  Coach Ierulli was competitive in that conference.

Ierulli had to have been a well-connected alum.  That is hard to overcome in the Maryville family.  The fact that Coach Randy Lambert appears to have been on his side (Knoxnews article) also drives a wedge into the situation.

I wish the Maryville fans the best for them.  Aside from moral turpitude, repetitive criminal behaviors by players or embezzlement, it sounds like there are no significant grounds for his dismissal that football players/alums/friends would consider adequate.


(I recommend the book Hard Ball for Women by Pat Heim to understand some of the dynamics of women in competition.  I especially like her example of the game, "4-square". Men and women are different competitive creatures.  Any coach who had coached both knows it well.)

[@d3jason]

i think it was bill walsh who once said that at around 10 years the message stops getting through...maybe the ad ascribes to this theory

while i feel bad for coach i and his staff, every coach knows that there is about a 90% chance that he/she will be fired at some time when they get into the profession...there aren't many who get to ride into the sunset on their own terms - at this point he should start firing off his resume...he'd make a heck of a dc for someone

Yes but that's with pros, with the amount of turnover in a college program, I don't see that as much as a factor.

Agreed, that coaching is a tough profession, not much stability if you want coach as the college level.