FB: USA South Athletic Conference

[Scots13]

Now that I'm retired from the game, I reckon I can post on here without wondering if the coaches will find out. I've been reading this board for a while now, but 6 weeks and no posts? I gotta get my fill on USAS football at least once a month..so I'll add my two cents.
Now to the good stuff:  I noticed the other day that last season MC had the most seniors on the roster since going 7-3 in 07.  Looking at the number of juniors from last year who will more than likely be seniors this year (but we all know what the say about assuming..) from each team, I was shocked by the disparity in the numbers. This year I would be comfortable saying the top four teams of the conf are Maryville, CNU, Huntingdon, and Methodist.  MC will have 18 srs, CNU 26, Huntingdon 24, and MU 13.
The rest of the conf is Ferrum and Averett with 14, Greensboro with 13, and NCWC and LaGrange with 10.
Of course I may have miscounted.
What are yall's thoughts on this?

[D3MAFAN]

Now that I'm retired from the game, I reckon I can post on here without wondering if the coaches will find out. I've been reading this board for a while now, but 6 weeks and no posts? I gotta get my fill on USAS football at least once a month..so I'll add my two cents.
Now to the good stuff:  I noticed the other day that last season MC had the most seniors on the roster since going 7-3 in 07.  Looking at the number of juniors from last year who will more than likely be seniors this year (but we all know what the say about assuming..) from each team, I was shocked by the disparity in the numbers. This year I would be comfortable saying the top four teams of the conf are Maryville, CNU, Huntingdon, and Methodist.  MC will have 18 srs, CNU 26, Huntingdon 24, and MU 13.
The rest of the conf is Ferrum and Averett with 14, Greensboro with 13, and NCWC and LaGrange with 10.
Of course I may have miscounted.
What are yall's thoughts on this?

IMHO opinion the number of seniors has a big play in how a team does in the following year, however it is the experience of thoses seniors that is key. I would put more emphasis on the number of seniors with considerable playing time as underclassmen. Yet, there are times that you may find a player that went under the radar as an underclassmen that makes an impact in their senior year.

Now, regarding how I have the USAS playing out.

Huntingdon
Ferrum
CNU
MU
NCWC
MV
LaGrange
Greensboro
AU

[Scots13]

That's very true. I read on the Ferrum Football Report (which is very well written in my opinion) that they graduated 8 on defense and 5 on offense.  I wonder how that will affect the team, but they probably won't be hurt too awful bad.  Does anyone know how many starters are returning for each team?  MC returns something like 18 or 19 and 5 that saw significant time.

[Hawks88]

On defense we had the 4 starters on the d-line graduate but pretty much everyone else should be back. We play a lot of people on the d-line so we have good experience coming back plus the JV games I've seen the last couple of years we had some good looking d-linemen there so I'm not too worried about the defense. The D will need to be good early as on offense we had the QB, the RB, 3 of the top 4 receivers, the top two H-backs and two o-linemen graduate. Hopefully some of the young guys on that side can step in and get into sync pretty quick.

Ready for some football in Alabama!
Go Hawks!

[Scots13]

I'm sure Coach Turk will have those boys ready to roll by Week 1.  Kinda wish Maryville and HC were playing early in the season AT Maryville, but oh well..It'll be one of those game you have to circle on the calendar for fans of both schools. HC has a quality place to play. One of my favorites...even if it is in Alabama.

[D3MAFAN]

On defense we had the 4 starters on the d-line graduate but pretty much everyone else should be back. We play a lot of people on the d-line so we have good experience coming back plus the JV games I've seen the last couple of years we had some good looking d-linemen there so I'm not too worried about the defense. The D will need to be good early as on offense we had the QB, the RB, 3 of the top 4 receivers, the top two H-backs and two o-linemen graduate. Hopefully some of the young guys on that side can step in and get into sync pretty quick.

Ready for some football in Alabama!
Go Hawks!

I think Huntingdon offense is systematic. They just need a quarterback that will make smart decisions withing the offense and not make untimely turnovers (i.e. Adrian & Wesley). If they find a player that can do that they should fair pretty well. The offense when run effectively is tough to stop. However, with those defensive lineman graduating, that may become cumbersome when playing against teams that effectively run the ball, their opponenent will be able to control the clock and take time away from the offense.

[hasanova]

On defense we had the 4 starters on the d-line graduate but pretty much everyone else should be back. We play a lot of people on the d-line so we have good experience coming back plus the JV games I've seen the last couple of years we had some good looking d-linemen there so I'm not too worried about the defense. The D will need to be good early as on offense we had the QB, the RB, 3 of the top 4 receivers, the top two H-backs and two o-linemen graduate. Hopefully some of the young guys on that side can step in and get into sync pretty quick.

Ready for some football in Alabama!
Go Hawks!

Aren't people in Alabama always ready for some football? 

[jknezek]

On defense we had the 4 starters on the d-line graduate but pretty much everyone else should be back. We play a lot of people on the d-line so we have good experience coming back plus the JV games I've seen the last couple of years we had some good looking d-linemen there so I'm not too worried about the defense. The D will need to be good early as on offense we had the QB, the RB, 3 of the top 4 receivers, the top two H-backs and two o-linemen graduate. Hopefully some of the young guys on that side can step in and get into sync pretty quick.

Ready for some football in Alabama!
Go Hawks!

Aren't people in Alabama always ready for some football? 

Yep. And I feel bad for some of the USAS teams. Given what I've seen from them playing the ODAC teams over the years, and given what I saw Huntingdon do playing Wesley last year, this could be ugly for some of those teams. We'll see. I still find it very entertaining that "somehow" the schedule does not include a Huntingdon vs CNU game this year. I know the deal was that not all teams would play each other to honor the OOC commitments and other reasons, but not to have those two teams play seems a gamble to try and have 2 highly ranked teams come season end. Legitimate, but awfully suspicious.

[Pat Coleman]

Reminds me of when Catholic joined the ODAC for football and W&L was excused from playing them for the first year.

[jknezek]

Reminds me of when Catholic joined the ODAC for football and W&L was excused from playing them for the first year.

Fair enough. The difference is that at the time W&L was coming off a 4-6, 1-4 record in the ODAC and hadn't been ODAC championship relevant since 1985. Catholic certainly was ODAC relevant in '99, but they had to play the reigning champion (E&H) and simply missed one of the lower tier teams. CNU is coming off multiple conference championships and I think most of us expect Huntingdon to challenge for the USAS championship right from the get go. So yeah, Huntingdon is playing Catholic's role, but CNU isn't playing W&L's. I can see how you could draw the parallel, but it's not exactly the same thing...

Of course that also leaves out the comparative difficulties of making the NCAA tournament in the pre-AQ age, which again makes skipping the Huntingdon-CNU matchup much more important than skipping the W&L-Catholic game in '99. One would think if the USAS was really trying to find out who the best team in the conference was, Averett would be the missing competitor from both schedules, not the reigning heavyweight and the incoming challenger. From an SOS point of view, you'd think both teams would have preferred to play the game as well. Neither team shys away from hard games, so I just find the whole situation very surprising.

[Scots13]

This may be a move to get two teams ranked at the same time later in the season.  Obviously both teams are top 25 worthy most seasons, and let's face it...the USAS doesn't have many outsider's attention in football.  Having at least one of them ranked for a good portion of the season, or both, might help the conf overall in terms of regional and national attention.

[Hawks88]

One would think if the USAS was really trying to find out who the best team in the conference was, Averett would be the missing competitor from both schedules, not the reigning heavyweight and the incoming challenger. From an SOS point of view, you'd think both teams would have preferred to play the game as well. Neither team shys away from hard games, so I just find the whole situation very surprising.

You couldn't take Averett off of both schedules. Averett would then only have 6 conference games. It looks as though these are the matchups that are missing; Huntingdon doesn't play CNU, Ferrum doesn't play Methodist, Maryville doesn't play NC Wesleyan, and Averett doesn't play Greensboro. LaGrange is the only one that plays everyone. The thing that would be goofy besides two teams ending up undefeated would be if LaGrange and two other teams end up tied for first with one or two losses each. Would the 7-1 trump the two 6-1's or would the tie(?) be broken some other way?

[jknezek]

Averett can play the rest of the ODAC. They already have almost half the league on their schedule (sort of kidding, they have 3 OOC ODAC games). Good point though Hawks, didn't think that it was 2 games when I was typing it up. Should have been Averett and whoever finished second from the bottom missing from CNU and Huntingdon. I think the point I made is still valid, but for catching my silly mistake... +K

[D3MAFAN]

Having at least one of them ranked for a good portion of the season, or both, might help the conf overall in terms of regional and national attention.

Teams would start having to play teams other than that of the ODAC for sure or the conference represenative win a playoff game or two.

[Hawks88]

On defense we had the 4 starters on the d-line graduate but pretty much everyone else should be back. We play a lot of people on the d-line so we have good experience coming back plus the JV games I've seen the last couple of years we had some good looking d-linemen there so I'm not too worried about the defense. The D will need to be good early as on offense we had the QB, the RB, 3 of the top 4 receivers, the top two H-backs and two o-linemen graduate. Hopefully some of the young guys on that side can step in and get into sync pretty quick.

Ready for some football in Alabama!
Go Hawks!

Aren't people in Alabama always ready for some football? 

Yeah, I guess that statement was kind of redundant, huh?