FB: Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[wildcat11]

CalSon,

Again, get over it.  It does the SCIAC schools ZERO, NADA, ZIP any service to play APU.  It would be one less DIII game on any SCIAC school schedule and does nothing to boost a team's criteria towards post season claim for a pool C bid.  If you win vs an NAIA it doesn't help and a loss does nothing but hurt (as we have seen with NWC teams). 

Sorry you have an axe to grind but you're not going to change anyone's mind in here about the subject and the SCIAC schools are not going to change either. 

Just let it go.....

[D O.C.]

Oh yes, the postseason suddenly became important to the SCIAC.

This is perhaps your best axe to grind because the chance of the SCIAC (or the NWC) getting 2 teams into the NCAA play-offs is not on the radar.
As PC (Mr. Moderator to you) hinted a win against an NAIA team ....is a win against an NAIA team.
SCIAC Pool A NCAA play-off bid is what it is. Champs, whether they play APU, or not, will get 1 (one) more game. If the ball bounces for them, 2 (two), the second on the road.

[Gray Fox]

For a few years ending in 1987 there were so few teams to play that the SCIAC teams played two games against one SCIAC opponent twice.  Each game counted as a half game in the standings.

I think the NWC was NAIA,  CLU was NAIA, and Menlo and Chapman football did not exist.  So games were played agaist APU, USD, and D2 schools. 

[redlandsfan]

So is it too early to state that Redlands will go 9-0 this year and host a round 1 playoff game?

Call me crazy, but I have got to back my boys!!!

[wildcat11]

So is it too early to state that Redlands will go 9-0 this year and host a round 1 playoff game?

Call me crazy, but I have got to back my boys!!!

Yes, it's too early to say that.  You never know who's going to get a bad break.

[Sabretooth Tiger]

So is it too early to state that Redlands will go 9-0 this year and host a round 1 playoff game?

Call me crazy, but I have got to back my boys!!!

Careful . . . karma doesn't take too well to hubris.

On second thought, nevermind  . . . go with your gut.

[Sabretooth Tiger]

Okay, I'll do some research.  And since none of you would offer, I called APU today and asked them to fax me their all-time results. 

Here's what I found out.  Cal Lutheran could not have dropped Azusa Pacific because of Christian Okoye, as someone suggested.  Despite Okoye rushing for nearly 250, Cal Lutheran still won the game by three TDs, and in the years to come they beat APU 5 more times.

La Verne beat Azusa Pacific 47-7 in 1994 and then 51-17 in 1995.  Numbers like those belie the notion about APU scholarship dollars giving them a significant advantage.   I see that APU did beat Redlands, 56-30, in 2000 and hasn't played them since, so perhaps all of you are onto something about Redlands ducking Linfield.

None of you have adequately explained how it does no good for a SCIAC team to play APU.  You just keep repeating the same nonsensical line without any reasoning.  I've offered two valid reasons why they should play:  1) It allows students and faculty/staff to enjoy more local games, and athletics exists first and foremost at DIII for the school.  2) It's fiscally irresponsible, particularly in today's economy, to spend that kind of money on a football game.

And if it's so important to travel today for the sake of recruiting, why weren't SCIAC teams traveling as much 15 years ago.  What culture changed?  Oh yes, the postseason suddenly became important to the SCIAC.  Please, one of you enlightened people spend the time to research what a stellar postseason record the SCIAC has compiled in football since 1982.  Spending all the travel money where 30 parents go along and one recruit gets his dream wish to play in Salem, Oregon, has paid off ever so handsomely for the SCIAC postseason endeavors.

I could care less about APU's schedule challenges.  My focus is more on why SCIAC teams don't play them anymore (oh I forgot, "they don't need to").  When doing my "research" as you demanded, and I received some historical information from APU, I did ask one official as to why they didn't play SCIAC teams any more.  His response was that they would like to but for some reason the SCIAC schools have stopped, and three of them (Whittier, La Verne and Chapman – included in the list), went so far as to cancel signed contracts to get out of games. 

Finally, yes I do have many years of collegiate administrative experience in the SCIAC, more than most of you have been alive.  I know what I speak of, and my request is sincere.  Justify, if you can, why all the small liberal arts colleges in Southern California aren't playing each other in football.

Chapman is not a SCIAC team.
Instead of faxes, try the internet that Al Gore built:  http://www.apu.edu/athletics/football
You might be able to get it on your Blackberry built by McCain.
No way in hell you've been in college administration longer than OB, DOC or I have been alive.
The value of playing DIII rather than NAIA has already been explained.
Most folks on this board would like to see more NWC/SCIAC matchups, not fewer.  That's because we're all DIII and populate the forgotten left coast of DIII football.

Azusa Pacific travels a different path.  If they want to play with us, all they have to do is leave the NAIA and join DIII. 

[D O.C.]

the forgotten left coast of DIII football

Please see the Daily Dose on the front page today.

[Gray Fox]

If you actually knew something about the SCIAC and local SoCal college sports history, then you'd have known that back when CLU played against APU and the Nigerian Nightmare, Cal Lutheran was still in NCAA Division II and a member of the athletic scholarship-awarding Western Football Conference, which has been defunct for about 15 years.

OxyBob

Thanks Bob,
It was too late last night to get my history exactly correct.   I might add that going to D3 caused major distress at CLU because football success at the very beginning of the school actually saved it from going broke.  It attracted enough students to keep it going until it could become financiallly stable.

[OXY Oswald]

None of you have adequately explained how it does no good for a SCIAC team to play APU. 

We already travel up and down the 210 for 7 games a year (SCIAC games + Chapman), how bout we get out of the state for a little bit and win one on the road, out of our teams comfort zone.  We rode on buses across the Greater Los Angeles area (or the hometown of each player for that matter) for the four years we spent in high school (Five, if you now go to Redlands  ).  Part of the college football experience is traveling to play.  I hardly consider Orange County traveling. 

1) It allows students and faculty/staff to enjoy more local games, and athletics exists first and foremost at DIII for the school.  2) It's fiscally irresponsible, particularly in today's economy, to spend that kind of money on a football game.

1) 7 of 9 games in So Cal should be plenty for out local fans to attend as well as plenty for presidents, AD's, faculty and anyone else for that matter to catch a game. 

2) It's also fiscallly irresponsible to not spend our nation's resources on alternative fuel technology but that's a very long discussion and this probably isn't the place for it.  So let's not start down that path.

3) I like creating lists because they make my points sound more bold.

And I could care less about APU's schedule challenges. My focus is more on why SCIAC teams don't play them anymore (oh I forgot, "they don't need to"). 

Good point.

[EastCoastStag]

I have never seen such board unity before....

I'm doubting CalSon's "SCIAC experience".

On to the season! Unfortunately no CMS game this weekend. Guess it just means I won't be checking the Berry for updates all Saturday afternoon. Need to do some due diligence on Oxy to see what is in store. Played them very close last year. Looking forward to what OB, Tooth, etc. can add to this upcoming matchup.

[OXY Oswald]

Football, and any collegiate sport, exists first and foremost for the students and faculty/staff in order to create and enhance community on campus, then the parents and alumni matter after that.

I don't agree here either.  I think football is a supplement to the collegiate experience for the players, not the students.  Having a team is a  perk for any school lucky enough.  

Alumni are a great source of revenue at Occidental, I can't comment about other SCIAC schools, and having games on the road give Alum in those areas the opportunity to see the Tigers play and have a renewed since of school spirit.  Particularly in their pocket books.

I also don't buy the argument from OxyBob that it helps recruiting.  Oxy has one Oregon player on the team, and if I read you right, Oxy has never been to Washington but has 9 appleheads on their team.  Oxy isn't getting the bang for its buck, or your logic is flawed.  Or maybe both.

We, Occidental, played several games against Puget Sound this decade, which last time I checked is in Washington.  Just because we only have one player from Oregon now, doesn't mean that games on the road in the Northwest don't help recruiting up there.  

We also have players from Michigan, New York, Illinois, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Vermont, and Indiana.  

[sarcasm]Obviously, none of them heard about us, or any other SCIAC school, from home/away games to:
Colorado Springs, CO
Fargo, ND
San Antonio, TX
Memphis, TN
Chicago, IL
Grinnell, IA
Kings Point, NY
Gambier, OH
Allentown, PA
Kenosha, WI
Collegeville, MN
Dubuque, IA
Lawrence, KS[/sarcasm]

[Sabretooth Tiger]

the forgotten left coast of DIII football

Please see the Daily Dose on the front page today.

You mean the poll?  I was referring to the west coast branch of the west region (NWC/SCIAC) . . . pacific coast style . . . I know the rest of our world thinks of Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin as being "west" . . .

[scandihoovian]

CalSon-

You crack me up.  You claim many years of administrative experience in the SCIAC, yet your arguments lack even a basic understanding of small college administration.

For example:
As you say, time and again, it's expensive to send a football game on a road trip.  But you fail to acknowledge the benefits of such travel to the student/athletes, many of whom chose to attend a small liberal arts school because it promised to expand their horizons.  You also ignore the primary reason Development & Admissions officers love these trips.  By playing in the Pacific Northwest every year, a school like CLU is able to maintain relationships with alumni in the area.  If just one of those alums comes through with a significant gift every twenty years or so, it more than pays for the trips.  The same can be said for raising the school's profile outside of its immediate geographic area, and improving its ability to attract students of all kinds. This is basic university relations math.

Additionally, you exhibit zero understanding of the desire of SCIAC schools to engage in competition with "like" institutions.  APU, especially as long as it offers athletic scholarships and maintains its NAIA membership, is not a like institution to any SCIAC school.  One of the primary reasons CLU went DIII and joined the SCIAC (and left the GSAC, of which APU is and was a member) was a desire to compete consistently with like institutions.  If APU wants to play the local D3s so badly, it could go D3 in football and maintain its GSAC membership in other sports.  At that point some of the seven other d3 football schools in SoCal might be a lot more interested in scheduling APU.  Even that, though, offers no guarantees.  I think most SCIAC schools are more than happy with their current schedules.  Which, I am sure, creates a fair amount of consternation over at APU, a school you seemed awfully concerned about for a guy who bills himself as a SCIAC fan.

[Gray Fox]

Which, I am sure, creates a fair amount of consternation over at APU, a school you seemed awfully concerned about for a guy who bills himself as a SCIAC fan.

I too was thinking he had a bias toward APU.  Maybe he just doesn't want to travel to their games.

We SCIAC posters have a long history of identifying impostors  and are always alert to inconsistencies.