FB: Liberty League

[Jonny Utah]

Also congrats to these two guys, for having the highest GPA on the NY Region All Academic team.  4.0 is top notch.

LB Tony Silvanic St. John Fisher College Jr. 4.00 Finance

OL Ryan Ehrets Union College So. 3.91 Mechanical Engineering

But in all seriousness, if I ran a company and wanted to hire new workers for anything, I'd get this list and start calling. 

(Since I pretty much type on d3football.com all day, I am unable to make these decisions).

Haha! Pep can hear your boss yelling from here, "Hey Utah, get the heck off that D3 MySpace page and get to WORK!!"

+k

Ha.  I actually work with two Union grads, and we used to always make wagers on the IC/Union games (neither played football but one played baseball at Union), and then at some time around 2015 they both realized it was cutting heavily into their retirement plans so they decided to invest their money into safer investment packages.....

[Garnet]

I was surprised to see that the Frozen Cat Turd trophy game did not make this list....

https://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2017/11/22/16657572/college-football-rivalry-nicknames

[NED3Guy]

How many reps do we actually think "young guys" are getting during the ecac week practices? It's cold, the staff is trying to win a game, and my guess is that the young guys that you speak of are reading scout cards while they freeze their tails off. We're not talking about FBS where there's a month before you play the bowl game. We're talking about three practices and a walk thru.... Maybe fifteen minutes of individual period each day, if that.

Yes, Mount Union has a system in place where they use the extra practices to keep developing guys, but that isn't happening at any of the places were talking about.

One other point to note is that many D3 coaches were on the road last week visiting schools and getting to meet with HS coaches and players.... Ithaca was busy prepping for a meaningless bowl game.... Advantage: guys who got to start recruiting.

[Joe Rockhead]

I'm posting this here on the Liberty League page because Coach Donnelly was an Ithaca alum and current coach Nate Mine is Hobart graduate.  Hopefully you will find this of interest. Here is a link to a preview of a feature on Muhlenberg's Coach Donnelly that will air on Thanksgiving Day on CBS sports. The preview speaks for itself. https://twitter.com/CBSSportsNet/status/1064946456522575872

Friends of Mules Football.
CBS has set a date for the video about Coach Duke Donnelly and his battle with cancer. 
It will air on CBS Sports, Thanksgiving day at 2:30 PM.  We hope you'll tune in and share some memories about Coach Donnelly.  You can see a preview of the video on our twitter page. 
If you don't have CBS Sports I'm sure we will be getting the link to the video shortly after.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING


Nate Milne
Muhlenberg College
Head Football Coach

[Jonny Utah]

How many reps do we actually think "young guys" are getting during the ecac week practices? It's cold, the staff is trying to win a game, and my guess is that the young guys that you speak of are reading scout cards while they freeze their tails off. We're not talking about FBS where there's a month before you play the bowl game. We're talking about three practices and a walk thru.... Maybe fifteen minutes of individual period each day, if that.

Yes, Mount Union has a system in place where they use the extra practices to keep developing guys, but that isn't happening at any of the places were talking about.

One other point to note is that many D3 coaches were on the road last week visiting schools and getting to meet with HS coaches and players.... Ithaca was busy prepping for a meaningless bowl game.... Advantage: guys who got to start recruiting.

Ok I agree with you about the practice time.  But he recruiting still is pretty much zero as well.  The Union coach that came to my HS last Saturday  looking for our stud WR?  We told him he went to RPI for the weeekend because the coaches invited him to a game.

(Ok I completely made that up but that would be funny, and either way one week isn't affecting anything program related except for Budget issues)

[Frank Rossi]

Anecdotally, a coach who was asking me about what happened with the Hobart/Union/LL/NY Bowl debacle said to me without prompting, "That'll be used against them in recruiting without a doubt."  Whether or not you think it bears fruit in that landscape, it's actually a thing based on an actual coach's perspective.  It was followed by another coach suggesting it was a travesty.

[Jonny Utah]

Anecdotally, a coach who was asking me about what happened with the Hobart/Union/LL/NY Bowl debacle said to me without prompting, "That'll be used against them in recruiting without a doubt."  Whether or not you think it bears fruit in that landscape, it's actually a thing based on an actual coach's perspective.  It was followed by another coach suggesting it was a travesty.

What was a travesty, not having the bowl game?

[Frank Rossi]

Anecdotally, a coach who was asking me about what happened with the Hobart/Union/LL/NY Bowl debacle said to me without prompting, "That'll be used against them in recruiting without a doubt."  Whether or not you think it bears fruit in that landscape, it's actually a thing based on an actual coach's perspective.  It was followed by another coach suggesting it was a travesty.

What was a travesty, not having the bowl game?

How it was handled and not playing/filing in general -- I relayed what the first coach suggested, and he agreed (re: recruitment).

[ITH radio]

I'm posting this here on the Liberty League page because Coach Donnelly was an Ithaca alum and current coach Nate Mine is Hobart graduate.  Hopefully you will find this of interest. Here is a link to a preview of a feature on Muhlenberg's Coach Donnelly that will air on Thanksgiving Day on CBS sports. The preview speaks for itself. https://twitter.com/CBSSportsNet/status/1064946456522575872

Friends of Mules Football.
CBS has set a date for the video about Coach Duke Donnelly and his battle with cancer. 
It will air on CBS Sports, Thanksgiving day at 2:30 PM.  We hope you'll tune in and share some memories about Coach Donnelly.  You can see a preview of the video on our twitter page. 
If you don't have CBS Sports I'm sure we will be getting the link to the video shortly after.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING


Nate Milne
Muhlenberg College
Head Football Coach

Thanks for this - Frank and I started sharing it last night. Looks like an emotional, but fitting tribute, to a great man and coach.

[Oline89]

Anecdotally, a coach who was asking me about what happened with the Hobart/Union/LL/NY Bowl debacle said to me without prompting, "That'll be used against them in recruiting without a doubt."  Whether or not you think it bears fruit in that landscape, it's actually a thing based on an actual coach's perspective.  It was followed by another coach suggesting it was a travesty.

What was a travesty, not having the bowl game?

How it was handled and not playing/filing in general -- I relayed what the first coach suggested, and he agreed (re: recruitment).

I highly doubt that a recruit who is trying to decide between Union/Hobart and another compatible school is going to make a college choice based on a dumbass administrative decision.  However, those schools have now lost the ability to use the "even if we don't make the NCAA, we still can play in a Bowl Game" enticement.  I promise you, F&M, Muhlenberg (very similar academic and close in football quality schools) always bring up the bowl games, since usually it is only JH that goes to the NCAA.  Believe me, hearing "post season" and "bowl game" does work on recruiting kids.  Aside from future recruits, the present players all knew about the NY State Bowl, not sure how the coaches spun it, but I could see morale being affected (even if only short term). 

[Machiavelli]

Why bother?  Participation trophies for everyone! Bigger ones for the Grove City players.

[Oline89]

Why bother?  Participation trophies for everyone! Bigger ones for the Grove City players.

Why bother is a perfectly fine answer, make the NCAA the one and only goal!  However, the LL and the ADs/HCOF have all decided that NY State Bowl is  a thing, you can't just close your eyes and pretend it didn't happen. Either they end it, and let LL/E8 teams make their own decisions about ECAC or keep the Bowl and make some real rules about participation.

[Bombers798891]

However, the LL and the ADs/HCOF have all decided that NY State Bowl is  a thing, you can't just close your eyes and pretend it didn't happen.

Not necessarily. I used to write for a trade magazine, and we wrote about things like this. Often, these are driven by the conferences a lot more than the individual schools. Do the schools agree? Yes, in the sense that it's voluntary, and it may end up being an opportunity they'd like to take advantage of. But these things aren't done because every coach and AD was like "we're all going to play in it no matter what and we 100% think it's a great idea". At the end of the day, obviously, Ithaca's AD *didn't* see this as something necessary, considering IC passed on it twice.

[Machiavelli]

If Cortaca was at the beginning of the year, I think a Cortaca II wouldn't sound so terrible. If ALL other LL/E8 crossovers were in the first 3 weeks, I bet more people can get behind a NYS Bowl.

[Bartman]

As far as the NYS Bowl, I totally understand Ithaca not wanting another Cortaca, but if I lost Cortaca I might want another shot. As far as Union and Hobart, if I were the coach, I would have let the players vote on it and whatever they decided I would support and let the Captains (usually Seniors) lead the team in unity after the vote. I understand there could be extenuating circumstances like injuries and exams or If I were Union I may have liked to end the season on a high note by a nice football throw onto the roof  ...... but then maybe I want to keep playing even though I am on a trimester and exams are just before Thanksgiving week. Pluses and minuses here.  For Hobart , their exam period was not a factor, but since I am a "homer" for the program, I would rather move on but just be clear on the process for next year for the players sake/morale, and as I said, I would give the team an active voice. Although, I am not really concerned for 2019 since Hobart will win the LL title and the NCAA berth