FB: Liberty League

[jmcozenlaw]

My guess is 3rd rd, Cleveland Browns

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=7eca9S7Bk3U

The Eagles are pretty high on him as well

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Bite your tongue bman


That makes alot of sense given that Chip values mobile athletic lineman.  Could be worth a mid round flyer, if we don't trade away all of our picks for Mariotta! 

[UfanBill]

I haven't logged onto this board in awhile so I admit I was a bit blindsided by the 2017 football defections of WPI, USMMA and Springfield. However, with the emerging strength of New England D3 football it is not all that surprising that these three schools would want to realign with their neighbors.  Where does the LL look to replace them?  Well IMHO there are three ways. 1)Look for present LL members who do not presently have football to start a program.  Could Clarkson, Skidmore, RIT or Vassar be possibilities?(not likely) 2) Absorb schools from other leagues Ithaca, Alfred, Hartwick or even Hamilton fall into this scenario(possible). 3) Merge with the Empire 8 to form a two division, NYS "Super Conference".  The super conference seems like the inevitable solution with a East/West or  Private/State breakdown.  As a fan I would love to see the "NYS D3 Football Conference".  I trust the LL will not drop the ball on this. As we've seen from D1 these conference realignments can happen quickly. I fear, just like D1, money will be the final factor. It should be interesting. 

[NED3Guy]

Hard to see any New England based schools joining the league due to travel. Most New England leagues are "day trip" leagues...very few overnights budgeted. The LL (with trips to Canton, Geneva, and Rochester) would certainly cost most New England schools far more than they're paying currently.

Hamilton coming back to the LL, including football this time around, could make sense.

Very hard to see the "super-conference" scenario playing out in my mind....What would the E8 have to gain by bringing in the LL teams?

It will be very interesting as the D3 conference shuffle unfolds over the coming years.

[sigma one]

For some years, I was associated with the North Coast Athletic Conference with 10 colleges/universities spread from Allegheny  in NW Pa. not far south of Erie,  to Wabash and DePauw in west central Indiana, only about 30+ miles from the Illinois border.  Seven NCAC schools are in Ohio:  Oberlin, Hiram, Wooster, Kenyon, Denison, Ohio Wesleyan, and Wittenberg.   For the eastern half of the nation, this is a wide geographic spread.  For a few years, there were quiet conversations about dividing into east and west, adding a couple of teams, and playing some version of an interlocking schedule between the two halves, with perhaps one game vs. a non-NCAC geographic rival.
     Out of those conversations, I came to conclude that the future of DIVISION III will some day be more geographically determined than it is currently, if for no other reason as a matter of finances.
     I can't in any way claim expertise in the DIVISION III football played in NY, although for some years I was employed at St Lawrence.  But just for fun (it's the off season), I began playing around with a possibility of forming a "super conference" of all NY teams.  By my count, 17 schools in NY play football.  I've eliminated Merchant Marine,, SUNY Maritime, and Morrisville St, all of which are not generally associated with many of the other NY schools in terms of scheduling.  With the remaining 14, there could be an East and a West (for lack of a better designation) organized as follows----EAST:  Cortland St, Hartwick, Ithaca, RPI, St Lawrence, Union, Utica.   WEST:  Alfred St, Alfred, Brockport St, Buffalo St, Hobart, Rochester, St John Fisher.  That's seven schools in each division.  A schedule could be set up in a variety of ways.  For example, there could be six games within the division, three games as crossovers, and one game against other competition.  A variety of combination is possible, of course. 
     
     This won't happen, but it's fun to think about how it might work out if conditions dictate.  Am I missing something?  Besides, the obvious idea that schools might not all buy in to this particular alignment (for reasons of who is associating with whom), where are the flaws in this arrangement?  Again, all in the spirit of off-season debate.       
     Footnote:  what a challenge and a task it would be to arrange the entire country geographically into conferences that make some kind of sense.  Some conferences (Northwest, Southern California, Wisconsin to name only three) would not change.  Other groupings might be arranged by sliding schools from one conference to another.  And there's the rub, with consideration of keeping rivalries, public vs. private, perhaps enrollment numbers, and academic snobbery.  A fun exercise though, and maybe one that would keep in check the number of automatic qualifiers and extra candidates for the DIVISION III playoffs.
     Thanks for reading the thoughts of an intruder.

[D3MAFAN]

Not sure I agree about Morrisville State.

[Bartman]

Rumors are that Ali Marpet may be the NO.1 choice by Tampa(he IS just as fast as Winston) with the versatility to play all 22 positions in one season(I think this very reliable rumor was started by a Wittenberg fan on the NFL blog)... ::)GO BIG BART MAN! We will miss you in whatever league Hobart plays in the future , but wish you the best in the NFL

[sigma one]

Yes, I have to say that Morrisville St was a head-scratcher for me.  When I put seven schools each in the east and west, I didn't know what to do with Morrisville St.  Last year they played the first four games of the season vs. NY teams before finishing their schedule in the NJAC.  If there was one more team, then there could be two eight-team divisions, I suppose.  Or the divisions could be at seven and eight teams, although this presents a different set of problems with scheduling.  Anyway, what I was doing was just food for thought, not that it's probably never going to happen.  As I intimated, too much political and other baggage among the schools. 
     Since I wrote my earlier post, I've been messing around with arranging Pennsylvania DIII teams in a parallel way.  More teams play DIII football in PA than in any other state.  A hypothetical arrangement is possible, but difficult, by splitting PA roughly down the middle as divided by the mid-PA mountains.  But there would be lots of oh-nos no matter how the two halves, or perhaps three potential leagues, were split up.
     Soon, there will be many other topics to debate.  Again, thanks for the chance to play an off-season "game."

[bman]

Yes, I have to say that Morrisville St was a head-scratcher for me.  When I put seven schools each in the east and west, I didn't know what to do with Morrisville St.  Last year they played the first four games of the season vs. NY teams before finishing their schedule in the NJAC.  If there was one more team, then there could be two eight-team divisions, I suppose.  Or the divisions could be at seven and eight teams, although this presents a different set of problems with scheduling.  Anyway, what I was doing was just food for thought, not that it's probably never going to happen.  As I intimated, too much political and other baggage among the schools. 
     Since I wrote my earlier post, I've been messing around with arranging Pennsylvania DIII teams in a parallel way.  More teams play DIII football in PA than in any other state.  A hypothetical arrangement is possible, but difficult, by splitting PA roughly down the middle as divided by the mid-PA mountains.  But there would be lots of oh-nos no matter how the two halves, or perhaps three potential leagues, were split up.
     Soon, there will be many other topics to debate.  Again, thanks for the chance to play an off-season "game."

Please share the PA schools...
Oh but did I hate those trips from Chester to Juniata...

[sigma one]

bman, this is a very preliminary organization of Pennsylvania schools, and many other arrangements are possible.
     Twenty-five schools in PA play DIII football.  Starting in the western part of the state, where the Presidents Conference is well established, one take is this:  Take Allegheny from the NCAC; subtract Bethany from West Virginia.  A conference make up would then be Allegheny, Carnegie Mellon, Geneva, Grove City, St Vincent, Thiel, Washington & Jefferson, Waynesburg, and Westminster.  That's a nine-school conference in the west.
     Moving east,  Juniata and Lycoming are not all that far away by the distances traveled by schools in other parts of the country.  I've kept them with schools they are already playing.
     So, in the east two conferences--and this arrangement is arbitrary because I am unfamiliar with all the rivalries.  But preserving as much of the current conference arrangements as possible, there is East A and East B.  My tentative names are the American Eagle Conference and the Continental Conference (using two references to the early-American history). But pick your own names according to your knowledge and imagination.
          American Eagle:  Dickinson, Franklin & Marshall, Gettysburg, Juniata, Moravian, Muhlenberg, Susquehanna, Ursinus.  (Juniata here because these teams already travel to Juniata.)
          Continental:  Albright, Delaware Valley, King's, Lebanon Valley, Lycoming, Misericordia, Widener, Wilkes.  (Lycoming here because these teams already travel to Lycoming.)
          So, in the west a nine-team conference.  In the east, two eight-team conferences.  In the two eastern conferences the out-of-state schools in the current Centennial and Middle Atlantic conferences drop out, a loss of lesser or greater consequence depending upon one's point of view:  Johns Hopkins and McDaniel (currently in Centennial) could joins a conference farther south under new arrangements.  FDU-Florham and Stevenson (currently in Middle Atlantic) could join a conference either in the case of FDU in New Jersey, with Stevenson also going south.  Thinking about these changes, one might group together in something like a "Capitol" conference some schools in Maryland,  schools in and around DC, and one or two others that are close geographically. 
Catholic, Frostburg St, Gallaudet, Johns Hopkins, McDaniel, Southern Virginia, Christopher Newport might be a good start.
      As I mentioned earlier, this is all in fun,  Take your own shots at what might be a geographically-sound set of conferences, as the dominoes would start to fall.

         

[bman]

bman, this is a very preliminary organization of Pennsylvania schools, and many other arrangements are possible.
     Twenty-five schools in PA play DIII football.  Starting in the western part of the state, where the Presidents Conference is well established, one take is this:  Take Allegheny from the NCAC; subtract Bethany from West Virginia.  A conference make up would then be Allegheny, Carnegie Mellon, Geneva, Grove City, St Vincent, Thiel, Washington & Jefferson, Waynesburg, and Westminster.  That's a nine-school conference in the west.
     Moving east,  Juniata and Lycoming are not all that far away by the distances traveled by schools in other parts of the country.  I've kept them with schools they are already playing.
     So, in the east two conferences--and this arrangement is arbitrary because I am unfamiliar with all the rivalries.  But preserving as much of the current conference arrangements as possible, there is East A and East B.  My tentative names are the American Eagle Conference and the Continental Conference (using two references to the early-American history). But pick your own names according to your knowledge and imagination.
          American Eagle:  Dickinson, Franklin & Marshall, Gettysburg, Juniata, Moravian, Muhlenberg, Susquehanna, Ursinus.  (Juniata here because these teams already travel to Juniata.)
          Continental:  Albright, Delaware Valley, King's, Lebanon Valley, Lycoming, Misericordia, Widener, Wilkes.  (Lycoming here because these teams already travel to Lycoming.)
          So, in the west a nine-team conference.  In the east, two eight-team conferences.  In the two eastern conferences the out-of-state schools in the current Centennial and Middle Atlantic conferences drop out, a loss of lesser or greater consequence depending upon one's point of view:  Johns Hopkins and McDaniel (currently in Centennial) could joins a conference farther south under new arrangements.  FDU-Florham and Stevenson (currently in Middle Atlantic) could join a conference either in the case of FDU in New Jersey, with Stevenson also going south.  Thinking about these changes, one might group together in something like a "Capitol" conference some schools in Maryland,  schools in and around DC, and one or two others that are close geographically. 
Catholic, Frostburg St, Gallaudet, Johns Hopkins, McDaniel, Southern Virginia, Christopher Newport might be a good start.
      As I mentioned earlier, this is all in fun,  Take your own shots at what might be a geographically-sound set of conferences, as the dominoes would start to fall.

         

+K   Sigma One.  This is well thought out.  Funny, the way this aligns...Teams like Susquehanna and Moravian didn't want to play in the MAC, due to academic snobbery ( ) but in your model, they have a faily academically challenging conference...Most of the rivalries are still there and will allow for OOC games between the Conferences. 
I'd love to see this happen...and we could potentially get games with Wesley, Rowan, Montclair even the NY schools (LL or E8) periodically.

[sigma one]

Thanks, bman.  Yes, the eight-team conferences in the east and the nine-team conferences in the west still allow some opportunities for OOC play.  It's not all that unusual, using the North Coast and Ohio conferences as examples, to play only one game outside the conference schedule.  There are plenty of eastern and southern teams within easy access of eastern PA,  and a number of places where western PA teams could go for games.  In the Presidents Conference I neglected to mention Thomas More, from Kentucky.  Th More could go elsewhere (along with Bethany, which I did mention).  Part of the trick there would be to capture Allegheny from the NCAC.  This would, of course, be problematic because NCAC schools are aligned partly for academic reasons, however far one wants to take that.
     I've been messing around with other regions just for the heck of it.  There are arrangements all over the country that might make more athletic sense than the way conferences are currently organized.  None of this is likely to happen soon, or more realistically, ever. But it's a good way to stay connected to DIII while waiting for the next competition year to begin.

[gordonmann]

Congrats to Ali Marpet. Not only was he drafted, but in the second round, which has never happened for a D3 guy before. Very cool.

[Joe Wally]

Congrats to Ali Marpet. Not only was he drafted, but in the second round, which has never happened for a D3 guy before. Very cool.

+1.  Helluva showing!

[Mr. Ypsi]

Congrats to Ali Marpet. Not only was he drafted, but in the second round, which has never happened for a D3 guy before. Very cool.

I thought you surely must be correct only on a technicality (D3 did not yet exist when he was drafted), but indeed future NFL MVP Ken Anderson (Augustana, though more than a decade before Augie won an unprecedented FOUR straight Stagg Bowls) was only a 3rd round pick.  May Ali Marpet have even HALF the career that Anderson had!

[Pat Coleman]

Congrats to Ali Marpet. Not only was he drafted, but in the second round, which has never happened for a D3 guy before. Very cool.

I thought you surely must be correct only on a technicality (D3 did not yet exist when he was drafted)

And not a technicality even so.