FB: Old Dominion Athletic Conference

[HSCTiger fan]

I'm not positive about this, but I don't think Wesley has the most stringent academic requirements, which would be one of the pieces to the puzzle.

Wesley's overall academic profile is not significantly different from the lower middle ODAC schools. Whether it is different for football players I don't know, but there are a lot of D3 schools that put a lot of weight on whether the check arrives on time. There isn't anything unusual about that.

While having lower admission standards can help, it's not really an answer. UMU's academic profile has steadily improved during their 20+ year run.

I think it has more to do with how effective Wesley's recruiting is than anything else.  It doesn't hurt having a playoff pedigree either.  Wesley can back its promises.   Having two players play preseason in the NFL (Robinson, Beavers) and many others having success in other leagues is proof of that.  If you work hard, you will be rewarded for your toils.  Remember that Coach Drass and Coach Knapp are D-I/NFL level coaches happy to stick with their small program for the last 25+ years and the results show it.   

-Ski

If a D3 coach at any school is using the hopes of the NFL as a future possibility he's not being realistic with his recruits.  I highly doubt that tactic is being used at any D3 program.  It would be like Miami recruiting basketball players and saying "Hey if the NBA doesn't work out we had Jimmie Graham go to the NFL".  Can it happen sure it can. But very very very few college players from all schools make it to the NFL.

[jknezek]

I've put this in other places, but I'll put it here as well. The power teams in D3 share two things in common, a ridiculously good coach and an administration that supports football to the hilt. For the coach that doesn't just mean X's and O's, it means recruiting players and, most importantly, ASSISTANTS.

Assistants are key to the staffs, and having good ones either stick around, or the ability to continually choose new good ones, is a skill that very few coaches possess. Think about it. The assistants do a huge amount of the recruiting. They do a massive amount of the day to day coaching as well. A good staff is as important as a good head coach. And the administration has to find the money and positions to pay for those assistants.

After that you start to hit secondary criteria. Modern facilities are huge. Reputation is huge.

But it starts at the top. It starts with an administration getting the right coach, backing the program by paying for recruiting and squeaking the marginal kids in, paying for good staff, and paying for good facilities. Of course you still need to catch lightning in the bottle with the coach...

Coach Drass is as good as they come. He's also Wesley's AD, which gives him a lot of pull in that school. Football, and athletics in general, is a point of focus in Wesley's business plan. That gives them a lot of strength to do what needs to be done to have the best possible program.

[tigerfanalso]

Add the trip if it improves programs/enrollments/academic profiles. It is not that much further than some of the trips already being made and it could be for football only, I guess. Plus it would eliminate having to play 3 OOC games as that seemingly is getting more and more difficult every year. I'm kinda of half way kidding but it is starting to make some sense, throw in CNU and have a 10 team football conference. All kidding aside, the odac is ok as it now stands and I'm certainly satisfied with it. Football games are mostly very competitive and no team/school dominates the league year over year. Certainly not since BC had their day.

[tigerfanalso]

Any idea what a solid program needs to pay to get really good, long term assistant coaches ?
Does a school like Wesley employ a recruiting coordinator or is all of that done by the staff ?
Anybody have a clue ?

[jknezek]

Add the trip if it improves programs/enrollments/academic profiles. It is not that much further than some of the trips already being made and it could be for football only, I guess. Plus it would eliminate having to play 3 OOC games as that seemingly is getting more and more difficult every year. I'm kinda of half way kidding but it is starting to make some sense, throw in CNU and have a 10 team football conference. All kidding aside, the odac is ok as it now stands and I'm certainly satisfied with it. Football games are mostly very competitive and no team/school dominates the league year over year. Certainly not since BC had their day.

I have no interest in adding another football school. I don't think it's that hard to get 3 OOC games, but W&L tends to have two standing dates with Centre and Sewanee. I don't think the ODAC would be keen to add CNU. It's a private school conference. I also don't think the ODAC really has interest in affiliates. Catholic was a necessity for the AQ and now having Catholic makes for a nice round robin. However, I'd think SVa is more likely than CNU.

As for Wesley, I just don't see any upside to adding them. If you want to play them, they've been looking for OOC games for years and still will be looking after entering the NJAC. Doesn't seem like the ODAC schools had any interest in the past, I doubt they'd have much going forward.

[jknezek]

I don't know how many of these guys are paid, or what they are paid, but if you look here Wesley lists 14 football coaches:

http://athletics.wesley.edu/sports/fball/coaches/index

Maybe some or most have jobs at the college, but the fact that only 5 lists Wesley College email addresses probably tells you not all are substantially paid.

However, you can compare that with W&L, by far the richest school in the ODAC, which feels the need to have 6 members of the football staff, all with W&L email addresses. http://generalssports.com/sports/fball/coaches/index

Or you can look at H-SC, the most successful recent member of the ODAC, which lists 10 members of the football staff, 9 with listed H-SC addresses. http://www.hscathletics.com/sports/fball/coaches/index

[tigerfanalso]

I believe six of the HSC coaches are considered to be either part time and/or volunteer.
I get the odac budgets don't line up well as compared to the D3 powers and they never will.
HSC understands the importance of it's athletic program but winning a national championship is not priorty
and the budget(s) reflect same. Much the way it should be.   

[Swish3]

I can tell you first hand that it's part of the answer....CNU's academic requirements have steadily increased since the arrival of Paul Trible, and they are now light years ahead of what they use to be.  As a result, the football and men's basketball teams have suffered....the coaches have had to resort to recruiting a different type of player.  As we all know, it's not unusual for the better athletes to have less than stellar grades....heck, one of the men's basketball coaches was quoted in the local newspaper several years ago saying that a star basketball player at Warwick High School, which is practically across the street from CNU, would not get a look because of his grades.  Needless to say, that player ended up at Virginia Wesleyan as a big part of their National Championship team....if you were to look at CNU basketball in the 90s and early 2000s compared to the last decade, or so, it's not the same.  Now, I think the current basketball coach has done a heck of a job, but we'll see if he can equal, or exceed, the success of years past.

Unfortunately, the football team has struggled the last several years, as well....they've had the same head coach and top assistant since the program's inception, but they can no longer seem to win against top competition.  Don't get me wrong, CNU hasn't ever been a juggernaut of a program, but early on, they had some nice wins against teams like McDaniel, Bridgewater, Salisbury, Rowan and even Mary-Hardin Baylor, and that's back when those teams were good.  These days, wins like those against top 25 teams is a thing of the past....when you think about it and realize that nothing dramatic has changed, except the continuous rise of the academic standards, you can't help but think that the coaches simply can't recruit the same kind of athlete.  Shoot, I can see that we've been less talented from an overall standpoint for years now.

If you ask me, there can be a direct correlation between academic standards and the success of athletic programs....there are definitely more variables that are involved, but I think that can be a big one.

[Teamski]

Any idea what a solid program needs to pay to get really good, long term assistant coaches ?
Does a school like Wesley employ a recruiting coordinator or is all of that done by the staff ?
Anybody have a clue ?

It's done through the coaching staff.  I think the fact that Wesley is good isn't lost on the assistants and many stick around for the mentoring and the experience of being a part of something big.  I have seen many come back to the program after leaving. 

As anybody who has visited Wesley can attest, you don't play there for the facilities!  If there is anything that shocks me more  about Wesley's ability to field an elite team each year is the fact that the facilities lag way behind many other DIII schools.  It is all about the coaching staff and their ability to recruit and motivate skilled players.  This isn't a program with deep pocket whatsoever. 

-Ski

[Teamski]

......And now that Wesley has a home in the NJAC, perhaps some of that travel money saved will be used to replace the turf at the Scott D. Miller Stadium!!

-Ski

[Pat Coleman]

In my opinion, the biggest reason Wesley continues to reload with great talent, is the recruiting philosophy and team philosophy that Coach Drass and staff use.

Kudos to Coach Azz, because he is the road face of Wesley College recruiting. If you were a parent talking to a potential college coach, you would want to talk with Azz. Everything is just so positive with him and it isn't an act.

Over the years, I find that kids come back to Wesley. These are kids who went somewhere else and it didn't work out. Well the come back to Wesley because the coaches developed a real relationship with the kid and didn't just sell them. That has paved the way for some pretty good talent.

Also, @Pat Coleman, since I did the home stats for Del State too this season, Delaware has only 1 quality FCS team. I would put Wesley on that field this year and expect a victory hands down.

Alright, fair enough. But they are a recent playoff team so I am sure they have drawn some players that would have gone to Wesley otherwise.

[HSCTiger fan]

I can tell you first hand that it's part of the answer....CNU's academic requirements have steadily increased since the arrival of Paul Trible, and they are now light years ahead of what they use to be.  As a result, the football and men's basketball teams have suffered....the coaches have had to resort to recruiting a different type of player.  As we all know, it's not unusual for the better athletes to have less than stellar grades....heck, one of the men's basketball coaches was quoted in the local newspaper several years ago saying that a star basketball player at Warwick High School, which is practically across the street from CNU, would not get a look because of his grades.  Needless to say, that player ended up at Virginia Wesleyan as a big part of their National Championship team....if you were to look at CNU basketball in the 90s and early 2000s compared to the last decade, or so, it's not the same.  Now, I think the current basketball coach has done a heck of a job, but we'll see if he can equal, or exceed, the success of years past.

Unfortunately, the football team has struggled the last several years, as well....they've had the same head coach and top assistant since the program's inception, but they can no longer seem to win against top competition.  Don't get me wrong, CNU hasn't ever been a juggernaut of a program, but early on, they had some nice wins against teams like McDaniel, Bridgewater, Salisbury, Rowan and even Mary-Hardin Baylor, and that's back when those teams were good.  These days, wins like those against top 25 teams is a thing of the past....when you think about it and realize that nothing dramatic has changed, except the continuous rise of the academic standards, you can't help but think that the coaches simply can't recruit the same kind of athlete.  Shoot, I can see that we've been less talented from an overall standpoint for years now.

If you ask me, there can be a direct correlation between academic standards and the success of athletic programs....there are definitely more variables that are involved, but I think that can be a big one.

I say good for CNU.  That's the way it should be.  I see too many D3 football rosters with 70 or 80 freshmen graduating 5 to 15 seniors. I realize some of these kids may graduate from other schools, or may have quit the team and stayed in school.  There are many who came to school based solely on the hopes of continuing the football careers and flunked out. Then they have a bad GPA, no education, no credits that will transfer anywhere and huge student loan debts.   The kids that fall into this category face a big uphill battle to not only continue their educations, but to find descent jobs.   

[jknezek]

Having low academic standards certainly expands the pool of kids you can recruit. But there are plenty of really poor academic schools that have really poor football teams. And schools like Johns Hopkins, Hobart, and others show that you can have top tier academics as well as competitive football programs.

At the very top, however, none of the Big 4 schools are top tier academic powerhouses. UMHB accepts almost 85% of applicants, Wesley accepts 63%, UWW 70%, and UMU 71%. But these aren't massive outliers. Shenandoah, for example, is at 85%, Guilford is at 68%, Methodist is at 61%, CNU is at 59%. All provided by U.S. News.

No, academic rigor has something to do with it, but it's not the difference maker. I'll stick with the coach, the staff, and the administration...

[dedragon]

Well, Coach Drass is a huge Eagles fan. So maybe he's trying to recreate the old turf conditions from the VET? 

[Tekken]

I say good for CNU.  That's the way it should be.  I see too many D3 football rosters with 70 or 80 freshmen graduating 5 to 15 seniors. I realize some of these kids may graduate from other schools, or may have quit the team and stayed in school.  There are many who came to school based solely on the hopes of continuing the football careers and flunked out. Then they have a bad GPA, no education, no credits that will transfer anywhere and huge student loan debts.   The kids that fall into this category face a big uphill battle to not only continue their educations, but to find descent jobs.

Amen.