FB: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[Ralph Turner]

Someone even gave DPU a vote in this week's D3football.com poll.   

Yeah, sounds like bulletin board stuff to me...Tied for "42nd"!

[frank_ezelle]

The problem with Depauw is that they can't seem to play 60 good minutes of football in a game:

----Against Anderson, DePauw fell behind 10-0 after a quarter, then scored 45 unanswered points and eventually won 52-17.

----Against Centre, DePauw was up 13-0, then fell behind 13-14, then rallied to win 27-14.

----Against Sewanee, DePauw was up 24-0 at the half and had to hold on for a 27-20 win.

----Against BSC, DePauw fell behind 7-21 at the half and then scored 24 unanswered points in the second half for a 31-21 victory.

----Against Millsaps the first half was so bad (7-35) that it made the 2nd half a moot point.

The bottom line is that DePauw has been a very good team for stretches during the season, just not for an entire game.  If they can play 60 minutes at their potential this weekend, then they will make things interesting in San Antonio.  If DePauw starts off this weekend like they did against Anderson, Millsaps and BSC, then they are in for a long day.

Link to SCAC team and individual stats for those who want to see how the teams and individuals stack up so far this year:
http://www.scacsports.com/sports/fball/2008-09/stats/confldrs.htm#conf.wi2

[Pat Coleman]

Just out of curiosity, any ETA on the new Team of the Week?

Every Tuesday night.

[DPU3619]

Frank,

I'd argue that Trinity has suffered from the same malady in recent weeks.

I think that was a pretty uninspired effort at home against Rhodes.  Nor do I think going into the half up only 27-20 on BSC is particularly confidence-building.

I don't think that's going to keep Trinity from winning the football game, nor do I think that's going to allow DePauw to win the football game.  Just saying.  Looks like DPU will be without the top 3 running backs on the depth chart again.  That's probably going to be the biggest factor.

[Tex]

<SNIP>

I think that was a pretty uninspired effort at home against Rhodes. 

15 yard penalty for BS.  You can either fault the Trinity offense for missing a couple of scoring opportunities or you can give Rhodes credit for having a good defense. 

But, TU played anything but "uninspired".   On the contrary, actually having been there, the Defense played with as much inspiration as I could possibly imagine. 

[frank_ezelle]

Wes, my post was made as an observation that DePauw has shown the potential to be competitive this week if they can just play a full game as well as they have played in some 30 minute stretches this season.  It seems like it was taken as criticism which was not the intent.

Trinity hasn't been outscored in a half of football all year.  The only half they failed to win was the 0-0 second half of the Texas Lutheran game which Trinity was leading 24-0.  DePauw on the other hand was outscored by Sewanee 13-3 in a half after having built a 24-7 halftime lead.  DePauw was outscored 21-7 by BSC before coming back to outscore BSC 24-0 in the second half.

So what I'm saying is that if DePauw plays 60 minutes like they must have played in building the 24-7 lead over Sewanee, or if they play 60 minutes like they played to come back and win against BSC, then it could be a very competitive game this weekend.  In other words, I'm not counting DePauw out in regards to this week's game. 

As an aside, I don't think anyone should be fooled by trying to compare the score of Trinity and Millsaps against Rhodes.  Millsaps beat Rhodes 49-2 and Trinity beat Rhodes 17-0 which is a huge difference.  HOWEVER, if you take a closer look at the stats, you see that in the Millsaps-Rhodes game each team had 20 drives.  In the Trinity-Rhodes game each team had 11 drives.  Give Trinity 9 more drives and their win over Rhodes would have been somewhat closer to the win that Millsaps had.

(Surprisingly, the number of drives per game by Millsaps and Trinity aren't very different outside of the Rhodes game.  In the other games played, Millsaps is averaging 14 drives per game and Trinity is averaging 13.)

[DPU3619]

15 yard penalty for BS.  You can either fault the Trinity offense for missing a couple of scoring opportunities or you can give Rhodes credit for having a good defense. 

But, TU played anything but "uninspired". On the contrary, actually having been there, the Defense played with as much inspiration as I could possibly imagine. 

You're welcome to call it whatever you like.  I'm not going to hold an argument with you over semantics.  If Trinity is as good as I, and a lot of others, think they are, then they ought to beat Rhodes worse than 17-0.  I definitely expected them to much better considering what happened in Memphis last season.

Yes, the defense played a very nice ballgame on Saturday, but they did so against the worst offense in this conference at moving the football by a long shot.  The offense played well enough against a very good defense, but that ought to be more than a 3 score win for them if they wanted to be taken seriously as a power in the south region this year.

This isn't some kind of bulletin board material.  I don't think DePauw's going to be able to run it as well as they want to.  Maybe Spud can pull a rabbit out of a hat, but I don't think Matt Walker wants to get in a shootout with Trinity.  If the Millsaps offense is any kind of gauge, I think the defense is going to give up some big plays (like they did in this game in 2007).   Maybe that 2nd half against BSC was a confidence builder, but Joe Thigpen isn't Bryant Wilson, Walter Arrington isn't Chris Baer,  and Tay Walker isn't Riley Curry.  I'd love nothing more for DePauw to win this game, but they're not healthy, on top of all of the other demons that come with this particular opponent and this particular field.

[frank_ezelle]

.....I'd love nothing more for DePauw to win this game, but they're not healthy, on top of all of the other demons that come with this particular opponent and this particular field.

That particular opponent and field have been demons for a lot of teams over the years.  They'll be no one on the board this week who thinks DePauw is favored over Trinity.  It doesn't help DePauw that they are hurting at the running back position, but they were hurting at the running back position in the 2nd half of the BSC game and the offense still moved the ball and scored 24 points.  Plus, they have the 2nd best run defense so maybe they can slow down the Trinity running game. 

I personally don't expect DePauw to win and I'm not going to be surprised if this is a blowout game for Trinity.  I'm just thinking that DePauw is capable of making it very interesting IF they can put together 60 good minutes of football in one game. 

[exmajor]

I agree with Frank, I think Depauw could make it competitive, but do not expect Trinity to lose this game.  This game used to be the catalyst behind a lot of chatter on this board the week leading up to it, but it seems times have changed some.

I understand that the board will be somewhat dominated by the fans of the teams in the heat of the race, but I do wish we had more any participation from the Centre, Rhodes, Sewanee, C.C. fans.  I give some credit that we see Austin and BSC on here some (and McMurry of course Ralph  ). 

Anyway, I don't see Trinity or Millsaps slipping up against Sewanee this week or next, so it makes the Depauw game this weekend an interesting one for Trinity, personally speaking though, I would like to see Millsaps break the home record streak in San Antonio 

[frank_ezelle]

The Jackson, MS newspaper has an outstanding article on Juan Joseph this morning.  It's more about Juan as a student, his background, and the choice of playing at a D3 school instead of about his accomplisments on the field.  Here's the link:

http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20081015/COL0504/810150361/1287/SPORTS

[exmajor]

The Jackson, MS newspaper has an outstanding article on Juan Joseph this morning.  It's more about Juan as a student, his background, and the choice of playing at a D3 school instead of about his accomplisments on the field.  Here's the link:

http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20081015/COL0504/810150361/1287/SPORTS

Thanks Frank, an unsual story for the Clarion-Ledger, but glad to see them spend some time on Millsaps and its student-athletes for a change!  Very good story by Rick Cleveland and some nice insight into Juan's life on campus and how he got there.

[consultant]

A great story for sure. 

Should be another fun weekend in the SCAC.

[KentATM]

what all should AC be expecting from BSC this weekend?  This game is very important if they want any shot at a winning season this year.

I'm just not all that impressed by our wins so far.  Yes it was good to come from behind in their 3 wins but McMurry, CC and Sewanee are a combined 2-14.  They could have beat Centre and threw it away.  The loss to S'western Assemblies is what really kills me though.

Will this simply come down to the least mistakes?

[roocru]

Congratulations to one of my Roos!!  Josh Willis made the D3 Team of the Week!!

P Josh Willis, So., Austin
Willis punted four times for a 43.8-yard average and also intercepted two passes as a defensive back in the Kangaroos' 33-22 win against Sewanee.

[Ron Boerger]

what all should AC be expecting from BSC this weekend?  This game is very important if they want any shot at a winning season this year.

I'm just not all that impressed by our wins so far.  Yes it was good to come from behind in their 3 wins but McMurry, CC and Sewanee are a combined 2-14.  They could have beat Centre and threw it away.  The loss to S'western Assemblies is what really kills me though.

Will this simply come down to the least mistakes?

AC is travelling there ... is this the week they finally open their new football stadium?  Could make for a difficult combo.