FB: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[DPU3619]

DePauw is 1-2, Ron.  They beat Rose-Hulman, lost to Allegheny & Rhodes. 

I do think your assessment is right, though.  If you can't beat Rhodes, you're in for a long day at home against Centre.

[awadelewis]

Ron:
You're welcome.   Was a decent distraction from working on my dissertation.

The decision to hire Laurendine is starting to look better each week.  We'll end up surprising someone this season if the team can work through the discipline issues that led to so many penalties against B-SC.  The schedule doesn't help given we have to go both to San Antonio and Danville.

[Shoreman]

Anyone have any insights on the Sewanee/Millsaps game this weekend?

[Bill McCabe]

Ron, what do you think is going to happen with Trinity and Austin regarding conference affiliation.

[awadelewis]

Shoreman:
Hopefully the team that played in the first 3 quarters of the B-SC game shows up on Saturday.  If so, then we'll see a much more competitive game than what've we seen in the past few years.    They'll have to play a lot more disciplined than what they against B-SC as at least two of B-SC's scoring drives were preserved by some pretty dump personal foul penalties by our defense.

[Ron Boerger]

Ron, what do you think is going to happen with Trinity and Austin regarding conference affiliation.

Jason's ATS column a couple of weeks ago pretty accurately summarizes the situation.  He actually talked to several of the coaches so it's better than any speculation I could come up with.  Unless something crazy unusual happens (the UAA lowering their standards or teams from the west coast flocking to join the SCAC) it looks like Trinity and Austin may be cursed to go the independent route for a while. 

[ILVBB]

The absense of a conference for Trinity and Austin will have a significant impact on their ability to piece together a schedule that is not significantly more costly than their current schedule. In that travel cost being the driver for most schools today; I see a huge impact by not being part of a conference. Who will they schedule? How much further will they have to travel to find teams to play? How do you piece together a schedule when all the teams in Texas play an ASC schedule?

For other sports the impact will be greater. For baseball you eliminate a good number of games from your conference schedule and then have to find other west region teams (Austin and Trinity are west region teams). Will they be willing to pony up and fly teams to the west coast? Will the schools back fundraising activities needed to cover additional cost of travel (Trinity shut down its parent based fundraising for baseball because they didn't want competition for fundraising)?

Being an independent in Texas is an expensive proposition. I suspect that UofDallas joined the SCAC to secure its schedule and to "fix" its travel costs. I see the breakup of the SCAC having enough financial impact that one or more of the residual schools looking to eliminate some sports to cut costs so that they can continue to fund sports that they see as integral to the schools financial well being.

[infielddad]

ILVBB,
I think Ron was referring to the potential for Austin and Trinity to become independents for a while but only in football, not all sports.
Just today, Centenary announced it is moving its DIII affiliation to the SCAC from the ASC:

http://www.gocentenary.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_LANG=C&ATCLID=205302887&DB_OEM_ID=17900

This brings the SCAC to 6 members for non-football.
I would fully expect the non-football sports will be fine in the SCAC and it will add at least one and maybe two more schools so it will retain the AQ spot without a significant change in operational costs. There may even be  an overall travel cost reduction when applied to all non-football sports since soccer, basketball and volleyball won't be going to Atlanta, Jackson, Memphis and/or Greencastle and baseball won't be required to travel to Memphis, Jackson and even Birmingham(although I still think(maybe hope?) Millsaps and Trinity baseball competition would continue OOC.)
Word is that improvements to the baseball field are also underway, including adding the needed improvements to host post season play.

[Ralph Turner]

The Centenary situation should not surprise us.

The SCAC needs one more member to switch by June 2014 to maintain their AQ's in the sports other than football.

It might be easier to find the 7th now (and maybe the 8th, too.)

[Ron Boerger]

ILVBB,
I think Ron was referring to the potential for Austin and Trinity to become independents for a while but only in football, not all sports.

Yep, since this was a football board and the specific impact to TU and AC is only in those two sports, that was the question I was attempting to answer.

With Centenary joining, it would have made so much more sense for Hendrix to stay in the SCAC, but since Doctor Cloyd has a hate on for at least one school in the SCAC, that's not going to happen.    Pity. 

[Ron Boerger]

Centre drives all the way to the DPU 1, but the Tiger defense holds Jonathan Pinque to no gain on 4th down.   No score with about 5 minutes left in the opening stanza.

[Ron Boerger]

DePauw's second fumble of the day is returned to their 7, and two plays later Tyler Ostermann takes it in to give the Colonels a 7-0 lead with 11:45 to play before the half.   The Tigers fumbled in Centre territory earlier but had gotten it back when the guy that had recovered the fumble turned it right back over during the return. 

[Ron Boerger]

DPU turns back Centre again with a Steve Valdiserre INT in the end zone.  They had stopped Centre earlier but a personal foul kept the Colonels' drive alive.  Under five minutes before halftime in Greencastle.

[Ron Boerger]

Centre gets a 30-yd field goal from Gay as time runs out to take a 10-0 lead into the locker room at DePauw.

They're underway in Sherman, with B-SC taking an early lead on a 76-yard run from Shawn Morris.  The Panthers held the 'Roos on their first series and are driving on their second.

Edit:  Two TDs for Mr. Morris as it's now 14-0 BSC with 8:27 left in first quarter.

[Ron Boerger]

Rhodes trails LaGrange late in the 1st, 7-0, after a Stoots INT led to a TD for LaGrange.  The Lynx drove to the LaG 3, but a holding penalty and sack pushed them out of field goal range, and a 4th down pass (from the 22) went incomplete. 

AC. trailing 14-0, is still searching for their initial first down as the first quarter draws towards a close.  Total yards:  BSC 170, AC 16.

Tyler Ostermann finds Rob Melillo for 45yds and a score to open the second half.  The Colonels lead DePauw 17-0.