FB: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[roocru]

Ron,

As an Austin College fan and being new to the SCAC board, I appreciate the comments by you concerning Coach Gage and my Roos.  I agree with your comments about his new staff and that is the reason for my earlier post on that.  I know it is hard to compare against teams you have never seen or know much about but I have a feeling they may compete better in the SCAC than a lot of people think they will.  Only time will tell.   

I do know that with all of his Texas high school coaching contacts he has a head start on future recruiting.  I do not know how many know this but he was the president elect for the Texas High School Coaches Association but was forced to give up his position on the Board of Directors when he took the AC job.

[Ron Boerger]

I agree, roocru.  They will win some conference games and perform better than the last-place that the coaches voted them to this year.

[etg]

(El Tea Gray---re: "new Regional Games")

Question: If Trinity vs. Redlands is now a "Regional Game", is Trinity vs. Huntingdon now a "non-Regional Game"? 

For the impact wizards, if so, what is the impact for the three teams?

                                                   

[tTU719803]

I can't believe that AC was picked last.  They gave TU a fight last season, and Sewanee and Millsaps are still terrible.

[Hawks88]

(El Tea Gray---re: "new Regional Games")

Question: If Trinity vs. Redlands is now a "Regional Game", is Trinity vs. Huntingdon now a "non-Regional Game"? 

For the impact wizards, if so, what is the impact for the three teams?

                                                   

Both are regional games. To quote the second paragraph of the Daily Dose article:
"As a reminder, this is in addition to every other existing definition of a regional game (200 miles shortest possible driving distance, teams within the same Division III football region, teams in the same conference but different regions)."

[Ron Boerger]

AC's scrimmage with ETBU has been called off due to injuries suffered by the Roos so far in practice. 

[exmajor]

That is a very definitive statement TTU 719, have you been to the practices at Sewanee and Millsaps to be able to make such a claim?

[Josh Bowerman]

I'll beg to differ with Josh on this one.  The two FB schools joining the SCAC over the next two years have pretty unexciting teams.  I think a quality in-region non-conference win this year would be more valuable than a "eh" conference win next season.  All having eight conference games does for you is guarantee one more in-region game.   

I am going to be very interested to see what Ronnie Gage does at AC.  That program should be on the rise with the staff he is assembling.   

Don't get me wrong, Ron.  I think the SCAC is a one bid conference right now.  I was simply stating that to get a second team in, the runner up would have to have a pretty good QOWI score.

Sewanee and Centre have decent non-conference schedules.  However, I think the only team that can likely earn a Pool C bid from the SCAC this season is DePauw--they play only four home games, and if they can score two wins out of three games on the road against Centre/Trinity/Wabash, their QOWI score ought to be pretty decent.

[Josh Bowerman]

Despite the injuries and new faces in Sherman, I also think that .500 is a possibility for the 'Roos this season.

Kalamazoo, Rhodes, SWAG and Millsaps are all winnable games, IMO, for the 'Roos.  I also think the McMurry & Sewanee games could go either way.

[historymajor]

Keith McMillan says TU will not make the playoffs, and that they will win the SCAC....  Which is it Keith?

[etg]

(El Tea Gray---re: new "administrative" Regions)


Hawks88,
Are there now two classifications of Regions; the "new administrative" Regions 1,2,3 and 4 and the "old" Regions of East, North, South and West? This must solve some problem; do you know what it is?

                                                         

Historymajor,
When Keith states that this years Trinity team is "an average team" or even "an average (for) Trinity team" it only proves that he has not followed the Tiger workouts this summer as I have (frankly, I would not expect him to have done so).
Maybe his comments would be more accurate if placed at some point after the 1st or 2nd week of the season (I expect that Keith will update his remarks as the season progresses)?

                                                         

[Ralph Turner]

(El Tea Gray---re: new "administrative" Regions)


Hawks88,
Are there now two classifications of Regions; the "new administrative" Regions 1,2,3 and 4 and the "old" Regions of East, North, South and West? This must solve some problem; do you know what it is?

ETG and Hawks,

The NCAA allowed the Administrative Regions to count as "in-region" as a creative way to allow the "NCAA-way" of doing things to increase the number of in-region games.  This is in response to those people who would like for all D3 opponents to count as "in-region" for determining playoffs.

Every school is assigned to an administrative region on one top level.  I haven't investigated the full implementation of the Administrative Regions on NCAA Policies.  Nevertheless, Texas is in Region 4.  All games against schools in Region 4 are in-region.

The second level for looking at Regions is at the level of the Evaluation Region.   Every (team) sport is assigned an Evaluation Region.  I know the ASC.  McMurry is in the South Evaluation Region for football, basketball, baseball, volleyball and Women's Soccer  McMurry is in the Central Region for Men's Soccer.  McMurry is in the West Region for baseball and Texas teams are in the West Region for Softball.  McMurry can play any team in the Evaluation Region to count as "in-Region".

The third level of "in-region" is at the level of the Conference.  DePauw is "in-Region" for the SCAC, regardless of the Evaluation Region to which they have been assigned.  This ruling really impacts the conferences such as the UAA, the SCAC, the ASC in some sports such as baseball and soccer, and the NEAC, among others.

Finally, the 200-mile radius rule was a commonsense adaptation to the arbitrary nature of the Evaluation Regions.  (You gotta draw a border to a region somewhere, and 200-miles was determined at the distance that was not excessive with respect to "missed class time".)  This really impacts the schools where Evaluation Regions come together, such as New York City where the East, Northeast and Atlantic Regions converge in several sports.  It also allows DePauw in the South Football Evaluation Region to play nearby "North Football Evaluation Schools" as in-Region.

The NCAA wants to encourage schools to keep their travel budgets under control and pay attention to time away from class.

I counted the impact of the Administrative Regions on McMurry Men's Basketball.

There are 14 Conference opponents.

There are another 37 South Basketball Evaluation Teams.

Of course, there are no qualifying teams for the 200-mile radius rule. 

The "New Adminstrative Region Interpretation" adds 60 schools from the West and 29 schools Midwest Basketball Evaluation Regions as "in-region".

McMurry can schedule games with 140 D3 schools and count as In-region.  Trinity is roughly the same.  Huntingdon picks up all of those teams in the Great Lakes area (Michigan, Ohio, Indiana) as "in-Region".
I hope this helps.

[Ralph Turner]

Keith McMillan says TU will not make the playoffs, and that they will win the SCAC....  Which is it Keith?

History major, Chris Allman did the SCAC preview.  Chris is taking Ron Boerger's place as the "Around the Region" reporter for the ASC, the SCAC and Huntingdon.

http://www.d3football.com/kickoff/about.php

Please scroll to the bottom.

[historymajor]

Keith McMillan says TU will not make the playoffs, and that they will win the SCAC....  Which is it Keith?

History major, Chris Allman did the SCAC preview.  Chris is taking Ron Boerger's place as the "Around the Region" reporter for the ASC, the SCAC and Huntingdon.

http://www.d3football.com/kickoff/about.php

Please scroll to the bottom.

Ralph,,, this is what seems contradictory...

'05 Playoff teams who will miss the '06 field

Trinity (Texas): We've seen signs of a possible Tigers stumble since their 2002 Stagg Bowl run. They struggle with opponents a dominant team shouldn't struggle with — needing a late rally to beat Huntingdon 15-10 last season put the third-year independent on the map — and dodged a showdown with DePauw last season when the brutal hurricane season in the Southeast wiped out the SCAC clash. But with the other Tigers changing coaches again and losing a great quarterback, it may be a year to late for DePauw to assume the conference throne, which Trinity has held for 13 consecutive seasons. None of the Tigers' four non-conference games is an easy win (East Texas Baptist, Texas Lutheran, Redlands, Huntingdon), and unless DePauw is sharp, an average Trinity team is still good enough to take the SCAC's automatic bid.

[Ron Boerger]

Couple of decent articles on Austin College and Ronnie Gage in today's Dallas Morning News (registration required).  That is more D3 football coverage in a single DMN issue than I can remember.

http://tinyurl.com/oopjf  (fixed URL)

Both articles and sidebars are at this one link.  There's a story on Gage and the challenges he faces at AC (only 61 players are on this year's team), a story on the move to the SCAC, and some detailed info about both Gage and AC. 

According to the article, former QB Zach Seifert is moving to TE.