FB: Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference

[formerd3db]

vbell:

I agree with most of what you say; although minor exception - Mount Union, IMO, would beat Tiffin and Findlay.  I've seen them play and quite frankly, Findlay has not been that good of recent and while Tiffin has markedly improved their program as DII, Mount's best teams of recent would beat them.  Now Ashland is a different story - they are better than most people think and have improved.  I also think that Mount would hold their own against, say, Mich Tech, Northern MI, Mercyhurst, Gannon, Wayne State and perhaps even Hillsdale, these being the lesser successful DII Great Lakes teams of recent.  GVSU, SVSU, Ferris, Northwood Mount would give a good game, but have a tough time beating them most likely.

As far as the DIAA's, I think you are right.  Many of us have had these discussions in the past.  I would just add, however, that DIAA non-scholarship is not always just high tier type DIII football.  On occasion, those former scholarship giving schools do well against other scholarship programs - San Diego beat Yale in Harbaugh's last year as head coach quite handly as I recall and Ivy League is no slouch DIAA football.  Yet, for the most part (with the exception of the Montana State type fluke that happened last year), I agree with you about the DI vs. DIAA aspect.  Still, IMO, it is great to see those occasional upsets.  Thanks for your opinion on the topic. 

[SaintsFAN]

formerd3db,

hope things are well.  IMO, Mount would beat Northwood handily....and i think you are right on with everything else.  Talent may be about the same, but you also have to look at coaching. 

someone start filling that mayonnaise tub for V-bell.

[SaintsFAN]

this also reminds me....


is Ditka coaching any of the teams involved??  That would change my answer...

[victorybell_57]

i would gladly take a tub of mayo and 300 pound chicks. what could be better? more girl, more love.

"I also think that Mount would hold their own against, say, Mich Tech, Northern MI, Mercyhurst, Gannon, Wayne State and perhaps even Hillsdale, these being the lesser successful DII Great Lakes teams of recent.  GVSU, SVSU, Ferris, Northwood Mount would give a good game, but have a tough time beating them most likely."

dear lady of victory, pray for us. is this DIII pride or some honest opinions here? i like to follow the midwest football a lot, and i will offer this before i am dumped in mayo and dangled in front of the chubby women. or at least offered up as a sacrifice to oprah. there is no way that mount will hold a game against the GVSUs/SVSUs/FSUs/Northwoods of the GLIAC. it wouldn't even be a good game. it would be great to see the DIII champ play the DII champ for a great PR stunt, that's it.  for one, they recruit DI players and really high end DII players. they get a lot of DI transfers. they play the toughest schedules in the nation at DII. they are used to playing really big fast mean people each week. mount plays in the OAC. while it is great DIII football, the GLIAC is the best in DII. forget that findlay, gannon, and mercyhurst haven't dented the gliac in eons, mount would be in severe trouble against the rest of the conference.

nobody likes and respects what mount union is more than me, i think the world of them as a program and their tradition. it will never be duplicated in our lifetimes. the bottom line is the GLIAC has more players going to the NFL and CFL each year than DIII has in the past 10 years, or pretty darn close to it. besides the turdburglers in the lower portion of the GLIAC, the rest of the teams are all about 1 or 2 players away from finishing in the top 2-3. the league is that close and that means no games off.

Aug 30th 7:00 pm St. Joseph's Home
Sep 8th 7:00 pm Ashland Away
Sep 15th 7:00 pm Findlay Home
Sep 22nd 1:00 pm Michigan Tech Away
Sep 29th 7:00 pm Wayne State (MI) Home
Oct 6th 1:30 pm Mercyhurst Away
Oct 13th 7:00 pm Indianapolis  Home
Oct 20th 12:00 pm Northwood  Away
Oct 27th 7:00 pm Ferris State  Home
Nov 3rd 12:00 pm Saginaw Valley  Away
Nov 10th 1:00 pm Northern Michigan Home

Michigan Tech played GVSU to a brutal game in front of 65k at michigan stadium (http://www.bashatthebighouse.com/) and tech always has some massive players. oh, and they run the ball very well. physically, mount wouldn't hold up. they couldn't contain northern michigan's qb, and would have problems in the dome, as every team does. not a single team in the GLIAC could stop wayne's rb last year, and he was a true freshman. already being scouted by the NFL as a possible walter payton. i am not sure mount union would fare better against him. hillsdale is much better than you give them credit. small, private school, playing in league with state powerhouses, and they will win the conference every 5-6 years. very good when their enrollment is about 1000 and gvsu is around 25,000. every team that plays hillsdale says one thing, they hit as hard or harder than every team in the league. ashland won 3 games last year, and still played the top 4 teams to one score ball games. and yes, they are huge, fast, and powerful. just not as huge and as fast and as powerful as the other ones. tiffin finished the year as an outside shot to make the playoffs.

bring in the fact that you haven't mentioned the university of indianapolis, which would physically overpower mount, and that leaves you with the best of the rest. if the teams giving out scholarships and paying for their players can't beat the top 3-4 every year, why would mount union do any better? or make it competitive? they are a great D3 team, unless they move up or schedule one of those teams, the talk ends there. mount may have a better qb (which is at a premium in D2) or a receiver here and there, but the overall team can't hold up.

michigan: 49
app st: 10

i want mayo, fat chicks, donuts, and a trained asian to fight off anything getting weird in there. i love your opinions, but you need to go see these games in person, get a sideline pass, watch a practice, or something to see the enormous difference between D3 and D2, or D2 and IAA, and IAA and IA. better yet, call a coach at one of the GLIAC schools who has coached at the different levels and ask him. or call kehres and see if he'll schedule a D2. mount would make an upset against the struggling D2's, but it stops there. the bada$$ non-scholly D2's that make it in the playoffs against the GLIAC get whooped on. The PSAC (scholarship restrictions previously down to 25) got whooped on. mount, would get whooped on.

[victorybell_57]

http://www.cstv.com/auto_pdf/p_hotos/s_chools/grva/sports/m-footbl/auto_pdf/07covers2

[formerd3db]

SaintsFAN:

I am doing well.  Alot has been going on "familywise", etc., but we're doing okay.  Hope you are doing well.  Yes, pretty much agree with you as well.  Good luck to your TMC this year in their league.  We'll keep in touch.

vbell:

Again, for the most part, I agree with you re: GVSU, SVSU.  However, I too, follow GLIAC football and, as I said, with Mount's best teams of recent years, IMO, they would give a good game to some of those other teams, with the exception of GVSU.  Mount's 2001 team especially (which I saw play in the Stagg) - they were massive - averaged 305 on starting off and def lines (only 2 lbs less than Ohio State that year) and Mount was not slow.  BTW, just for the record, the Mich Tech/GVSU game at Michigan Stadium that you mention was just over 51,000 in attendance (not 65 k) and they outdrew Eastern Mich/Central Mich on the very same day at Rynearson Stadium which only had 25,000 in attendance (okay, so we quabble over a few thousand spectators ).

While I am very glad Mich Tech saved their program, they indeed had a fantastic year that year.  However, most years, a good Mount team or similar caliber would either beat them or give them a great game.  Same with Northwood (I've seen them from a coaching standpoint as well).  Agree with you that Hillsdale is tough as well.  Don't misunderstand me by any means, the DII caliber of the Great Lakes is by far the best in the country (even better than those North Alabama teams that won a few years ago, IMO) and would smash most of DIII (except perhaps the best Stagg champions in recent years - St. John's, Wis-Lacrosse in the mid90's, Mount's best as mentioned and that good Linfield team).  Anyway, it is great to see such good football at DII level develop in the last couple of decades and especially recently.

See you around the boards.

[Mr. Ypsi]

"Only" 25,000 at Rynearson is the stadium record - and since they recently were forced to admit to extreme inflation of announced attendance (often double or triple the real figures), even that may be an overstatement.  Their usual attendance is 4-6,000 (a high proportion of which are 'freebies'), and they are in imminent danger of being dropped from d1A for low attendance.  I have attended some EMU games where the total crowd would have been an embarassment at a few d3 schools.

[formerd3db]

Mr. Ypsi:

Good to see you posting.  Hope your summer has been going well.  Quick question; I should know this but somehow am "drawing a blank" right now - how is Eastern going to deal with maintaining their DI status in football?  That is, what options do they have i.e. does a school have in that regard including attendance?  I recall you reviewed this for us previously, but have forgotten.  Also, with the new reclassification to Bowl Division and College Championship Division for DI (i.e. formerly DIA and DIAA), how does this play into effect for, say, the MAC type schools?  What is your understanding on this?  Thanks.

[victorybell_57]

we will have to agree to disagree on the mount thing. i have also seen the mount team from 2001, and that was the year they had a barn burner with BW. BW plays them usually the toughest, and BW, well, you get my point. i do love mount though, and highly respect them.

new topic so i can move past the mayo

eastern michigan will not have to drop down a division. this has been widely discussed in many circles, and the DII boards. the ncaa made the "rule" to help encourage higher attendance, but is actually very lenient on pulling the trigger. they are happy with EMU's DI status, even as poor as they are in football.

on a side note, since we are talking upsets, DI EMU got their tails whipped by DII northern michigan in 1978-1979. of course, this was the period of NMU's national championship team, and they were gvsu, before gvsu was gvsu, and before FSU was gvsu in a now gvsu dominant league. since i have been harping on the upset thing, go ahead and dump mustard on me. it should be noted, however, that NMU was a powerhouse, placing 6 players on NFL rosters and 8 more in the CFL (they basically are canadian anyway) while dumping on a EMU team that was listless and had a hard time beating a schedule with a few D3's and D2's on it.

[victorybell_57]

oh, and that schedule i posted earlier was gvsu's, in case anybody wanted to hit up a game. they are "down this year" after graduated 5 nfl players, and some more to other cirlces of pro football, they have a strong nucleus returning.

pat, what are the odds that the mount and a top tier D2 team would ever play? i know it happens in some spots around the nation.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Soon after the expanded stadium opened, they (probably) legitimately averaged a little over 20,000 (I believe the d1A requirement is 17,000?) through really intense marketing and promotions (though many, perhaps even most, of the tickets were still freebies) - that may have been the year you cited, I don't recall for sure.  They play an annual game at Ford Field which they get to count in their home average, so they probably only need to average 12-13,000 at Rynearson to stay in d1A.  But between constantly losing (and, even worse, being a bit boring) and being a predominantly commuter school (plus, of course, the 800-pound gorilla 8 miles to the west), I just don't think they can honestly (hence the urge to inflate) draw enough year in and year out to stay d1A.

The problem is, several MAC schools have no trouble meeting the NCAA attendance requirement.  There is NO WAY the entire MAC would consent to going down, no one wants to break up the core of the MAC (a few schools have come and gone in recent years, but the core has been around for a long time), and EMU's main rivals are Western, Central, and Toledo (in general, plus others for specific sports).  They have no natural rivals who play d1AA, and NO WAY would they (willingly) consent to join Grand Valley, etc.

In nearly every other sport they are highly competitive in the MAC, and even dominate in a few (and are nationally competitive in a couple).  My personal preference would be that they throw in the towel on football (a major financial drain at a school that can hardly afford any more drains!), but I don't think the administration would ever consider it and don't know if the MAC would permit it.

They've dodged the NCAA bullet for over a decade now (sometimes properly, sometimes by shenanigans); I'll guess they'll continue to do so for awhile, but I think their days are numbered.

[Pat Coleman]

I don't think there's any incentive for a top-level D-II school to play Mount Union. I'd love to see it happen, though I don't think it would be very good for the D-III fans. It shouldn't be that close.

[victorybell_57]

i talked to a mount guy last summer. they always thought it would be neat to play the DII champs with the DIII champs. they had no preconceived notions about the game, just thought it would be a cool thing to do. maybe a scrimmage? who knows.

[formerd3db]

Mr. Ypsi and vbell:

Thanks for the follow-up.  You both might recall, that back in the mid-'80's Central was among the "ring leaders" that tried to get Eastern kicked out of the MAC.  I was quite upset at Central for doing that (IMO, it was done quite unprofessional and underhandedly and for that, I have kind of "snickered" and glad to see CMU "get kicked around" for awhile those few years until their recent success.  You know that old saying..."what goes around, comes around".   Nonetheless, Eastern proved them and the others wrong when they kicked everybody else's tails thereafter, winning the MAC and the California Bowl.

I know what you mean about the struggle that EMU has faced with football.  However, I hope they continue it; everyone said that about Northwestern and Wayne State (and even Olivet on our level), but those schools have proven that they can be respectable.  I think EMU can do it too - not easy and not always winning seasons, but if those other 3 schools I mention can do it, so can EMU.  Just MO.  Again, thanks for your input and opinions.

[Mr. Ypsi]

former,

Yes, the California Bowl win was glorious (especially as the Cali team was favored by 3 TDs!), but that was 20 years ago, and the payoff was having the coach plucked away by a Cali team!  Since then it has been losing season after losing season (I think they may have gone 6-5 one year with Charlie Batch at qb).

MAYBE they'll turn it around in my lifetime, but I'm not holding my breath (that would considerably shorten my lifetime).