FB: Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference

[grizgater]

Nice work panthersfan.

[dc_has_been]

Using D3Football's preseason rankings I took a general stab at classifying the HCAC's non conf schedule in terms of whether the team will be an underdog, even or favored.  I know some match ups can be argued here but clearly we have our work cut-out for us.  Especially considering that there are two games I wanted to mark as underdogs and didn't (Franklin vs Butler and Hanover vs Ill College).  Butler may be a mediocre FCS school at best but still FCS (and not Valpo for sure).  I think Ill College is a clear favorite as well but Hanover fell within 50 spots to them in the preseason Div III rankings.  Within 50 spots is the general marker I used in determining if a matchup was even except for teams in the top 20 (i.e., Frankin vs Mount Union).

Only being favored in 2 of 18 non conference games is an eye opener.


HCAC Non Conf   D3 ranking   Favored/Even/Underdog
-------------   ----------      ---------------------
Anderson          211
Taylor      n/a      U
Grove City          164      E

Bluffton            142
Kenyon               232           F
Baldwin-Wal    19      U


Defiance           203
Albion               51      U
Adrian       67      U

Earlham      233
Oberlin      196      E
Kenyon      232      E

Franklin             13
Mount Union      2      U
Butler              n/a      E

Hanover       73
Ill College            39      E
Wabash       10      U

Manchester          184      
Trine               88      U
Kalamazoo          194      E

MSJ              121
Wilmington           194      F
Thomas More    20      U

Rose Hulman   150
Kalamazoo           194      E
Centre        40      U


Underdog   = 9
Even       = 7
Favored    = 2

Agreed, nice work, but that sucks how poorly we rank compared to our competition.  Hopefully the HCAC can pull out some upsets.......Defiance

[grizgater]

Yes! let's get the HCAC some attention.

[GRIZ_BACKER]

Using D3Football's preseason rankings I took a general stab at classifying the HCAC's non conf schedule in terms of whether the team will be an underdog, even or favored.  I know some match ups can be argued here but clearly we have our work cut-out for us.  Especially considering that there are two games I wanted to mark as underdogs and didn't (Franklin vs Butler and Hanover vs Ill College).  Butler may be a mediocre FCS school at best but still FCS (and not Valpo for sure).  I think Ill College is a clear favorite as well but Hanover fell within 50 spots to them in the preseason Div III rankings.  Within 50 spots is the general marker I used in determining if a matchup was even except for teams in the top 20 (i.e., Frankin vs Mount Union).

Only being favored in 2 of 18 non conference games is an eye opener.


HCAC Non Conf   D3 ranking   Favored/Even/Underdog
-------------   ----------      ---------------------
Anderson          211
Taylor      n/a      U
Grove City          164      E

Bluffton            142
Kenyon               232           F
Baldwin-Wal    19      U


Defiance           203
Albion               51      U
Adrian       67      U

Earlham      233
Oberlin      196      E
Kenyon      232      E

Franklin             13
Mount Union      2      U
Butler              n/a      E

Hanover       73
Ill College            39      E
Wabash       10      U

Manchester          184      
Trine               88      U
Kalamazoo          194      E

MSJ              121
Wilmington           194      F
Thomas More    20      U

Rose Hulman   150
Kalamazoo           194      E
Centre        40      U


Underdog   = 9
Even       = 7
Favored    = 2

Agreed, nice work, but that sucks how poorly we rank compared to our competition.  Hopefully the HCAC can pull out some upsets.......Defiance

The good thing is that the GRIZ has to work at to be underdogs via scheduling.

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

So far I've only got 2 sets of predictions for the HCAC Fan Poll. I know there's several of you around here. Take a couple minutes to PM me your predictions and I'll compile the Fan Poll to see if we have different opinions than the coaches do.

Just over 38 hours until the season kicks off with Manchester.

[panthersfan]

Nice work panthersfan.

Thanks.  After scanning all the conference openers I realized we're obviously underdogs in most of them and got curious about all the nonconf games.  Too lazy to check for myself but I'm curious how other conferences' nonconf schedules would look like.

[GRIZ_BACKER]

Looks like folks at Faught Stadium in Franklin will require rain coats and umbrellas as 2-5 inches of rain are expected this weekend from remnants of Hurricane Issac. Not sure if rain is good for the Griz passing game though.

[panthersfan]

Yes! let's get the HCAC some attention.

Amen to that one!

[Dr. Acula]

Looks like folks at Faught Stadium in Franklin will require rain coats and umbrellas as 2-5 inches of rain are expected this weekend from remnants of Hurricane Issac. Not sure if rain is good for the Griz passing game though.

Perhaps a blessing and a curse?  With RB Jeremy Murray gone Mount's most proven skill guys are the WR group.  If the weather forces them to the ground maybe that's a good thing for FC.  Current starter TJ Lattimore is more explosive, but Murray was a proven commodity and perfectly suited to grind it out in bad weather.

How is Franklin's run D?  I only saw the stats in the preview from 2011. 

[GrizFan]

Looks like folks at Faught Stadium in Franklin will require rain coats and umbrellas as 2-5 inches of rain are expected this weekend from remnants of Hurricane Issac. Not sure if rain is good for the Griz passing game though.

Perhaps a blessing and a curse?  With RB Jeremy Murray gone Mount's most proven skill guys are the WR group.  If the weather forces them to the ground maybe that's a good thing for FC.  Current starter TJ Lattimore is more explosive, but Murray was a proven commodity and perfectly suited to grind it out in bad weather.

How is Franklin's run D?  I only saw the stats in the preview from 2011.

I am afraid that the Purple Power is going to be tough to stop!

[BashDad]

I am afraid that the Purple Power is going to be tough to stop!

Gross.

[BashDad]

Stormy Weather:

http://d3football.com/seasons/2011/boxscores/20111001_pgzy.xml

[BashDad]

The fact that I seem to be the only football fan seeing Saturday's game as a good'n, makes me want to shout a little louder.

Here are some reposts from the NCAC board about the UMU/FC game. Can you Grizzly fans try not to temper my excitement with oddly resigned posts ending in exclamations that offer the most broad and superficial analysis in favor of the team that you'd presumably like to beat? Yeah? Okay, thanks.

Best case scenario, I believe, is that Franklin gets through the first 3-4 possessions without getting turned over while they get accustomed to things.

This is the BEST case? Just hoping they get through the first quarter without causing disaster? No. No it's not. Which year of football are we gearing up for? 2004? I don't get it. The best case is that Franklin gets to run their 10-15 scripted plays in the first two series and get UMU into all their different defensive looks. UMU will have a filthy defense. But Leonard is a genius if he knows what's what on the other side of the ball. And the dudes executing are all, like, non-idiots and experienced against the best team (by a long shot) in the country. So. I don't know. THAT's the best case. That they can play 3.5 quarters with the confidence that they prepared correctly.

But stoppit. I wanna save all this. We've got way too much time between now and then.

I can't stop:

We could all agree that Franklin, last year, would've finished in the top half of the OAC. Right? I think that's probably true. Take a look at UMU's performance against 3 of those 4 teams:

ONU? 14-6 
BW? 25-20 
Captial? 27-7

Now then. Last year's UMU offense was as vulnerable a unit as they've had in at least a decade, probably more. The Raider faithful want you to believe they've got some dude who's gonna average 6ypc waiting in the wings (they don't) or that Burke is somehow going to wrestle the reigns away from a mediocre senior QB (he won't). Look, they're still Mount Union and I'm no fool: they're better than most and better--presumably--than Franklin. But it's not a slam dunk. They are, from my perspective, a worse offensive team than they were last year. I just don't see how you can believe otherwise. But--and a big one--I don't know what that means yet, neither do they, and neither do you. How good is a team that relies squarely on Neal Seaman? I don't know. Probably a little less than great in my opinion, but to have the beginnings of any real answer they have to play a good team first. Thankfully, we don't have to wait for that to happen.

Franklin, who had their best team in forever last year, is a good team. They scored more points against the national champion in the first half of their playoff match-up than UMU scored all game in theirs. And you know what? They'll be better this year. They were all sophomores and juniors. The gap between UMU and the best of the rest, which already seemed thinner than we're used to, is now even smaller. Look at those scores above. Two of them, at least, are a Raider ****-up away from being losses. That's... I don't know. Interesting? I think so. Franklin may need UMU to make some holy-moly mistakes to keep the game close, but if any UMU team in recent memory is going to do that, it's this one. The Grizz have a real shot, I think. So there. I'll take your 28 points!

More:

In the first half of the UW-W playoff game, Franklin's sophmore QB was 21-36 for 214 yards and a TD. He was a sophomore. In two quarters, against the best defense in the country, Mr. Jonny West, sophomore, put up more yards than all but two of UWW's opponents could muster, in full games, the entire season. That muh fuh got accustomed and quick. Is UMU's D any better than that squad? Nope. No sir. They are not.

If Franklin puts up 14 in the first half of the UMU game, they'll be winning.

[BashDad]

Also, this might be as good a time as any to invite Pat to write some about this year's UMU squad and why he's so high on them. It'd be fun to argue.

I can crawl back to the NCAC board, too, if y'all are feeling invaded. A thousand apologies.

[wally_wabash]

Wow.  Hanging me right on out there, BD.  Thanks for that.   

I'll freely admit that I'm far more interested in this UMU/Franklin game than I am in anything going on in the NCAC this week.  I think this game has a lot of implication for Wabash (or whoever else might win the NCAC).  If Franklin wins, they'd almost certainly leap over Wabash or Witt in the potential postseason seeding heirarcy.  Maybe even a CCIW champion because, the enormous gap between the difficulty of navigating the CCIW versus navigating the HCAC notwithstanding, beating Mount Union will count for a lot (unless Mount Union goes on to lose another game or two...good grief, is that a real coversation to have?).  Knocking Mount Union out of that top spot opens doors for a lot of teams...really anybody that goes 10-0 can realisitcally hope for a top seed as you never know how they'll arrange the brackets anymore. 

It will be an interesting situation in Franklin on Saturday for sure.  I'm sticking by my feeling here that Mount Union will strike early and make Franklin chase a couple of scores, but I could be vastly overestimating UMU or underestimating Franklin or both.  We shall see.