FB: Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference

[dc_has_been]

HCAC moves up a few spots in the conference rankings!  I really hope that the conference continues to build their programs up and eventually have a better non-conference record playing quality opponents. 

http://d3football.com/columns/around-the-nation/2016/re-ranking-the-conferences-for-2016

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

Franklin looked better today but still have room for improvement. It was 41-13 until a couple of late scores by Manchester (and several uncharacteristic penalties by the Grizzlies).
Blowouts the order of the day as Mount beats Hanover 42-6, while Defiance and Rose both have 30+ point leads in their games.

[SaintsFAN]

Franklin looked better today but still have room for improvement. It was 41-13 until a couple of late scores by Manchester (and several uncharacteristic penalties by the Grizzlies).
Blowouts the order of the day as Mount beats Hanover 42-6, while Defiance and Rose both have 30+ point leads in their games.

At least those two teams found someone to beat up on; finally, in MSJ's case.

[dc_has_been]

I know that it was against Earlham, but I'll take the W for DC!  Also, putting up a decent offensive performance is good to see!

[GrizFan]

Does Rose have what it takes to defeat the Grizzlies this weekend?

[GRIZ_BACKER]

Does Rose have what it takes to defeat the Grizzlies this weekend?

They think they do.  But they don't.  FC is going to turn up the heat. Earlham and the idle week are over and its time to leave the starters in and get ready for another playoff run.

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

Rose certainly could win, but Grizzlies are definitely the favorite. Honestly I'm more worried about MSJ than Rose right now. They started the year off bad, but they seem to have their act together now.

[GRIZ_BACKER]

Rose certainly could win, but Grizzlies are definitely the favorite. Honestly I'm more worried about MSJ than Rose right now. They started the year off bad, but they seem to have their act together now.

MSJ may have gotten their act together. Coach Leonard IMO needs to quit tinkering and let the starters play the 3.5 quarters they have earned. Send a message

[SaintsFAN]

Does Rose have what it takes to defeat the Grizzlies this weekend?

In a word, no.  I think Franklin's next test will come in Week 12.

[SaintsFAN]

Rose certainly could win, but Grizzlies are definitely the favorite. Honestly I'm more worried about MSJ than Rose right now. They started the year off bad, but they seem to have their act together now.

MSJ may have gotten their act together. Coach Leonard IMO needs to quit tinkering and let the starters play the 3.5 quarters they have earned. Send a message

We'll see but I feel like their only decent win was against Rose.  MSJ seemed to match up well with them though.  The telling stat for MSJ is third down efficiency for both sides of the ball.  They converted over 65% on offense against Rose and were able to hold Rose to 36%. 

No way do they hold Franklin under 45% on 3rd downs

[SaintsFAN]

Does Rose have what it takes to defeat the Grizzlies this weekend?

In a word, no.  I think Franklin's next test will come in Week 12.

In a word, I was wrong.  Would like to hear how the game ended today.

[FCGrizzliesGrad]

Well, Franklin fumbled the ball (although there was question as to whether he was down or not as the refs huddled for quite a while discussing it) with under 3 minutes to go in their own territory while up 22-17, Rose scored a TD with 21 seconds left to take a 23-22 lead, they went for 2 and threw an interception that had the QB not stopped would have been returned for 2 points which would have given Franklin the lead right back.

Too many passes that the receivers didn't hold on to and Grizzlies gave up too many 3rd down conversions.

Now we have a 4 way tie for first with them all playing each other next week and all 1-1 against the others so far. Franklin needs to beat MSJ and have Bluffton beat Rose... Bluffton needs a win and MSJ win... MSJ needs a win and Rose win... Rose needs a win and Franklin win.

[GrizFan]

At least 10 drops today by the Grizzlies and a missed extra point.  The fumble was a weird play.  The play was blown dead for lack of forward progress before the fumble but it was allowed to stand.

The Grizzlies had zero emotion today and Rose was fired up.

If FC plays like that against MSJ, the season is lost.

[HansenRatings]

Since last weekend kinda threw the Pool A race into disarray, I figured I would share how my model sees the season playing out. First of all, the FC/MSJ game is now pretty much a pure tossup, and the four teams tied for first all have pretty even odds of earning the bid:

Team	Conf W-L	Projection	Pool A Prob
Rose-Hulman	5-1	6.62-1.38	34.92%
Mount St. Joseph	5-1	6.33-1.67	30.52%
Franklin	4-1	6.41-1.59	18.06%
Bluffton	4-1	6.13-1.87	16.50%

Franklin needs Bluffton to beat RHIT this weekend, and (obviously) a win over MSJ.

[Adam Sayer]

This MSJ team and the one that competed for the 1st 3 weeks are 2 different teams. The first 3 weeks, MSJ failed to score 30 combined points. Something clicked, or they found out who could/could not play and righted the ship. I'm happy for them as I feared they were heading towards a losing record which I don't think they've had since 2001 (0-10 season). Hopefully they can continue getting better and pull out a win against FC but history has shown me 2 things. 1 - the Cubs won't win the world series. 2 - MSJ will struggle on defense against FC and will have a hard time scoring at the same rate.