FB: Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference

[firstdown]

When will a HCAC team win a playoff game and advance to the second round?  Or are we just not that good enough?

Both Franklin and MSJ had very good teams this year.  Getting to the second round was within reach for both teams.  The key is to continue to upgrade the non-conference schedule and play the tough opponents to be ready for late November.  It was great to see 2 HCAC teams in the dance this year.

[cave2bens]

When will a HCAC team win a playoff game and advance to the second round?  Or are we just not that good enough?

Both Franklin and MSJ had very good teams this year.  Getting to the second round was within reach for both teams.  The key is to continue to upgrade the non-conference schedule and play the tough opponents to be ready for late November.  It was great to see 2 HCAC teams in the dance this year.

Franklin had the misfortune to run into a team that was really peaking at years' end, and NCC was better than seeding indicated.  Don't think anyone anticipated the injury-plagued collapse of Wheaton, and the last two weeks' of rankings were affected.  

As for MSJ, they had some sterling plays in C'ville, but not enough of them to keep pace.
Some interpreted Huber's post game comments as "sour grapes," but "coach speak" being what it is, he might be defending the MSJ selection and does have the personnel to match up - it just didn't happen on that day, and he was torqued about it.... It was great to see two HCAC in the field, and is a stepping stone for the future.

[firstdown]

MSJ played well on Saturday and their Coach's comments were understandable.  Wabash is a stronger team than MSJ.  Nonetheless, MSJ gave it their all on Saturday.  Wabash was still shaking off the effects of the debacle the week before.  Fortunately the playoffs are a new season and all that matters is the game at hand.  Hudson made some mistakes.  Afterall he is a sophomore was was pressed into service after Huff's injury.  MSJ capitalized on those mistakes.  However, Hudson and Wabash kept their heads in the game, shook off the adversity, and won.  Adi and his hard hat defense stepped up made some big plays.  MSJ gave it 100%, but Wabash still isn't quite firing on all cylinders, but they are peaking at the right time.  Hudson has the tools, and is gaining the confidence and experience, and improved as the game went on.  The LG's need to step it up and play at their true potential to come away with a win a CWRU this coming Saturday.

[KYGrizzly]

Been unable to access the site on my computer at home and had to wait till I got at work to post about the game on Saturday.

What a great game to witness in person, still feeling bad for the Franklin players and coaches.

For the seniors I know the feeling will be with you all for awhile but you need to keep your heads high for what you have done during your career at Franklin. Along with the rest of the team and the coaches you have brought a lot of excitment to the football program at Franklin.
I know the coaches and underclassmen have the same feeling, but once they get back into recruiting and off season conditioning this game will only make them work harder for the upcoming season.


Congratulations to all the coaches and players for a great season and looking forward to more in the future seasons.

Also want to congratulate MSJ on their season also. I am sure you will some some great games between these two teams in the future.

In regards to the question about the HCAC being able to win a playoff, it will happen soon in the future. Both teams played competively and the conference definetly got respect this year by placing two teams in the playoff.

[victorybell_57]

i think the hcac teams are good enough to win, and it was showed by the first round. msj is a good team, and played well against wabash. let's face it, they were probably an offensive player away from winning that game.

franklin played a tough team down to the wire, again. i don't think it would be fair to say the hcac can't win a game, because the conference is doing very well against non-conf opponents and played well in their first round. we also have to remember that those other teams are being coached up and playing hard as well. in the end, you just have to beat those teams.

don't give up the hcac, i have seen some huge improvements in the conference in the past 10 years. my hat still goes off to the entire conference. defiance is tough and prepared fc and msj for the dance. hanover's years of success motivated others to get better. i could go on, but i think the conference is going to keep getting better.

[SaintsFAN]

When will a HCAC team win a playoff game and advance to the second round?  Or are we just not that good enough?

You've got to be able to pound the ball in the Playoffs.....the running game keeps the defense fresh and the opposing offense off the field.

Sounds like Franklin ran into a hot team that did everything right in the 2nd half and MSJ ran into a strong offensive team on Saturday.  Better days are ahead for the HCAC....I hope. 

[Adam Sayer]

It's not like MSJ was at "full strength" either. Mike lovell was playing with torn ligaments in his ankle and Mike Jones, Palmer's primary WR in the first half of the year was out. After reading some game notes, I think MSJ would have made a game out of this simlar to the NCC-Franklin game had they had a completely healthy team.

Regardless, FC and MSJ played great against other conferences. There is no such thing as a moral victory as a team or player, but for the HCAC, this may just be that. They didn't get a playoff win, but they didn't get blown out...which has been the case in recent years.

I do believe that one of the problems facing Cincinnati area D3 schools, specifically MSJ and to an extent, TMC is the saturation of college football in the state of Ohio, specifically the SW Corner. Cincinnati, Miami, Ohio State, Wilmington, Urbana, Wittenberg, Dayton, Mount Saint Joseph, Thomas More (not in Ohio, but on the 275 loop). I'm probably missing one or two. Those are just the ones who play football. Kids have a plethora of choices where to go to school. If MSJ, TMC, Wilmington, and Dayton were the only schools around, the programs would be exponentially better. Why??? Cause there is no other choice.

I really have no idea, but how many football playing colleges/universities are within a 100 mile radius of Chicago? I bet we have more. The fact that Chicago is about 6-7 times larger than Cincinnati. Tell me schools like Wheaton don't have an advantage when it comes to recruiting.

I know someone will bring up MUC as an Ohio school, but they are an exception. No one else does what they do!

[SaintsFAN]

Wheaton, because of their religious affiliation, can pick from kids across the country. 

[CardinalAlum]

I do believe that one of the problems facing Cincinnati area D3 schools, specifically MSJ and to an extent, TMC is the saturation of college football in the state of Ohio, specifically the SW Corner. Cincinnati, Miami, Ohio State, Wilmington, Urbana, Wittenberg, Dayton, Mount Saint Joseph, Thomas More (not in Ohio, but on the 275 loop). I'm probably missing one or two. Those are just the ones who play football. Kids have a plethora of choices where to go to school. If MSJ, TMC, Wilmington, and Dayton were the only schools around, the programs would be exponentially better. Why??? Cause there is no other choice.

I really have no idea, but how many football playing colleges/universities are within a 100 mile radius of Chicago? I bet we have more. The fact that Chicago is about 6-7 times larger than Cincinnati. Tell me schools like Wheaton don't have an advantage when it comes to recruiting.

Sorry, Adam, that argument might work somewhere else, but here are some of the 4 yr. schools within 100 miles of Chicago:

University of Chicago-D3, North Park-D3, St. Xavier-NAIA are in Chicago.
Concordia, IL-D3, 12 miles
Elmhurst-D3, 18 miles
Northwestern-D1, 19 miles
Benedictine-D3, 26 miles
Trinity-NAIA, 26 miles
Wheaton-D3, 29 miles
North Central-D3, 30 miles
Aurora-D3, 41 miles
St. Francis-NAIA, 46 miles
Valparaiso-D1-AA, NS, i think, 52 miles
Carthage-D3, 57 miles
Olivet Nazarene-NAIA, 61 miles
Concordia, WI-D3, 92 miles
Notre Dame-D1, 95 miles
Beloit-D3, 96 miles
Carroll-D3, 100 miles

I'm sure I missed some, but you get the point.

That 100 mile radius doesn't even take into account the other CCIW schools(IWU, Augustana, Millikin) and other IBC, NWC and Wisconsin State schools like Platteville that pull many Chicago area players to their schools. 

Wheaton rarely competes for the same type of athlete that other CCIW schools are after because of their religious affiliation.  But on the other hand, they do have a nationwide recruiting base also because of the religion.  I'm sure other Wheaton(Wheaties) people could explain better than me.

[Mugsy]

I really have no idea, but how many football playing colleges/universities are within a 100 mile radius of Chicago? I bet we have more. The fact that Chicago is about 6-7 times larger than Cincinnati. Tell me schools like Wheaton don't have an advantage when it comes to recruiting.

Adam,

Wheaton's proximity to Chicago does not give it the recruiting advantage that you assume. 

First of all, as CardinalAlum points out, there are a significant number of D3 schools all competing for the best players available (after the D1 schools have cleaned up).  This has become all the more significant because many of these schools have become much, much more competitive as a program and thus are more attractive to perspective players - there are more choices of quality football teams now for high school football players.  If you only look at the CCIW, back in the 80's and 90's it was predominately Augustana, Millikin and Illinois Wesleyan if you wanted to play for a team with a chance to win the CCIW year in and year out.  Now almost any program in the CCIW, except for North Park, is competitive to the point of having a chance to win the championship.  Just look at this year... Illinois Wesleyan was picked 7th in the conference in the preseason poll and ended up a co-champion.

More significant is the type of player Wheaton is looking for...  Wheaton is a very strong academic school.  I'm not saying that others in the CCIW or in the HCAC aren't, but if you look at the average student coming into Wheaton, they rank very, very high nationally in ACT/SAT scores, along with class ranking, etc...  Wheaton is a private Christian college, where each student must recognize and adhere to a statement of faith (profession of believe).  And the other significant issue is that like other private schools, tuition is very expensive.  So prospective Wheaton recruits must be upper tier students, professing followers of Jesus Christ, who can afford the high tuition costs and oh, yeah... quality athletes.

Because of this combination, Wheaton has relied heavily upon Alumni through out the US to help find recruits.  I'd encourage you to look at the Wheaton roster to prove the point.  Wheaton only gets about 25% or so of their players from Illinois (of which most are from Wheaton).  Here is a breakdown of the 2007 Wheaton roster:

Illinois - 22
Texas - 9
Michigan - 8
Georgia - 5
California - 5
Pennslyvania - 5
Arizona - 5
Missouri - 5
Ohio - 4
Florida - 3
Minnesota - 3
Oklahoma - 2
Colorado - 2
Wisconsin - 1
Virginia - 1
North Carolina - 1
Massachusetts - 1
Alabama - 1
Washington - 1
Hawaii - 1
New Jersey - 1
Oregon - 1
Indiana - 1
Iowa - 1

Doesn't really look like a roster where the focus is primarily on the Chicagoland area, does it?

[usee]

Mugsy is right. Most of the time the particularity of wheaton simply adds another filter for them to try and find athletes. where most competing cciw schools can walk into a Wheaton Warrenville South 8A program and find a handful of kids to recruit who are excellent students, great athletes, and can afford a high priced school (for which they will compete with many other schools), Wheaton adds the filter of being a christian college which means none of those same kids may even be on their list. For that reason they are forced to recruit nationally primarily through an alumni network.

So Wheaton's challenge is finding the student athlete that fits at Wheaton. ONce they do find that kid, they may have an advantage over other schools at the end of the decision process because they offer something to that student athlete that other choices do not which is important to that student. But getting to that point with a championship caliber athlete is extremely difficult.

[victorybell_57]

msj and FC could field players from that wide of a range of states also, but the school has to be willing to pay for the travel to go recruit those kids. for most DIII schools, that is not a real possibility. mount union can because of their national success and their name is well known. if i am not mistaken, mount union only travels to recruiting nights with coaches, and to out of state recruiting fairs since they cannot recruit in the schools in ohio.

while adam brings up the sw corner of ohio, he also is forgetting that hanover, franklin, earlham, anderson, rhit, etc probably recruit the same types of kids. you are also looking at the small schools from western pa who think that a short drive to cincy (where there is great high school football) is not that far for a kid to travel to play ball.

it's all relative though, mount union has to recruit against numerous small colleges in NE ohio and they seem to do ok.

[Adam Sayer]

As I said, I really didn't know. Just off the top of my head, before kids came in for class, I got 8 (Chicago, Northwestern, Concordia, Wheaton, Elmhurst, North Central, Valpo, and Notre Dame - wasn't sure how far they were).

Wheaton was just an example (obviously a poor one). I wasn't picking on them...just that they are good year in and year out. Again, I was in a hurry with kids coming in and didn't have time to research...just threw it out their.

You also forgot their facilities...which are better than any I've seen while playing at MSJ.

You actually brought me to the point of my argument...just in a different way than what I wanted. MSJ needs to start looking in more places for recruits. Hubie does a great job of recruiting the areas between Indianapolis, Columbus, Cincinnati, Lexignton, and Louisville. But what if they went further and extended their recruiting base? Wheaton's roster has kids from everywhere, primarily due to their affiliation, but they have a large geographical recruiting area. Directly/indirectly, they can tap all 50 states for players. MSJ taps a circle that's about 300 miles in diameter give and take. What if Wheaton were to rely on recruits specifically from Chicago and Indianapolis and no where else...with the other schools around, they probably wouldn't be very good due to saturation.

While fishing with JacketsFan, he explained the lack of small schools in Florida and the South in general. He went on about how many players get missed because they don't have the size or speed for DI...but nonetheless, are good football players. I think MSJ would benefit, if Suriano and Hubie were to take 2 weeks and hit different cities in the south such as Atlanta and the Florida cities. Hell, Rod could play his guitar while on the beach sipping a bahama mama...looking at the mama's. I hate to "dog' where I'm from, but I don't think recruiting the the Tri-State area is going to win more than a playoff game...which so far has been a struggle in itself.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Adam, recruiting from more than the 'local' area (however that may get defined) would put MSJ in rarified company in d3.  Wheaton is a special case, and the UAA schools of course, probably most of NESCAC, Johns Hopkins, CalTech, and only a handful of others really have national recruiting bases (though there may be many others with some specific non-local source).  While just about everyone gets a few recruits from far afield due to alums, most rely heavily on 'local' talent.

In terms of Chicago, you've got the western Big Ten schools (certainly both Michigan schools, Purdue, Indiana, and Iowa, but perhaps excluding Minnesota, who doesn't seem to recruit ANYONE lately!) plus Northern Illinois, Western Michigan, and some others (e.g., ND) skimming off the d1 talent.  Then there are the many d2 and NAIA scholarship schools.  All of the CCIW schools (except perhaps Millikin?) mine the Chicago area heavily, as do some MWC, WIAC, IIAC, and other schools.  I don't know how Chicago compares to Cincy, but it is hardly uncontested terrain!

[Mugsy]

As I said, I really didn't know. Just off the top of my head, before kids came in for class, I got 8 (Chicago, Northwestern, Concordia, Wheaton, Elmhurst, North Central, Valpo, and Notre Dame - wasn't sure how far they were).

Wheaton was just an example (obviously a poor one). I wasn't picking on them...just that they are good year in and year out. Again, I was in a hurry with kids coming in and didn't have time to research...just threw it out their.

You also forgot their facilities...which are better than any I've seen while playing at MSJ.

You actually brought me to the point of my argument...just in a different way than what I wanted. MSJ needs to start looking in more places for recruits. Hubie does a great job of recruiting the areas between Indianapolis, Columbus, Cincinnati, Lexignton, and Louisville. But what if they went further and extended their recruiting base? Wheaton's roster has kids from everywhere, primarily due to their affiliation, but they have a large geographical recruiting area. Directly/indirectly, they can tap all 50 states for players. MSJ taps a circle that's about 300 miles in diameter give and take. What if Wheaton were to rely on recruits specifically from Chicago and Indianapolis and no where else...with the other schools around, they probably wouldn't be very good due to saturation.

While fishing with JacketsFan, he explained the lack of small schools in Florida and the South in general. He went on about how many players get missed because they don't have the size or speed for DI...but nonetheless, are good football players. I think MSJ would benefit, if Suriano and Hubie were to take 2 weeks and hit different cities in the south such as Atlanta and the Florida cities. Hell, Rod could play his guitar while on the beach sipping a bahama mama...looking at the mama's. I hate to "dog' where I'm from, but I don't think recruiting the the Tri-State area is going to win more than a playoff game...which so far has been a struggle in itself.

No problem... I was just giving information about Wheaton recruiting that most away from the CCIW aren't as aware of.  I didn't sense you were picking on Wheaton.  

You have some valid questions about how a program might be affected by a wider recruiting base and top notch facilities.  The wider recruiting base for Wheaton is helped dramatically by alumni from all over the country paying attention to local high school players who fit the mold of what Wheaton is looking for and then letting the coach staff know about players they should keep an eye on.  

Once Wheaton got 3-4 players from an area in Texas and they all had positive experiences, then the Wheaton coaches had an in with local high school coaches.  Families of players who loved playing for Wheaton became big recruiters as well.  Then it builds...  repeat that in Florida, California, Arizona, etc... now Wheaton doesn't have to spent as much recruiting resources to fly coaches around as much.  It all builds on itself...  

You are absolutely right that Wheaton is better because they pull players in from all over - though you still need to find quality.  It is possible to pull in players from all over, but if they aren't as gifted... then it is moot.  I suppose that is where good facilities, a good school and a solid program come in to help attract better players.

The Wheaton staff still has a huge recruiting "hill to climb" each year and it takes a ton of effort to insure the program remains strong.