FB: Region 3 fan poll

[Pat Coleman]

Of Christopher Newport, Johns Hopkins, Salisbury, Delaware Valley, Susquehanna and Muhlenberg -- less than half of these programs are really going to help, even. I'd say aim higher. I don't know who Mount Union is playing non-conference after this year, but they are the closest major-major player geographically.

Playing teams who are going to top out in the 11-15 range of the poll won't move the needle when you are comparing to UMHB, HSU and Trinity. Hardin-Simmons has gone begging for D-III opponents for multiple years running.

I don't disagree with you much on these boards, but here is one of those rare cases.

If you can't consistently beat CNU, JHU, Salisbury, Del Val, etc. then there is little point in taking your drubbing vs UMU ahead of the first or second round of the playoffs.

I don't doubt that R-MC right now would consistently beat those teams. You do, I guess?

Who has UMU played OOC in the last 15 years that has ratcheted themselves up a level?

I never said that adopting Mount Union's scheduling plan was a good idea. I said scheduling Mount Union was a good idea.

But if you want to "schedule up" the way D-III powers not named Mount Union have been over the past couple of years, Mount Union is the one that is closest, geographically.

[rmc1982]

I tend to like Jkenezek's proposal a bit more than yours Pat- I think we have to learn to crawl before we can walk! He's an ODAC guy( W&L) Heck we haven't even proven we can beat W&L consistently yet!! The long and short of it is we have to be better about scheduling better competition ( and if it means filling a hole with one of the teams Pat mentioned EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE  so be it) if we ever want to be mentioned in the same sentence with these other teams. Pedro Arruzza has done one heck of a job for us building a PROGRAM and turning our guys into men that want to give back and be a part of that culture and it's taken him a long time to do that. We have 18 FIFTH YEAR seniors who came back instead of graduating so that's a testament to him and what he's done. This is a very pivotal year for us. We HAVE TO produce this year if we ever want to climb up a notch in D3 Football..... we tasted it last year.... Now it's time to bust the door down if we're gonna do it! Now there's LOTS AND LOTS of football to be played and we could stumble and fall on our faces or we may win out and have lots of expectations- that's why they play the games. But if we want to step it up we have to do it ourselves and play a better schedule! That is the starting point!

[Pat Coleman]

Randolph-Macon is already walking.

And I'm not saying to go UMHB style, either, and fill all of your non-conference games that way -- but yes, play up to the next tier. CNU, JHU, Del Val, Susquehanna and Muhlenberg are at your tier or below.

[rmc1982]

Randolph-Macon is already walking.

And I'm not saying to go UMHB style, either, and fill all of your non-conference games that way -- but yes, play up to the next tier. CNU, JHU, Del Val, Susquehanna and Muhlenberg are at your tier or below.

Thanks Pat!.... I'll take that as a complement to what Pedro has done for our kids. If you wanna BE the best you have to BEAT the best! Point well taken...Hopefully our athletic administrators will take the plunge, albeit a little at a time!

[jknezek]

I don't doubt that R-MC right now would consistently beat those teams. You do, I guess?


I never said that adopting Mount Union's scheduling plan was a good idea. I said scheduling Mount Union was a good idea.

But if you want to "schedule up" the way D-III powers not named Mount Union have been over the past couple of years, Mount Union is the one that is closest, geographically.

Yes. I have my doubts. They lost to Del Val just last year. Good game, close game, on the road. Lost by a TD after beating Cortland at home by a TD. But there is nothing that leads me to believe they will consistently win either of those games. Be competitive? Sure. They absolutely were last year. Win some? Probably, especially at home. They lost to JHU both of the last 2 times they played 2019 and 2018 (by 32pts!). Lost to Muhlenberg in 2018 by 29, but beat JCU by 3. Honestly, there is very little that should give you confidence they can win those games regularly.

Compete? Sure. I think R-MC is better now than they were in 2018. I think they are right in there with those teams, the teams that get an ok seed and win a game, maybe 2. Want to make a name? Win more of those. That's a lot better than losing regularly to the next tier up, which you are going to do in the playoffs most likely anyway.

[Pat Coleman]

Randolph-Macon is definitely better than they were then, and frankly, each of the teams mentioned (other than Susquehanna), is not as good right now as in 2018 and 2019.

[FLALTX]

I think it all depends on the goals of the program. If the goals are to compete and win a first round game, maybe a second then I would agree with your approach. If your goals are to win/compete for a National Championship then it requires different exposure and a different approach. I say this because if you're in a conference that's not as strong or a region that isn't as strong the players don't really understand the different level of speed, strength, size and skill that exist at the top of D3. If you want to win championships, you have to see what the top teams are like so you can measure yourself against them. I'm not saying it will cause a team to improve, they may not want to or may not have the players and the support to do so. However, you are able to evaluate yourself and see where you actually stand in the D3 hierarchy. The top of D3 is really good and it takes seeing it and playing those teams regularly for it to sink in.

[BSCpanthers]

This is why D3 needs bowl games, now if we could just figure out how to make it financially feasible.   

Good news! These exist, and have for decades!

Yeah but that's what 2 or 3 games, and all in the upper Midwest if I remember correctly. Going off of memory. It's be great to see 10 or so regional bowls. But again, to make it financially viable is the hard part.

[Pat Coleman]

This is why D3 needs bowl games, now if we could just figure out how to make it financially feasible.   

Good news! These exist, and have for decades!

Yeah but that's what 2 or 3 games, and all in the upper Midwest if I remember correctly. Going off of memory. It's be great to see 10 or so regional bowls. But again, to make it financially viable is the hard part.

Good news! There are 10 regional bowls! Just that nobody south of the ODAC has gone through the work of setting one up yet. Most are actually in New England and the Mid-Atlantic. The two in the Midwest are relatively new.

[jknezek]

I never said that adopting Mount Union's scheduling plan was a good idea. I said scheduling Mount Union was a good idea.

But if you want to "schedule up" the way D-III powers not named Mount Union have been over the past couple of years, Mount Union is the one that is closest, geographically.

Not to beat this to death since I think we've both made our thoughts pretty clear, but I wasn't suggesting R-MC should schedule like UMU. I was pointing out that scheduling UMU has almost never worked out for the team that does so. Typically they earn a couple drubbings and remain the same type of team they were before. Finding out "what it takes" doesn't really seem to do much for schools then trying to reach that level. Which makes perfect sense, since only so many teams can be elite, but none of the teams that have schedule UMU OOC for the last 15 years have reached any kind of elite status except, briefly, UW-O. And most of them have done no better, while some have gotten quite a bit worse.

Franklin was a very solid HCAC team until 2019, their 2012 4 score loss was followed up by a near miss in 2013. The best OOC result and Franklin continued on as a HCAC threat for several years. Outside of UW-O, the best result of the bunch. SJF lost the plot in 2016, well after their 30 and 40 point beatings, but their 2011 and 2013 squads had some legs until they got shut down by other elites late in the playoffs. Averett, Bethany, NC Wes have been... uneven at best, downright bad at worst, for 20 years, and more or less remain so. Rose Hulman actually had a nice run going from 2013 through 2017, playing UMU in 18/19 ended in 50pt plus drubbings and they've only had 1 season with 6+ wins since.

I just don't see the point of scheduling up that way unless you legitimately think you are in the tier where you are going to play UMU to a less than 2 score game. And in 15 years of UMU OOC games, that's happened once, Franklin in 2013. If I was a betting man, I'm not putting R-MC in that category right now.

[Pat Coleman]

No surprise that scheduling Mount Union didn't make Bethany or Averett or N.C. Wesleyan better, or a number of those other teams.

None of those teams was Randolph-Macon before playing Mount Union, so why would they be Randolph-Macon afterward?

[jknezek]

No surprise that scheduling Mount Union didn't make Bethany or Averett or N.C. Wesleyan better, or a number of those other teams.

None of those teams was Randolph-Macon before playing Mount Union, so why would they be Randolph-Macon afterward?

We have a quote in financial markets that goes along the lines of "Past performance does not guarantee future performance" that we are required to make clear to customers when discussing investments. It's absolutely true and helps keep the shenanigans down. But we also all know that past performance is very, very indicative of what is likely to happen in the future.

Yes, it's easy to say R-MC is not Franklin or SJF or UW-O, and they are certainly not Averett or N.C. Wes. But the weight of evidence is scheduling up to the top tier really doesn't do anything for you. However, something like Trinity playing St. Johns, or Hardin-Simmons playing UW-L, second tier vs second tier (and yes, I put most of the WIAC in Tier 2), does seem to put your name out there when you win, or at least put up a darn good fight against that second tier. I'm fully on board with scheduling up 1 tier. I'm just not fully on board scheduling up 2 or 3 tiers. Since the tiers aren't hard and fast, and change every year, I know that's a difficult moving target.

But that's why I say consistently beat the better playoff teams around before you go challenging the Final Four contenders. R-MC has yet to do that. You believe they can, I'm skeptical they'd get away more than .500. But we will see. I expect R-MC to win the ODAC. If they do it undefeated, which given their schedule looks very, very possible if not likely, then I expect they will get a decent first round opponent. A second straight trip to the Sweet 16 and another good showing in that round, maybe even a win, which we both think they are capable of depending on matchup, would be a reputation changer for the YellowJackets.

[Wild Horse Rider]

I don't know if scheduling better competition is what will make RMC or any team for that matter elite from the south east.  I think there is a perception of D3 football that is very tough to change in this area.  I am just really looking at the geographic footprint of region 3 and if your cutoff for elite is play in the quarter finals in any given year much less on a consistent basis you will not find anyone outside of UMHB (I am sure HSU could get there if the brackets did not dictate that they play UMHB as early as they do).  In a past life I recruited for a D3 college in North Carolina.  Our recruiting area consisted of NC, SC, GA, FL, and some parts of VA and TN.  I would often hear from coaches and players alike that they would rather go to a bigger school and walk on or just stop playing football than go to a D3 program.  I could typically change hearts and minds if I could get them up to a game and see the level of competition is not what they had in their heads.  The next hurdle was the amount of colleges in NC that play football.  There are 35 schools that play football and 14 of them are D2 (more than a few of them are state schools with a much lower price tag even if they don't receive any athletic money).  Which brings me to the last hurdle and that was the cost of the school.  I am guessing with very few exceptions that all the region 3 schools are private schools with fairly high cost of attendance.  You can't change the price tag or the amount of competition from other schools but maybe you can change the perception.

So I don't think that scheduling a Mount Union, a UWO, a UWW, a N. Central, a UMHB, or whoever you consider elite will help.  I think when you look at the players on those teams they look different than the players that you will typically find at an ASC, ODAC, SAA, or a USAC conference team.  The North East and Midwest areas know that there is competitive football to be played at the D3 level and kids that could otherwise walk on to a bigger program or give up football all together go to those schools.  If you look even closer it boils down to both lines of scrimmage.  If a top half school from the LL, E8, OAC, or WIAC for example come and play a team from the USAC you could have a very untrained eye and look out at the field and go, WOW that one team is so much bigger than the other team.  Skill players are so easy to find but the bigs and a QB make all the difference in the world.

Now this is a rant and I don't have a great solution other than to say it will start before the kids even get to RMC.  If they can pull kids who are making a choice between a D2 or trying to walk on to a FCS/FBS school at a consistent basis then you will have a chance to reach the elite status.  If there are any of the alumni that you were speaking with about this problem are coaches in the state of VA then they can be the ones to start the change.

[Pat Coleman]

I was in a discussion on this very issue last week with a bunch of football alumni and we were all in agreement that if we wanted our program to get to the next level( Elite D3 programs) then we need to do what our basketball program does and schedule every difficult opponent we can early and let the chips fall where they do.

I'm just bringing back the initial statement here.

And to say that some of the suggested opponents did not qualify under the description listed. Setting your sights higher is OK. I suggested Mount Union because "third place team in the CCIW" or "fourth place team in the WIAC" is much further geographically. John Carroll may be comparable to those types of teams, may not be. I don't think anyone in the PAC is, and you can't schedule a PAC team until 2025 anyway, but those teams would be good as a secondary "jewel in the crown" of a Randolph-Macon non-conference schedule.

[tigerguy]

Somehow I still expect Trinity won't be a unanimous vote this week. Embarrassing effort by HSU. Expect UMHB to roll over them, despite their start. But Howard Payne might roll UMHB.