The 2009 Year-in-Review thread

[K-Mack]

This is the home for week-to-week occurrences that we know we'll want to come back and take a look at when the ATN year-in-review is compiled.

Week 4 had a 3-0 win involving DePauw and an 8-5 Coast guard/Westfield State game (least bang for the buck). TCNJ scoring 67 is the most bang I've seen so far.

There were some incredible finishes in September, maybe too many to list, but it can't hurt to try. Wheaton scored on the last play to beat Bethel 29-26, right? Pretty sure the Coast Guard/USMMA rivalry game went to overtime.

What are the ones I'm forgetting?

[wasper68]

What about Emory scoring 29 4th qtr points to beat NCW.  Add to that the fact that they went 50 yards in 11 seconds.

[Ryan Tipps]

Pretty much my whole column after Week 3 was dedicated to down-to-the-wire finishes -- though only one outside of overtimes that actually happened as time ran out. Still, that's six fantastic finishes in just one day in my region.

[K-Mack]

This is good:

Central 41, Dubuque 27
Sep 19, 2009

DUBUQUE, Iowa — Fourth-and-goal plays loomed large for the Central College football team Saturday but this time it was the defense that delivered as the No. 16 Dutch escaped with a 41-27 victory at the Univ. of Dubuque Saturday.

A week ago Central (3-0 overall, 1-0 Iowa Conference) scored on a fourth-and-goal play from the 1-yard line in a 22-21 win over Wis.-Stevens Point. But Saturday, with the Dutch clinging to a 33-27 fourth-quarter lead, Dubuque (1-2 overall, 0-1 conference) twice had fourth-and-goal opportunities and were denied.

[Mr. Ypsi]

You might be able to come up with an even more extreme example, but in the "stat sheets and scoreboards are not always compatible" division:

Total yards: IWU 415, Millikin 158
First downs: IWU 27, Millikin 8
TOP:  IWU 34, Millikin 26

Final score: IWU 13, Millikin 19.

And neither team even lost a fumble!

The keys seem to be a Millikin 73-yard 'pick six', and a blocked punt which gave Millikin possession on the IWU 27 (each team probably lost a score to an interception - IWU had an INT in the end zone; Millikin had one on their 7).

[K-Mack]

cc: from ATN thread

How rare is it for a team to run 100+ offense plays in a regulation game? Huntingdon has now done it twice in a row with exactly 100 against both Louisiana College and Millsaps and has had one opponent do it, Maryville with 104. I looked back through six seasons of our boxscores and the biggest numbers I found were 88 and 89 with 80 being broken only a few times. I'm not sure if anyone knows or has the time or inclination to research, but it would be interesting to know if what we have done is very unusual.

Yesterday Middlebury ran 99 offensive plays - 74 of them were passes, yet only scored 10 points. The flow of that game would have been interesting to see.

[Ralph Turner]

For consideration and to invite other responses...

Toughest schedule of the season:  How about ETBU.

Current rankings (Week #6 Top 25)

Week #1 Lost to #24 UW-LaCrosse 13-28
Week #2 Lost at  #25 Redlands 3-36
Week #6 Lost to  Pre-season #5 HSU 10-13
Week #8 Hosts (RV #28) Mississippi College
Week #9 Pl;ays at #3 UMHB

[Mr. Ypsi]

For consideration and to invite other responses...

Toughest schedule of the season:  How about ETBU.

Current rankings (Week #6 Top 25)

Week #1 Lost to #24 UW-LaCrosse 13-28
Week #2 Lost at  #25 Redlands 3-36
Week #6 Lost to  Pre-season #5 HSU 10-13
Week #8 Hosts (RV #28) Mississippi College
Week #9 Pl;ays at #3 UMHB

Might I suggest ONU?

Week #1 beat then #4 NCC (who has beaten 4 opponents since by an average of 66 points)
Week #2 lost to #1 MUC
Week #3 lost to (then) #13 Otterbein
still to meet never-a-slouch JCU and (current) #16 Capital (who gave chills to MUC)

[K-Mack]

For consideration and to invite other responses...

Toughest schedule of the season:  How about ETBU.

Current rankings (Week #6 Top 25)

Week #1 Lost to #24 UW-LaCrosse 13-28
Week #2 Lost at  #25 Redlands 3-36
Week #6 Lost to  Pre-season #5 HSU 10-13
Week #8 Hosts (RV #28) Mississippi College
Week #9 Pl;ays at #3 UMHB

Might I suggest ONU?

Week #1 beat then #4 NCC (who has beaten 4 opponents since by an average of 66 points)
Week #2 lost to #1 MUC
Week #3 lost to (then) #13 Otterbein
still to meet never-a-slouch JCU and (current) #16 Capital (who gave chills to MUC)

I know Frostburg State thinks its schedule is one of the nation's toughest. 6 road games, top teams from the PAC, NJAC, MAC, ODAC, E8 and ACFC potentially.

at Geneva  •      L, 41-28               
Washington and Jefferson •    L, 34-12          
at Brockport State    L, 37-32          
at Widener •    L, 35-16    
at Wesley * •    L, 44-19    
Randolph-Macon •    L, 23-19          
Ithaca       
UNC Pembroke       
at Newport News *       
at Salisbury * •


St. John Fisher might have an argument with Mount Union, then E8 games. But looks like ETBU and ONU have these guys beat.

[Mr. Ypsi]

To correct a misstatement I made:

NCC has scored an average of 66 points a game since ONU; that is not their margin of victory.

[Ryan Tipps]

This could very easily be split into two subtopics: teams with the toughest schedule overall and teams who played the toughest nonconference schedule. It's one thing to be in a brutal conference like the OAC or ASC and to have to play these ranked teams. It's another to go out and look for some of the best of the best on your own.

Frostburg has tried to do it. So has DelVal, Chrisopher Newport, Hardin-Simmons, Union, Rochester, Coe,.... There are several more, I'm sure, but they're just the first few that hit me.

[K-Mack]

Hate to give away my secrets guys, but the new (2 yrs old?) NCAA stats package has a toughest schedule rating.

You can sort by games played to date, games yet to be played, or full season's schedule.

Only caveat is teams with fewer than 9 games against D3 opponents are a completely different search & sort (I forget why)

http://web1.ncaa.org/mfb/2009/Internet/toughest%20schedule/3_9games_cumm.pdf

Basically,
Augustana, Del Val, Oshkosh, Florham and Rochester are your top 5 to date, with Bethel at 6.

Sorted by games played so far, it's Moorhead, Oxy, Augie, Del Val, Millsaps.

As Tipps said, there are other ways to look at this, in schedules deliberately made to be tough and those which just happen to be that way. Although in the end, it's sorta the same thing.

And the NCAA stats package is based on win pct. ... anecdotally, most of us would agree that a 3-2 WIAC or OAC team is better than some conferences' 5-0 teams, so even then, the rating of "strength" is subjective.

[K-Mack]

Frostburg has tried to do it. So has DelVal, Chrisopher Newport, Hardin-Simmons, Union, Rochester, Coe,.... There are several more, I'm sure, but they're just the first few that hit me.

Good choices mostly. Although I don't know that Frostburg necessarily goes looking for trouble. They're hamstrung by a 3-game conference schedule, and then they probably try to make it sound as good as possible.

Joining the E8, they'll still have a tough sked though

[Mr. Ypsi]

If we're gonna have a category for 'voluntarily tough', I nominate Hope.

Residing in (per Kickoff) the 4th weakest conference in D3, they scheduled (in order, also by Kickoff) #82 IWU, #89 Carthage, #32 UWEC, and #6 Wheaton (then got to start their conference schedule @ #39 Trine).  While they lost all five games, they never lost by more than a TD.  If there was a better 0-5 D3 team, I have no clue who it would be!

A final record of 5-5 would not surprise me (I'm not yet ready to commit to their hosting of Kickoff's #76 Adrian).

[BoBo]

UW-Whitewater's Jeff Schebler, senior Davenport, Iowa, tied and later set the career kick scoring record in the Warhawks 38-3 win at UW-Stout today. Now with 390 points, Schebler broke the record of 383 points held by Mount Union's Mike Zimmerman (2003-2005)