FB: Region 4 fan poll

[New Tradition]

USee - I beg to differ with a couple of points in your post.

IWU's "horrific" defense from last season that you referenced was the #2 scoring defense in the CCIW (behind Wheaton and ahead of North Central). They held your Wheaton squad to their lowest point total of the regular season.

Secondly, last year's IWU captains were Jeff Jerome, Connor Klein, Niall Mulcahy and John Worley. None of them have ever been suspended for any circumstances.

My mistake. I should not have said "captain". He was one of the best players on the team without question though. And you are right, the defense wasn't in the "horrific" category but they were last in the league in defensive 3rd down stops, in the bottom half in run defense and last in penalties. None of those things were on the QB. And as far as the QB and keeping the defense off the field, IWU faced 729 plays last year. Wheaton, the league's #1 defense, faced 799 plays. IWU's defense was in the middle of the pack in # of plays defended.

There were clearly chemistry problems on the IWU team last year. They were much, much more talented than their record indicated. The team that beat Franklin was not the same team that lost to Augie, Elmhurst, NCC and Wheaton in back to back weeks. It seems they have righted the ship thus far.

USee - I don't know if there were chemistry issues (I feel this was a pretty close-knit and hard working team actually), as much as just some snake-bitten circumstances that included a lot injuries/illnesses, with quarterback being at the top of the list. When Warner was named the starting QB, the #2 QB Tyler Hook; quit the team and left school, when Warner developed mono and couldn't play, they then handed the reigns to #3 QB Ty Bolden, who then was hospitalized for an emergency appendectomy, so they turned the reigns over to #4 QB Donovan Laible, who was playing well in relief, but then tore his ACL. Somewhere there was clearly someone sticking pins in a Norm Eash voodoo doll.

Even at full strength this probably wasn't a play-off team, but their strong opening to the season was probably more indicative of this team's talent than their disappointing losses after their players starting dropping like flies.

Finally, I'm sorry to beat a dead horse, but here is what you said on the CCIW Board about IWU's defense last year following the Wheaton game: "IWU played a great game. Their defense was impressive. I knew Worley and Venhuizen were good but the IWU LB's didn't miss many tackles. Klein, Roth and Garvey were outstanding today in limiting a potent Wheaton attack to just 13 points.". Before pinning last year's disappointing season on the defense (and there were certainly games like the NC and Elmhurst games where the D could have performed much better), keep in mind that 3 of their losses last year were by scores of 7-2, 13-3 and 13-7.

I'm not sure if this year's team will have any better luck, since they've already lost 1st Team All-CCIW standout Kyle Venhuizen to a season ending injury, but I do think this year's team has more overall depth than last year's, which should help them as the season progresses.       

I feel like there is some version of the game "Clue" that could be adapted to find out whom showcasing the 10 IWU opponents from last year.

[Gregory Sager]

when Warner developed mono and couldn't play, they then handed the reigns to #3 QB Ty Bolden

... and by handing the reins of the offense to Bolden, Norm Eash thereby weakened his defense by depriving it of a two-time All-CCIW defensive back. Bolden, who was arguably the best DB in the CCIW, didn't play both ways when he was re-converted to a QB by Eash.

I feel like there is some version of the game "Clue" that could be adapted to find out whom showcasing the 10 IWU opponents from last year.

Given the general regard for Norm Eash around the CCIW, I'm sure that any Eash voodoo doll looks like a pincushion at this point -- and that the pins are various hues of blue and red.

[USee]

Two things on IWU: First, keeping them lower this year based on last year's collaps makes no sense. As Wally points out they have a real,result against a fairly well known opponent.  Judge it for what it is.  18 returning starters and a team with a cause.  Second, Ypsi you are delusional if you think IWUs only problem last year was Mono.  That doesn't explain horrific defense and your team captain being suspended for "unknown" reasons.  I am a believer that IWU has righted the ship but last year was much more than just Jack Warner with mono.

I voted Olivet ahead of Albion.

Olivet has beaten Earlham and Carthage.  Albion has beaten UWSP and Augie.  Olivet is on my radar, but I think I'll take Albion!

I have watched both Olivet and Albion on tape.  I am pretty comfortable with my ranking. I believe Albion @Olivet on 10/31 will be for the AQ. 

[Mr. Ypsi]

Two things on IWU: First, keeping them lower this year based on last year's collaps makes no sense. As Wally points out they have a real,result against a fairly well known opponent.  Judge it for what it is.  18 returning starters and a team with a cause.  Second, Ypsi you are delusional if you think IWUs only problem last year was Mono.  That doesn't explain horrific defense and your team captain being suspended for "unknown" reasons.  I am a believer that IWU has righted the ship but last year was much more than just Jack Warner with mono.

I voted Olivet ahead of Albion.

Olivet has beaten Earlham and Carthage.  Albion has beaten UWSP and Augie.  Olivet is on my radar, but I think I'll take Albion!

I have watched both Olivet and Albion on tape.  I am pretty comfortable with my ranking. I believe Albion @Olivet on 10/31 will be for the AQ.

Maybe.  Adrian is at Olivet on 10-3.  My gut hunch is that Adrian @ Albion on 10-17 is the game for the AQ.

[USee]

I watched Adrian last Saturday. They are not a good team right now . Lots of young players. Some talent but they don't have near the experience of Olivet or Albion in my opinion.

[USee]

The Augie loss to Loras (while scoring 52pts and giving up 56) takes a little of the luster off the Albion win @Augie for me.

[formerd3db]

Two things on IWU: First, keeping them lower this year based on last year's collaps makes no sense. As Wally points out they have a real,result against a fairly well known opponent.  Judge it for what it is.  18 returning starters and a team with a cause.  Second, Ypsi you are delusional if you think IWUs only problem last year was Mono.  That doesn't explain horrific defense and your team captain being suspended for "unknown" reasons.  I am a believer that IWU has righted the ship but last year was much more than just Jack Warner with mono.

I voted Olivet ahead of Albion.

Olivet has beaten Earlham and Carthage.  Albion has beaten UWSP and Augie.  Olivet is on my radar, but I think I'll take Albion!

I have watched both Olivet and Albion on tape.  I am pretty comfortable with my ranking. I believe Albion @Olivet on 10/31 will be for the AQ.

Maybe.  Adrian is at Olivet on 10-3.  My gut hunch is that Adrian @ Albion on 10-17 is the game for the AQ.

Albion plays Hope also on 10/3, which is a home game for us.  Once I see how Albion looks in person and if Olivet beats Adrian on that same day (the latter which is not that far fetched- it has happened in recent years), then it should give us a little better idea as to how the Olivet/Albion game might be.  If that scenario occurs, then the Ablion/Olivet game might possibly be the key game for the AQ, however, I would not count out Trine as yet.  You all know how volatile the MIAA race can be.

[wally_wabash]

And here is your North Region Fan Poll through Week 3:


1- Mount Union (2-0)        80 points (1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1)
2- Wheaton (3-0)            72 points (2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2)
3- Wabash (2-0)             63 points (3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4)
4- John Carroll (2-0)       52 points (3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 6, 7)
5- Wittenberg (2-0)         48 points (4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6)
6- North Central (1-1)      39 points (5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, x)
7- Illinois Wesleyan (3-0)  29 points (6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8, x)
8- Albion (3-0)             24 points (7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 10)
9- DePauw (2-0)             15 points (7, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9, x, x)
10- Olivet (3-0)            6 points (8, 9, 10, x, x, x, x, x)

ORV:
Rose Hulman (3-0)           4 points (9, 10, 10, x, x, x, x, x)
Franklin (1-2)              3 points (10, 10, 10, x, x, x, x, x)
Heidelberg (0-2)            3 points (9, 10, x, x, x, x, x, x)
Adrian (2-1)                2 points (9, x, x, x, x, x, x, x)



The NRFP is voted on by: Captain_Joe08, Dr. Acula, FCGrizzliesGrad, Li'l Giant, Mr Ypsi, NCF, USee, and wally wabash.

[wally_wabash]

Confession- about the only reason I haven't put Denison on my ballot is because I balk at putting four NCAC teams in the top 10.  That shouldn't matter, but it is.  I might be able to resist next week regardless of what they do to Wooster.  I might not be able to if they also lay waste to OWU in two weeks. 

[USee]

These are my top 10, though not exactly in the same order. I have John Carroll a little lower and Olivet ahead of Albion for previously stated reasons. I definitely have my eye on Denison. I have no problem ranking 4 teams from a conference. The last 3 on here are pretty fungible.

I am surprised someone thinks North Central is not a top 10 North team. Would love to hear the rationale for that. Also was surprised at IWU not being ranked and Franklin still in someone's top 10. Heidleberg is 0-2 and, though they played JCU pretty tough and arguably should have won that game, they are 0-2.

Good stuff.

[wally_wabash]

These are my top 10, though not exactly in the same order. I have John Carroll a little lower and Olivet ahead of Albion for previously stated reasons. I definitely have my eye on Denison. I have no problem ranking 4 teams from a conference. The last 3 on here are pretty fungible.

I am surprised someone thinks North Central is not a top 10 North team. Would love to hear the rationale for that. Also was surprised at IWU not being ranked and Franklin still in someone's top 10. Heidleberg is 0-2 and, though they played JCU pretty tough and arguably should have won that game, they are 0-2.

Good stuff.

What's interesting to me about Heidelberg this week is that last week nobody voted for the SPs at all.  This week they blow a game to John Carroll and they pop back up on a couple of ballots.  I'm way down on John Carroll compared to the rest of the voters (here and in the top 25...I just don't think JCU is THAT team again in 2015), but even if some folks do think John Carroll is really, really good, I was surprised that Heidelberg got votes after losing to them.  We've had years in the north region recently where you have to search around to fill out those last couple of slots but so far 2015 isn't that year.  There's a lot of quality football being played around the region. 

[USee]

I have JCU at 6 in my poll. You must be the 7. I am with you on them. And there are much better options than Heidi in the region, true that.

[wally_wabash]

I have JCU at 6 in my poll. You must be the 7. I am with you on them. And there are much better options than Heidi in the region, true that.

I am.  I found it strange in a week where I kind of penalized JCU (not kind of, I did) for not beating up on Heidelberg, a couple of our voters actually brought Heidelberg up for not getting beaten up by JCU.  Strange dichotomy there.  I think I will predict though that JCU is going to lose to someone else other than UMU.  I don't know if it'll be B-W or ONU, but I think they're going to get picked off somewhere else along the line. 

[ExTartanPlayer]

I'm way down on John Carroll compared to the rest of the voters (here and in the top 25...I just don't think JCU is THAT team again in 2015), but even if some folks do think John Carroll is really, really good, I was surprised that Heidelberg got votes after losing to them.  We've had years in the north region recently where you have to search around to fill out those last couple of slots but so far 2015 isn't that year.

I think this is equally divided between 1) reluctance to accept that a really good JCU team last year has turned into a not-as-good team this year and 2) uncertainty about who is definitely better than they are.  Looking towards the bottom of the poll, I think some voters probably find it hard to believe (based on history, not this year's results, a problem that we have discussed many times on these boards) that teams like Illinois Wesleyan, Albion, etc could have taken such a giant step forward to catch a JCU team that would have obliterated them last year.  This is dumb, because the Blue Streaks from this year are not the Blu Streaks from last year, but undeniably that's the reason JCU remains high in the poll.  St. Vincent just lost 49-14 to Case Western (and trailed 49-0), so I'm not buying the idea that it was a close game because St. Vincent has improved that much.  Based on the first two weeks, JCU is just another good-ish team, certainly not a national player.

But you know what?  I thought the same thing about Wheaton for about the first five or six weeks of last season: ranked highly based on their undefeated record and perception of them as a power program, rather than any real quality wins.  Then Johnny Peltz put on the Superman cape and holy ****, we're cooking with gas.  So maybe JCU is just feeling out a few new pieces that are going to come together and turn the Streaks back into last year's juggernaut.  But through two weeks last year, they had completely blitzed the same two opponents that they just played a couple of "meh" games against.

I, like USee, am baffled that someone dropped North Central entirely from the poll after losing to UWP.  We know that the Pioneers are a strong program (playoffs in 2013, 7-3 in 2014 with losses to three acknowledged powerful teams) and, again...does someone really think that NCC would lose to (DePauw / Olivet / Rose-Hulman / whomever they have at 9 and 10 in place of NCC) because the Cardinals fell apart on the road in the fourth quarter  against a team that would beat all of those guys by a couple scores - and lost in overtime?  This, again, represents the value of the "win" instead of "quality of result" which gets me so torqued up.

[wally_wabash]

But you know what?  I thought the same thing about Wheaton for about the first five or six weeks of last season: ranked highly based on their undefeated record and perception of them as a power program, rather than any real quality wins.  Then Johnny Peltz put on the Superman cape and holy ****, we're cooking with gas.  So maybe JCU is just feeling out a few new pieces that are going to come together and turn the Streaks back into last year's juggernaut.  But through two weeks last year, they had completely blitzed the same two opponents that they just played a couple of "meh" games against.

I think you were right about Wheaton through that point of the season last year.  Something was missing.  Then Peltz elevated Wheaton into that top 10 team that was lurking beneath the early season's pedestrian results. 

John Carroll might find that missing something between now and the end of the season, but right now I just don't see them as a top 10 team nationally.  And it's not just the drop in offensive output.  That was always going to happen.  Their defense has given up about twice as many yards in these same two games as they did in 2014 (there's a 94-yard Cartel Brook TD run from last year that happened late in the 4th quarter that disguises just how dominant JCU's defense was in the game).  This is a lesser team right now in all areas than it was 2014.