FB: Region 4 fan poll

[smedindy]

I agree with Wally. Mount may be down, but I think this is an overall down year for most of the North traditional powers. NCC may have the best chance.

The teams on the rise - Carthage, Lakeland, Benedictine, etc. are still a little bit away from the traditional powers.

[USee]

What exactly makes you think NCC has the best chance?

[smedindy]

I think they're playing better than Wheaton right now. No one in the NCAC is up to that level, as far as I can see.

[CardinalAlum]

I think they're playing better than Wheaton right now. No one in the NCAC is up to that level, as far as I can see.

Not sure we have seen a real good team against NCC to determine where we really are.   This week doesn't bring that either.  Starting play against two NAIA schools is tough to gauge.  IWU did not impress me at all, although I'm sure Eash believes he has the better team!   .  It won't be until the Wheaton game, in less that two weeks, that we will get an idea of where these two teams really are.   

[USee]

I think they're playing better than Wheaton right now. No one in the NCAC is up to that level, as far as I can see.

This makes no sense to me.

[Mr. Ypsi]

I think they're playing better than Wheaton right now. No one in the NCAC is up to that level, as far as I can see.

This makes no sense to me.

As a fan of their only common opponent, it makes sense to me.   NCC dominated IWU all forty minutes; it took the Swider half-time magic to avoid a huge upset.  (I'm guessing he fed his team 'uppers' and somehow slipped 'downers' into the Titans' drinking water! )

The second half of the IWU game is the only time all season that Wheaton has truly dominated an opponent.  It IS difficult to evaluate NCC's dominance (other than IWU and Millikin), knowing next to nothing about their NAIA opponents.

In case your objection was to smedindy's second sentence, we should know more when DePauw and Witt collide on Saturday, though still no actual comparison of CCIW vs. NCAC powers.  My ballot has NCC 2, Wheaton 3, Witt 4, and DePauw 6 (Franklin is 5).

[USee]

I think they're playing better than Wheaton right now. No one in the NCAC is up to that level, as far as I can see.

This makes no sense to me.

As a fan of their only common opponent, it makes sense to me.   NCC dominated IWU all forty minutes; it took the Swider half-time magic to avoid a huge upset.  (I'm guessing he fed his team 'uppers' and somehow slipped 'downers' into the Titans' drinking water! )

The second half of the IWU game is the only time all season that Wheaton has truly dominated an opponent.  It IS difficult to evaluate NCC's dominance (other than IWU and Millikin), knowing next to nothing about their NAIA opponents.

In case your objection was to smedindy's second sentence, we should know more when DePauw and Witt collide on Saturday, though still no actual comparison of CCIW vs. NCAC powers.  My ballot has NCC 2, Wheaton 3, Witt 4, and DePauw 6 (Franklin is 5).

Yspi, That is about as uninformed of a post as I can remember seeing. Wheaton dominated the Titans offensively for the entire game, much more so than NCC did. And defensively they dominated them for really all but 3 big pass plays that resulted in 3 TDs and 160 yds of offense against an offense NCC didn't have to face. From the end of the second quarter on there was never a chance of an upset. As for the rest of the season I think you should take another look. I am pretty sure Wheaton was never threatened in their first two games (leading the second one 40+ to zero at half) and the Wheaton defense has absolutely dominated every team they have played. I am looking forward to NCC and IWU traveling to play Carthage and also seeing how they fare against the Elmhurst defense. Those two teams are currently the #1 and #2 defenses in the CCIW by the way (and #30 and #33 nationally---NCC is #42).

The Thunder, for the first time this season, were at full strength against the Titans and were dominant on both sides of the ball. I have Wheaton #3 and NCC#2 in my poll so these teams, to me, appear to be close though I know much less about NCC so far. I almost switched them this week but I still am watching the Cardinal. What concerns me about NCC is their running game. They have stayed committed to 60/40 run v pass but this year, despite having Austin Bruenig and Oshayne Brown, they are averaging just 3.5 yds per carry (only 2.9 vs IWU to Wheatons. 5.6) when every year for the last 5+ years they have run the ball at a 5.5 yds per carry average. and they have just the 4th ranked defense in the league when every other year they are #1 or #2. I suspect the Cardinals are not as dominant up front as they have been. We will find out in 2 weeks but I am not betting against the team that has won 26 straight regular season games and was the first team since Augie in the 80's to win the CCIW two years in a row as champion with an undefeated regular season.

[Li'l Giant]

I submitted my ballot late last night. The only change I made was at #10, replacing IWU with Benedictine.

[wally_wabash]

Should have this up in about 90 minutes, gang.  Stay tuned.

[Dr. Acula]

I submitted my ballot late last night. The only change I made was at #10, replacing IWU with Benedictine.

I made no changes this week.  This was an easy week finally.  Give us a little breather.

[wally_wabash]

Not a lot of change over last week, in fact just a Carthage/JCU flip flop toward the bottom.  As a side note, I have one ballot that had Carthage twice and I'll amend this post later once I get that clarification, but it's not going to affect these rankings except to perhaps turn the Carthage/JCU position back to where it was last week.  Here's the NRFP Week 5 poll:



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

[wally_wabash]

As for my ballot, I have the same 10 as last week, just flipped a couple of spots.  I moved flipped Wheaton and DePauw (not impressive stuff by DPU last week vs. Kenyon) and I flipped Wabash and Denison (was expecting an easier go of it from the Big Red against a struggling OWU team.  But yeah, like most of the rest of us, this week didn't have any results that would cause serious significant movement.   

[Dr. Acula]

The only change I strongly considered was with Franklin and Witt.  I have them 4 and 5, respectively and considered switching them.  Ultimately I opted not to do that though.   

[USee]

No changes for me this week.

[Mr. Ypsi]

I think they're playing better than Wheaton right now. No one in the NCAC is up to that level, as far as I can see.

This makes no sense to me.

As a fan of their only common opponent, it makes sense to me.   NCC dominated IWU all forty minutes; it took the Swider half-time magic to avoid a huge upset.  (I'm guessing he fed his team 'uppers' and somehow slipped 'downers' into the Titans' drinking water! )

The second half of the IWU game is the only time all season that Wheaton has truly dominated an opponent.  It IS difficult to evaluate NCC's dominance (other than IWU and Millikin), knowing next to nothing about their NAIA opponents.

In case your objection was to smedindy's second sentence, we should know more when DePauw and Witt collide on Saturday, though still no actual comparison of CCIW vs. NCAC powers.  My ballot has NCC 2, Wheaton 3, Witt 4, and DePauw 6 (Franklin is 5).

Yspi, That is about as uninformed of a post as I can remember seeing. Wheaton dominated the Titans offensively for the entire game, much more so than NCC did. And defensively they dominated them for really all but 3 big pass plays that resulted in 3 TDs and 160 yds of offense against an offense NCC didn't have to face. From the end of the second quarter on there was never a chance of an upset. As for the rest of the season I think you should take another look. I am pretty sure Wheaton was never threatened in their first two games (leading the second one 40+ to zero at half) and the Wheaton defense has absolutely dominated every team they have played. I am looking forward to NCC and IWU traveling to play Carthage and also seeing how they fare against the Elmhurst defense. Those two teams are currently the #1 and #2 defenses in the CCIW by the way (and #30 and #33 nationally---NCC is #42).

The Thunder, for the first time this season, were at full strength against the Titans and were dominant on both sides of the ball. I have Wheaton #3 and NCC#2 in my poll so these teams, to me, appear to be close though I know much less about NCC so far. I almost switched them this week but I still am watching the Cardinal. What concerns me about NCC is their running game. They have stayed committed to 60/40 run v pass but this year, despite having Austin Bruenig and Oshayne Brown, they are averaging just 3.5 yds per carry (only 2.9 vs IWU to Wheatons. 5.6) when every year for the last 5+ years they have run the ball at a 5.5 yds per carry average. and they have just the 4th ranked defense in the league when every other year they are #1 or #2. I suspect the Cardinals are not as dominant up front as they have been. We will find out in 2 weeks but I am not betting against the team that has won 26 straight regular season games and was the first team since Augie in the 80's to win the CCIW two years in a row as champion with an undefeated regular season.

If Wheaton dominated IWU in the first half, I'd love more domination like that - we'd win the Stagg Bowl!   (I realize you specified only 'offensive', but at halftime IWU led not only in score but in offensive yards gained.  You may think that 'big plays' don't really count, but the scoreboard disagrees. )

As for the rest of the season, I had mentally shut out the Kazoo game - they are really, really BAAAD.  I have little doubt that NPU, Millikin, or Carroll would steamroll them.  The rest of the rest of the season, Wheaton has hardly been a dominant team.  I'll stick with my contention that the second half of the IWU game (aside from pathetic Kazoo) was the only domination that Wheaton has so far shown.