FB: Southern Athletic Association

[tigerguy]

W&L's preview of this weekend's game in San Antonio.  The Generals are primarily a running team deploying a modified triple option wing-T offense and rank third nationally at 393 rushing yards per game, and 17th nationally at 507 yards of total offense per game.  For their part, the Tigers are allowing 68.5 yards on the ground per game, so it will be a matchup of strengths on Saturday.

Trinity's preview is here.

A good test for Trinity and will probably give us some insight into whether the TLU game will end up being an outlier or if this year's squad is that far off the rest of the top 25. Probably somewhere in the middle would be my guess.

[tigerguy]

This game should be out of hand but Trinity keeps stalling deep in W&L territory; once on 2, once on the 1. Surprised Urban didn't go for both the way the defense has played. 203 yards for Trinity, only 21 for W&L so far.

[tigerguy]

Trinity offense completely disappeared second half. They need to feed Johnny Milo - he has looked great today.

[tigerguy]

A win is a win, but really disappointed in the way Trinity played the second half. Had no points and just 73 yards of offense. Conversely, defense gave up 231, although 53 was on one play. Not having a quarterback that can make throws to pick up third downs is going to limit Trinity from competing with the top teams this year. I think the defense is pretty good, just was on the field a LOT in the second half on an incredibly hot day.

I do not think this game should have been close, but props to W&L for hanging around. Looks like their fans traveled very well as well; love that.

Berry's win today over Randolph-Macon makes the Pool C conversation that much more interesting.

[jknezek]

Honestly W&L finally got off the plane in the second half and played up to potential on offense and defense. That first half was miserable, Trinity should have run them out of the stadium. The second half was much more what they were capable of on both sides. Generals had a shot at the end, but kudos to Trinity holding them on the 13 late.

[D3Navy]

This game should be out of hand but Trinity keeps stalling deep in W&L territory; once on 2, once on the 1. Surprised Urban didn't go for both the way the defense has played. 203 yards for Trinity, only 21 for W&L so far.

Stalling deep has plagued the Tigers for the last three years.  Hard to understand this season given they have a senior, returning O-line that DOMINATES anywhere else on the field.

Would like to see the bigger RB, Huerta, get the ball near the goal line.

[Ron Boerger]

That was an odd game yesterday to be sure.  Trinity dominated the first half with the exception of the ill-timed floater into the flat that was intercepted and featured what had to be one of the slowest TD returns by a DB (LB?) I've ever seen.  But the offensive play calling was so conservative - perhaps said floater was one reason why - and failing to get a touchdown on one of those deep drives probably exacerbated the situation.  I had to leave early in the 3Q, after yet another W&L fourth down went awry, and to see that we had to get another fourth down stop to preserve the win shocked me.

One thing I noticed during the time I was there was that there were exactly zero passes thrown over the middle by Trinity.  No crossing patterns, no posts.

If the Generals don't give Trinity the short field twice on failed fourth downs in the first half, the outcome could have been different.

[Ron Boerger]

Time for the annual US News & World Reports rankings, a flawed metric that so many use so here we go.  With all the 2025 conference changes I'll use that year to denote members.

SAA colleges:
Berry:  #4 Regional Universities - South
Centre:  #59(t) National Liberal Arts Colleges (hereafter referred to as NLAC)
Millsaps:  #136(t) NLAC
Maryville:  #169(t) NLAC
Oglethorpe: #153(t) NLAC
Rhodes: #59(t) NLAC
Sewanee:  #45(t) NLAC
Southwestern: #83(t) NLAC
Trinity: #40(t) NLAC

SCAC:
Austin College: #83(t) NLAC
Centenary: #136(t) NLAC
Colorado College: #29(t) NLAC
Concordia: #93(t) Regional Universities - West (RUW)
Dallas: #27(t) RUW
Hendrix : #114(t) NLAC
LeTourneau: #25(t) RUW
McMurry: #19(t) Regional Colleges - West (RCW)
Ozarks: #4 Regional Colleges - South (RCS)
Schreiner: #75(t) RUW
University of St. Thomas: #209 National Universities
TLU: #9 RCW

ASC:
ETBU: #84(t) RUW
HPU: #25(t) RCW
HSU: #392-#434 National Universities
UMHB: #392-#434 National Universities

[Cowboy2]

Ron, what are the abbreviations? Are these all different rankings based on the affiliation of the school? Is there a common ranking that all of the  universities you listed are compared to in their own metric? Academics, cost, grad rate, ROI, sports, etc.? Would be neat to see how all The R3 schools compared amongst one another. Wish Colorado still had football.
Was fun playing up there back in the day.

Pretty cool press about Trinity:

https://www.trinity.edu/news/forbes-names-trinity-no-23-liberal-arts-university-nation

https://www.trinity.edu/news/trinity-university-usnwrs-no-40-national-liberal-arts-college

[Cowboy2]

Also, HSU and UMHB are tied in their own ranking?

[Pat Coleman]

Ron, what are the abbreviations? Are these all different rankings based on the affiliation of the school? Is there a common ranking that all of the  universities you listed are compared to in their own metric? Academics, cost, grad rate, ROI, sports, etc.? Would be neat to see how all The R3 schools compared amongst one another. Wish Colorado still had football.
Was fun playing up there back in the day.

Pretty cool press about Trinity:

https://www.trinity.edu/news/forbes-names-trinity-no-23-liberal-arts-university-nation

https://www.trinity.edu/news/trinity-university-usnwrs-no-40-national-liberal-arts-college

He does cite what the abbreviations are on first reference.

[jknezek]

Also, HSU and UMHB are tied in their own ranking?

Ron, what are the abbreviations? Are these all different rankings based on the affiliation of the school? Is there a common ranking that all of the  universities you listed are compared to in their own metric? Academics, cost, grad rate, ROI, sports, etc.? Would be neat to see how all The R3 schools compared amongst one another. Wish Colorado still had football.
Was fun playing up there back in the day.

Pretty cool press about Trinity:

https://www.trinity.edu/news/forbes-names-trinity-no-23-liberal-arts-university-nation

https://www.trinity.edu/news/trinity-university-usnwrs-no-40-national-liberal-arts-college

This is the source material:

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/

However, if you want the in-depth information you will need to subscribe. Just the basic information about schools, the ranking, and the methodology are provided here.

Also, HSU and UMHB are tied in their own ranking?

To put it honestly, HSU and UMHB are so far down in their category they are just grouped together in a lump with similar schools. But yes, by this ranking they are substantially considered the same.

[Ron Boerger]

The classifications US News uses are defined at https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings:

• National Universities offer a range of undergraduate majors, plus master's and doctoral programs, and emphasize faculty research or award professional practice doctorates.
• National Liberal Arts Colleges focus almost exclusively on undergraduate education and award at least 50% of their degrees in the arts and sciences.
• Regional Universities offer a broad scope of undergraduate degrees and some master's degree programs but few, if any, doctoral programs. We ranked them in four geographical regions: North, South, Midwest and West.
• Regional Colleges focus on undergraduate education but grant fewer than 50% of their degrees in liberal arts disciplines. Some regional colleges award two-year associate degrees as well as bachelor's degrees. We ranked them in four geographical regions: North, South, Midwest and West.

The above were mapped for the third consecutive year with the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education's 2021 update to its Basic Classification system (see details here).

Schools can appeal their Carnegie classification, which Trinity did several years ago after decades of being listed as a Regional University.  And Carnegie is going to revise their system substantially next year, with new classifications that will be more granular than what we see today.

Amplifying the answer to the the UMHB/HSU rankings, for whatever reason US News places the schools at the bottom of each category into a catchall list rather than trying to further rank them.

[Ron Boerger]

How many schools in each category?

National Universities:  434
National Liberal Arts Colleges:  204
Regional Universities - South:  133
Regional Universities - West:  115
Regional Colleges - West: 45

There are a number of schools in each category that are unranked (and not included in the counts above).  This 2022 article from the (possibly then) director of admissions at one of them, Webb Institute, sheds some light into at least some of the reasons a school might be unranked. 

[Cowboy2]

Thanks!