FB: Southern Athletic Association

[BerryViking92]

Glad Berry won on Saturday.  Big crowd and great atmosphere.  The game was honestly a bit "meh."  Offense looked super on the scoring drives; asleep on other possessions.  Defense gave up way too many 3rd down conversions.  However, a win is a win.  On to the next one....

[BerryViking92]

I should also say that Lagrange was better than I expected.  The QB is big and played very well.

[albatross]

Looks like we will get two "blockbuster" games this weekend:

Hendrix (2-0) @ Centre (2-0)
Rhodes (1-1) @ Berry (2-0)

Plus, the Sewanee @ Austin matchup will tell us a lot about both teams and their improvement (or lack thereof)...

[jknezek]

Looks like we will get two "blockbuster" games this weekend:

Hendrix (2-0) @ Centre (2-0)
Rhodes (1-1) @ Berry (2-0)

Plus, the Sewanee @ Austin matchup will tell us a lot about both teams and their improvement (or lack thereof)...

Sewanee was completely unprepared for W&L. The previous head coach had a lot of experience with W&L's offense, he coached in Lexington for a while, and it showed in a series of battles between the teams regardless of relative quality of the players. This Sewanee team had nothing. They were unprepared and undisciplined and didn't hold their assignments on defense at all. W&L basically pulled the starters at halftime and still almost put up 600 yards of offense. Sewanee did score some in the second half on the second and third stringers, but even then W&L's offense was still scoring almost at will.

I think the new head coach just got a rough wake up call. I don't expect Sewanee will show much improvement this year, and the coach is going to have to do a better job of preparing his players for opposing schemes.

Further, he should know better than to let his team run through the opposing team's warm ups. It didn't endear the Tigers to the Generals at all and provided some more motivation to beat the tar out of the visitors. Not something Sewanee can afford at this point.

[albatross]

running through warm ups?? their old coach (and many alums, I imagine) would have been furious...

[awadelewis]

Comments interspersed below...

Sewanee was completely unprepared for W&L. The previous head coach had a lot of experience with W&L's offense, he coached in Lexington for a while, and it showed in a series of battles between the teams regardless of relative quality of the players. This Sewanee team had nothing. They were unprepared and undisciplined and didn't hold their assignments on defense at all. W&L basically pulled the starters at halftime and still almost put up 600 yards of offense. Sewanee did score some in the second half on the second and third stringers, but even then W&L's offense was still scoring almost at will.

I think you're being far too polite.   Our defense came into that game expecting to play playground football and got pounded as result.    The offense had some plays early but even they failed when they got into situations that required disciplined play on their part.    But this was an 0-10 team last year with a new head coach who is in his first head coaching job.  Unsurprising result, painful to watch but certainly not unexpected in a rivalry game against a decent team.

I think the new head coach just got a rough wake up call. I don't expect Sewanee will show much improvement this year, and the coach is going to have to do a better job of preparing his players for opposing schemes.

Yep... I think we might get a win or two but am not expecting to see us anywhere near 0.500 for at least a year, and maybe two.   And that's assuming Coach Rundle figures out how to be a head coach this season.   

Further, he should know better than to let his team run through the opposing team's warm ups. It didn't endear the Tigers to the Generals at all and provided some more motivation to beat the tar out of the visitors. Not something Sewanee can afford at this point.

I know this will sound harsh on my part but it's good that our kids got skull-drug throughout that game.   Discipline has been a problem with our team for about 2 years.  May be a bit of wake-up call is what is needed for them to get it together.

[BerryViking92]

Congrats to Berry QB Slade Dale, SAA offensive player of the week.  Berry has no doubt won some games because of his unique athleticism.

[albatross]

The 2018 Academic rankings were just released yesterday by US News and World Report. What would happen if we re-ranked teams based on their academic ranking. Note: all teams in the SAA are excellent institutions. If you graduated from them you certainly worked your tail off.

2018 SAA Academic Rankings:
1. Sewanee (#41)
2. Centre (#46)
3. Rhodes (#51)
4. Hendrix (#76)
5. Millsaps (#87)
6. Austin College (#93)
7. Birmingham Southern (#123)

--- Trinity (#1 in West Region for Universities)
---Berry (#8 in South Region for Liberal Arts Colleges)

--------

Notable: W&L (#10), Hampden-Sydney and Southwestern (#96), Chicago (#3-universities), Wash U (#18-universities), Huntingdon (#13 South Region), Maryville (ranking not published).

Other US News rankings these schools showed up on:

-Most Innovative Liberal Arts College (Hendrix #7)
-Best Value (W&L #10, Centre #31, Hendrix #48, Austin #53, Southwestern #69, Millsaps #80, Sewanee #84, HSC #93, Rhodes #94)
-Best Teaching (Centre #16)
-Best Colleges for Veterans (Rhodes #3, Southwestern #5)
-Highest Ratings from HS Counselors (W&L #25, Rhodes/Sewanee #34, Centre #47, Austin/Hendrix #56, Southwestern #71)

Can you tell it was a slow work day? ha!

[Ron Boerger]

The 2018 Academic rankings were just released yesterday by US News and World Report. What would happen if we re-ranked teams based on their academic ranking. Note: all teams in the SAA are excellent institutions. If you graduated from them you certainly worked your tail off. US News ranks the best nationally, and then moves on to rank the unranked schools by region.

This is not the way it works.   Schools are sorted into categories based on certain characteristics, and THEN ranked solely against the schools in their categories.   From the 2018 Best Colleges page itself:

• Schools in the National Universities category offer a full range of undergraduate majors, plus master's and Ph.D. programs.
• National Liberal Arts Colleges emphasize undergraduate education and award at least half of their degrees in the liberal arts fields of study.
• Regional Universities offer a full range of undergraduate programs and some master's programs but few doctoral programs.
• Regional Colleges focus on undergraduate education but grant fewer than half their degrees in liberal arts disciplines.

You can't directly compare schools in one category against those in another as a result. 

[albatross]

that is a good catch. No wonder I was really surprised when I didn't see Berry and Trinity where I thought I should have seen them!

I've edited my post to reflect only direct comparisons...

[Ron Boerger]

that is a good catch. No wonder I was really surprised when I didn't see Berry and Trinity where I thought I should have seen them!

I've edited my post to reflect only direct comparisons...

Thanks, it's understandable.

I actually have kvetched at TPTB at TU about not being in the USN&WR "National" conversation for exactly that reason; their response has been that the categorization comes from another external agency and can't be changed.   There are some other more general lists (like Forbes Top 100) where they make an appearance (#90 this year).

Rankings are all subjective to one degree or another.   If you're "highly ranked" in the majority of them it means you're probably doing something good.   

[cush]

Just read Birmingham southern cut their tuition in half, so wow. That probably will help them grow enrollment but they will need a full capacity to pay the bills

[Ron Boerger]

Just read Birmingham southern cut their tuition in half, so wow. That probably will help them grow enrollment but they will need a full capacity to pay the bills

http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2017/09/birmingham-southern_college_to.html
http://www.bsc.edu/lowertuition/index.html

Not sure how they're going to do it ... growing 300 students (from 1300 to 1600) will offset some of it but only if they don't have corresponding increases in operating costs (so no hiring more faculty, etc.).    Bloomberg puts their endowment at $190M, decent for a school of this size but not large enough to substantially draw upon to offset the difference.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Just read Birmingham southern cut their tuition in half, so wow. That probably will help them grow enrollment but they will need a full capacity to pay the bills

http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2017/09/birmingham-southern_college_to.html
http://www.bsc.edu/lowertuition/index.html

Not sure how they're going to do it ... growing 300 students (from 1300 to 1600) will offset some of it but only if they don't have corresponding increases in operating costs (so no hiring more faculty, etc.).    Bloomberg puts their endowment at $190M, decent for a school of this size but not large enough to substantially draw upon to offset the difference.

The LIST price is being cut 50%.  Only about 10% of students pay list price.  I'll be interested to see how much the ACTUAL student outlay goes down.

[jknezek]

Just read Birmingham southern cut their tuition in half, so wow. That probably will help them grow enrollment but they will need a full capacity to pay the bills

http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2017/09/birmingham-southern_college_to.html
http://www.bsc.edu/lowertuition/index.html

Not sure how they're going to do it ... growing 300 students (from 1300 to 1600) will offset some of it but only if they don't have corresponding increases in operating costs (so no hiring more faculty, etc.).    Bloomberg puts their endowment at $190M, decent for a school of this size but not large enough to substantially draw upon to offset the difference.

The LIST price is being cut 50%.  Only about 10% of students pay list price.  I'll be interested to see how much the ACTUAL student outlay goes down.

Yes. This is the rub. For most of the people at these schools, the list price is nowhere near what they pay. In fact the article is pretty clear they are talking about sticker shock, not actual cost. For years, schools have raised sticker prices because it supposedly helped the school prestige and moved the rankings. However, since everyone does it, it doesn't really matter. Now you are going to see schools going back the other way, as people actually start to pay attention to how much schools cost.

You can use the excellent calculator found here, https://collegecost.ed.gov use the college scoreboard option, to determine what students actually pay at individual schools. This calculator has been a game changer, and of course, like many things done by the government in the last 9 years, is currently under threat. Losing it would be a massive loss to perspective students everywhere, so take a look while you can.

In the case of BSC, the average annual cost is $18,728. So cutting the sticker to $17,650 really isn't the bump that people assume. Adding 300 students, at just slightly under the average annual, would be a huge benefit to the school. There is spare capacity at BSC stemming from the problems they had in the late 00s. I believe they were at or above 1500 at that time.