FB: American Rivers Conference

[Schipper Strong]

Dutch face Bethel at home on Saturday. Nice to be back at home. Bethel will be a good opponent, tougher than Albion, but not in the North Central bracket either. Whoever the opponent is and whatever order they come in, you have to beat them all to win it all. Central and Bethel both won against Wartburg, so I think it will be a great game. Bethel played really well yesterday and I know the Dutch will be ready to go. Go red!

[hazzben]

Dutch face Bethel at home on Saturday. Nice to be back at home. Bethel will be a good opponent, tougher than Albion, but not in the North Central bracket either. Whoever the opponent is and whatever order they come in, you have to beat them all to win it all. Central and Bethel both won against Wartburg, so I think it will be a great game. Bethel played really well yesterday and I know the Dutch will be ready to go. Go red!

Bethel didn't play Wartburg this year. GAC beat Wart 27-18 week 2, and Bethel beat GAC 34-9 a few weeks later. (I'm not reading anything into those score differentials btw)

Wartburg and GAC being Regionally Ranked no doubt helped Bethel's case. Wartburg got ranked first, I believe, which strengthened the argument for GAC, along with their strong SOS.

[Schipper Strong]

Duh, you are right! Not sure why I was thinking Bethel. Well shoot, I felt better when I was thinking it was Bethel.  Need to do my research better. Thanks for the correction. I knew it sounded too good. 

[Schipper Strong]

https://athletics.central.edu/news/2021/11/14/football-central-to-host-ncaa-football-playoff-game.aspx
Dutch press release.

[Old Dutch]

Duh, you are right! Not sure why I was thinking Bethel. Well shoot, I felt better when I was thinking it was Bethel.  Need to do my research better. Thanks for the correction. I knew it sounded too good. 

St. Olaf was the common opponent, Game one for Central, 46-27, Total Offense 578-371
St Olaf was Bethel's eighth game  Bethel 35.14, Total Offense 476-256

Those differentials would say this will be a great game!  Obviously The Dutch played conservatively, didn't open up the playbook, so I'll call it Dutch by 2 touchdowns Saturday.  GoDutch!

[Fannosaurus Rex]

And the forecast is for light winds, high 40's and sun.  Wish I was going to be there. I have enjoyed the season so far but, despite all of the wins and broken records, I have wondered just how really good this team is.  I think we will know Saturday night.

[George Thompson]

Thanks for starting the post. I am not ragging on you, but want to push this discussion farther along!

Please project the Regional Rankings of Region 6 after the regular season that get a Pool C bid for Howard Payne.

IMHO, this regional alignment is not "Just".

As I stated elsewhere, there have been 21 Stagg Bowl since the Pools were initiated. This Region has had 21 teams (counting St Thomas of the MIAC) in the Stagg!

The ASC should have been sent to Region 3 to balance the strength across the Division and in numbers of teams considered.

(Only Bridgewater (2001) from the ODAC and Trinity TX (2002), an affiliate in the SAA, have made the Stagg. That is before some D3 players were born!

Agree 100%.    And these playoff setups are awful!!     Hardin-Simmons should have been in the playoffs.    It seems that H-S and Linfield both always get the short end of the DIII playoffs.     The Upper Midwest and the East control the playoff selections.

George

[Pat Coleman]

Thanks for starting the post. I am not ragging on you, but want to push this discussion farther along!

Please project the Regional Rankings of Region 6 after the regular season that get a Pool C bid for Howard Payne.

IMHO, this regional alignment is not "Just".

As I stated elsewhere, there have been 21 Stagg Bowl since the Pools were initiated. This Region has had 21 teams (counting St Thomas of the MIAC) in the Stagg!

The ASC should have been sent to Region 3 to balance the strength across the Division and in numbers of teams considered.

(Only Bridgewater (2001) from the ODAC and Trinity TX (2002), an affiliate in the SAA, have made the Stagg. That is before some D3 players were born!

Agree 100%.    And these playoff setups are awful!!     Hardin-Simmons should have been in the playoffs.    It seems that H-S and Linfield both always get the short end of the DIII playoffs.     The Upper Midwest and the East control the playoff selections.

George

George -- what in the playoff selection criteria would you point to as the argument for selecting Hardin-Simmons?

[Schipper Strong]

It is hard to judge the true ability of this Central team because they didn’t play strong competition for the non conference games. To me they took a huge step over where they were in 2019. The bracket is a major challenge, no doubt about it. I am counting on the Dutch wanting to reverse the outcome of the Wheaton game two years ago, then by the time they hit the semifinals nobody will question they belong there. 

[doolittledog]

I'm on the Central hype train.  The Dutch beat up the lower half AND the upper half of the conference this year.  Their offense gets the lions share of the coverage, but that defense is also strong. 

[Schipper Strong]

Welcome aboard DD. You are correct that the defense is strong and doesn’t get the recognition for it. The stats would be much different if the starting defense played more than half a game in most cases this year. Like all teams, most yardage and scores guven up came after the starters were benched. Central has some great up and coming players, but there is more than the usual difference between this year’s starters and the second string. Not a knock on those players at all, just a credit to an exceptional group of starters on this team. Also a credit to the heart of this team that knew that 2020 should have been an amazing football season for the Dutch. The waiting made them even better. Looking at Central and BU scores against the Oles or how BU played Gustavus compared to Wartburg and how the Central Wartburg game went this should be an incredibly good and close game, maybe favoring BU. My rose colored glasses say Central by 3 or more TDs instead of 3 points.

[doolittledog]

Luther HC Caleb Padilla not returning next year. 

Here are some of his comments on the situation.

https://twitter.com/Coach_CPadilla/status/1461125588752732171?s=20

[Schipper Strong]

I don’t blame Coach Padilla for leaving. It sounds like there are a lot of issues on camps and sports, football in particular, are not a priority. Inmost small college campuses sports are a vital part of the activities that draw students together. It is also a great learning experience for life with the right coaches. Sorry Luther does not embrace that. I expect things to go even further downhill from here. Too bad.

[Schipper Strong]

Thought a bit about Doolittle’s comment about Central beating up on the lower half and upper half of the conference today. He is right. I went back and compared results from 2019 to 2021 game results. I looked at conference games only as we played different non conference teams. Central beat every team in the conference by a higher margin than 2019. Loras and Nebraska Wesleyan were the most consistent with Central winning by 15 more against Loras and 16 more points against NWU. Wartburg and Coe seem to be the other two teams fighting it out for first place and we beat both of those teams by 24 more points than in 2019. Against Luther the margin increased by 32 points, BV by 42 points and Simpson the increased winning margin was 51 points. UD was the only conference team to beat us in 2019. The Dutch were ready to extract payback this year by turning a 21 point loss into a 49 point win for a swing of 70 points. Many of the same players, totally different team!

[bleedpurple]

Thought a bit about Doolittle’s comment about Central beating up on the lower half and upper half of the conference today. He is right. I went back and compared results from 2019 to 2021 game results. I looked at conference games only as we played different non conference teams. Central beat every team in the conference by a higher margin than 2019. Loras and Nebraska Wesleyan were the most consistent with Central winning by 15 more against Loras and 16 more points against NWU. Wartburg and Coe seem to be the other two teams fighting it out for first place and we beat both of those teams by 24 more points than in 2019. Against Luther the margin increased by 32 points, BV by 42 points and Simpson the increased winning margin was 51 points. UD was the only conference team to beat us in 2019. The Dutch were ready to extract payback this year by turning a 21 point loss into a 49 point win for a swing of 70 points. Many of the same players, totally different team!

I would imagine with the way this team has come together this season, if the Dutch can get past Bethel, these results will bode well for their confidence if they got a shot at revenge against Wheaton in Round 2.