Hey PAC....

The PAC is overstuffed, but they really are in all the wrong spots for the LL as far as PA goes. Same problem the ODAC has right now, there just isn't a ready made viable alternative, but at least the ODAC holds on to their AQ once Catholic leaves. Maybe we will see an LL/ODAC challenge as the schools get desperate to fill their OOC schedules.

Lot of movement this week for me. My watchlist also got paired down pretty good.

Jknezek,

No surprise that W&L dominates the ODAC. They have two things no other ODAC team has - a national recruiting base due to their academic reputation, and tons of money for facilities, coaching, financial aid, recruiting, etc. Here is how the football playing members of the ODAC stand up. Stats from Wikepedia, which you can, of course, contest.

School                  Students               Endowment            Endowment/Student
Guilford                  2682                        70,700,000          26,360
Randolph-Macon    1146                      126,300,000         110,209
Shenandoah             724                        54,900,000          75,829
Bridgewater            1690                       70,100,000          41,479
Emory & Henry       1000                       86,500,000          86,500
Hampden-Sydney  1120                      154,600,000        138,035
W&L                      2200                    1,477,000,000       671,000

I'd say W&L has a substantial edge versus the rest of the ODC and if they are at all committed to athletics (which I think they are) they should prevail across the board. I looked at the non-football playing members and no school jumped out as one that would compete with W&L on a financial basis.

Been to W&L and a few other ODAC schools, and none compares to W&L.

Regarding the PAC I'll publish similar data tomorrow, but based on a preliminary look I don't think TMC has the endowment resources of most of the other PAC schools.

Jeff from East Tennessee (and the other W&_)

Stats match more or less what I know. And you are right. There is a big difference in resources between W&L and the rest of the ODAC. I wish we had stats for dollars spent per student athlete. I don't think W&L devotes more dollars, on average, to athletics than many other DIII schools. No ridiculous number of coaches, no crazy travel budget. The facilities are good, but I wouldn't say they stand out in DIII with the indoor tennis center and probably the currently being built swimming and diving center being the exceptions. No doubt W&L could spend more, it's just not really part of the school's philosophy. For example, playing in the ODAC versus the SAA. Mission and values wise, the SAA matches up better with W&L, but the costs and time of travel just don't compare to how good life is for student athletes in the ODAC.

We'll see. There has definitely been a step forward in facilities in the last 20 years. Before that almost everything was horribly behind. I don't think it will pay off too much with W&L becoming more of a national power anywhere, but we have definitely seen regional results improve in football, men's soccer, men's golf and field hockey. Adding to sports where we were already regional powers, M&W tennis, M&W swimming, and M&W lax.

In the end though, I still think most conferences have a school that is consistently a cut above. There are too many ways, and needs, for a school to emphasize athletics if they feel it will benefit them in the long run.

I doubt this is all that unusual. For example, W&L has won 19 of 21 Overall ODAC Commissioner's Cups. That's weighted average best performance finishes across all ODAC sports. The W&L men have won 16 of 23 men's cups, the women have won 15 of 23 women's cups.

I'm not going to do the individual stuff. But last year the W&L men topped the ODAC in every fall sport. This year the men and women were the favorite in the preseason of every fall sport except women's soccer, where they were predicted 2nd. Winter and spring aren't as dominant, though men's and women's swimming is every year, women's tennis is every year, men's tennis is almost every year. Basketball, men's and women's, and baseball, tend to be the only sports where W&L is not consistently expected to compete or win year in and out. Softball is the only ODAC sport W&L has yet to adopt.

I'd expect you'd find something similar in many conferences.

Anyone think there are some ODAC assistants on the "short list" for the CNU job? Dare I say it, an assistant from H-SC?
Do they stay with a guy from Virginia or someone with NJAC experience?
Maybe a coach from a higher level?

They've had a lot of success. I'm not overly familiar with their staff, but if they have someone from Coach Kelchner's tree in-house they like I'd put my money there. I think the offensive coordinator has been there a long time, but he may be retirement age as well. I'm not really sure, but I thought the D Coordinator is pretty new to staff and young.

All speculation on my part. I have no idea. But Coach Kelchner has been that program, so it wouldn't surprise me if they want to keep it to his coaching tree if possible.

Might as well revisit this one as well. Same rules. New comments in bold
Well, I'm not going to lie. That was a dismal opening weekend for the ODAC.  Week 2 was better

Fan bases with reasons to be optimistic:
RMC looked good. Personally I think Dickinson is pretty bad, but RMC looked good making them look really bad. Two weeks in a row. Hard not to compare with H-SC's Averett result. Home/away doesn't matter that much
Bridgewater went to Gettysburg and won. Not an outcome I'd expect from a team that can't contend in the ODAC. Hung for a while with TMC, but in the end it wasn't real close. Still, one outcome is very good, and the other is about what I expected to better than I expected. Bwater is definitely looking up this year
Guilford looked very good. Sadly Greensboro is really bad, so it doesn't tell us much other than Guilford is reloading, not rebuilding.7 of 8 quarters have been really, really strong. I'd be very encouraged as a Quaker fan that despite the graduations, this is still a team built to compete
Shenandoah looked good. Gallaudet is really, really bad. Ferrum isn't real good either despite the E&H result. NCWC is better competition. Still hard to gauge how they will do against ODAC teams.
Catholic. Yeah, still don't know how good Rochester is, but that was a long bus ride and a very solid win.

Fan bases with reasons to be skeptical:
Catholic. McDaniel is really, really bad and it took OT, at home, to beat them
W&L. Too many mistakes for a team expected to be very good. Losing to a top 15 team on the road... not a big deal. Making so many killer mistakes? It's a problem. A win is a win. Nice to rally. But against Sewanee I expected to see more.

Fan bases with reasons to be pessimistic:
E&H. Holy cow how do you let Ferrum come back from that hole in the 4th quarter? Not what I would expect to see from an ODAC contender. I don't think Brevard is very good. Ferrum did not do well against Shenandoah. Not changing my mind based on these games
H-SC. It's possible Averett is better than they have been in years. But when you get clobbered, 27 first downs to 16, 33% 3rd down efficiency, 93 yards rushing, and only 21 minutes of possession, something isn't right. Injuries are also an issue, and CNU looked formidable Sunday. It's possible H-SC is looking at an 0-2 start for the first time in a decade.Change the last sentence to 0-3, though I don't think so. Week 2 performance was better, against a better team, than Week 1, but this isn't boding well for the ODAC schedule. Injuries are mounting from what I can see.

Conference wide problems. The teams ODAC teams beat went 13-36 last season. The only team an ODAC team beat with a winning record was Gettysburg who went 7-3. Thanks Bridgewater! Sadly the teams that beat ODAC teams only went 15-16 last season, and 11 of those wins belong to JHU. So we beat one team that had a winning record, and lost to one team with a winning record. Everyone else we beat or lost to was not good, at all, last season. I understand last season isn't this season, but that's not good any way you slice it.Week 2 doesn't really improve matters. ODAC goes 6-2 overall, but loses to the two best teams faced, TMC and CNU. We played two teams with winning records in '15, Rochester and TMC, and went 1-1. Otherwise we beat teams that went a combined 13-47 counting Brevard's 0-11.

This week will be interesting, as some of last week's winners face some stronger challenger.
Catholic at Rochester. I don't know much about Rochester, but they are traditionally middle of the LL. That should be better than an ODAC bottom feeder and, despite the win, I just can't think of Catholic as anything but a lamb to the conference slaughter.
TMC at Bridgewater. TMC is formidable. Not sure what happened the second half against Franklin, but Bridgewater is going to need to be on their game to compete.
CNU at HSC. See above. CNU looked good against Kean. H-SC looked bad against Averett. If something doesn't flip flop here, this could get ugly. Usually though, these teams play close games, even if it takes an All-American qb to throw 1000 picks to make it happen.
W&L at Sewanee. W&L should get back to winning ways though Sewanee usually plays W&L hard. I just don't think Sewanee has the horses to stop W&L's offense, unless the Generals stop themselves.
Brevard at E&H. No idea. Did E&H forget the game has 4 quarters? Sure looked like it.
Averett at RMC. Suddenly a really interesting game. Is Averett any good? How good is RMC?
Ferrum at Shenandoah. Can Shenandoah count quarters better than E&H? It wouldn't have mattered against Gallaudet but it might against Ferrum
Methodist at Guilford. Guilford continues their annual pre-season tour of patsies. Methodist scraped past Apprentice. Not exactly a resume booster.

I'm assuming today is travel day for C-M-S. Hope the team travels safe along with any parents or fans along for the ride.

Quote from: Birddawg79 on September 14, 2016, 03:12:53 pm

Thanks guys. We will definitely be at Guilford.

Not sure of your hometown, but come early and walk around campus ... it's beautiful.

That is one thing you can say about most of the ODAC schools. Really nice places to spend a few years.