Quote from: SierraFD3soccer on October 09, 2026, 04:58:30 PMI personally do not have a problem. At the very least, they won't have 2 games a week with a compressed schedule. Fewer injuries maybe. Could be that they only play on weekends which will let them be in class more often. The airplane leagues miss a whole lot of classes.

Again, though, that's not relevant to D3. The UAA is the only airplane league in all of D3.

Quote from: SierraFD3soccer on October 08, 2026, 03:14:08 PMAll great points, but now all the teams are relying on int'l talent to include the Sasho who admittedly held back as long as he could imo.  His game on Tues. against Rutgers he two American starters and one American sub out of 15. His last nat'l championship in 2018 of his starters he had 4 int'l and the 4 subs they were all American. This was also the year he had Donovan Pines (played and started at DC United and I think is in Austria now - also the son of the president of UMD) and Canadian Dane St. Clair who played against the US on Tues).

So split schedule imo is wash as to developing American talent as opposed to taking int'l rejects who are older to begin with. Will that reverse, I'm guessing no as recruiting int'l players is much easier than running around the country to go to soccer tournaments. D2 is also full of int'l players and maybe even more so.

All great for D3 though.

First of all, D3 =/= D1. That includes recruiting scenarios. I think that on some level we all realize that, but it bears repeating, anyway.

At the D3 level, recruiting international players isn't necessarily easier than "running around the country to go to soccer tournaments." For one thing, the vast majority of D3 soccer programs don't recruit nationally, they recruit locally. For another, recruiting D3-level internationals has gotten extremely competitive. Take a look at D3 and NAIA soccer rosters from around the country,  and you'll see just how pervasive international players are on the small college level of soccer these days. And that is only going to intensify, as the U.S. demographic cliff forces small schools to look more and more beyond our borders to find students who will pay the tuition to keep the schools operating.

And, whereas in the past it was pretty common to see internationals join a D3 or NAIA program when they were already well into their 20s, that's not the case anymore. I say this as someone who does play-by-play for one of the more high-profile D3 programs among those known for being international-heavy, North Park. The Vikings have six international freshmen that are either starting or getting heavy minutes off the bench -- five from Sweden and one from Norway -- and all six look like they just started shaving last week. I've noticed the same thing in the international freshmen along NPU's opponents.

Different divisions, different needs, different goals ... and different recruiting methodologies.

Even if D3 plays follow-the-leader and adopts 5-for-5 and/or the two-semester soccer season as well, the end result will still look much different in D3 than it does in D1.

Quote from: VASoccerDad on October 01, 2026, 09:19:34 AMA lot of Case talk on the boards but not much from the other schools. Where is everyone?

This is the UAA, so they're probably all in the library rather than attending soccer games. 😉

As someone who doesn't follow any of the league's teams but has an interest in the UAA and understands its importance in the national D3 men's soccer picture, I'd love it if some other voices chimed in from the non-Cleveland contingent of UAA schools. But one can't begrudge other people the right to talk about their favorite team, so if only Case Western Reserve fans have enough interest to post on this board, then so be it.

Quote from: deepthroat on October 04, 2026, 08:32:29 PMDisappointed that NPU has regressed to the mean.

Three of NPU's five losses were by a combined nine points. In all three the Vikings held the lead late in the 3rd quarter, and they lost those leads in literally the last 40 seconds of regulation in two of those three losses.

Since North Central and Wheaton have been write-offs for NPU for years -- as they have been for every CCIW team that didn't call Missouri home and have Christmas colors as their school colors -- the Vikings could've conceivably been 3-2 here at the halfway point, or at least 2-3, if they were better at closing out games. Of course, that's a mighty big conditional.

Let's cover yesterday's results by starting with one of the two non-conference contests, because the one played in the western suburbs is the elephant in the room.

Wheaton lost to Calvin yesterday by a score of 7-0. No, that's not a typo. Calvin found the back of the Wheaton net seven times, while the Knights turned in a clean sheet at the other end of the pitch. Worse, the pitch in question was Joe Bean Stadium. Even worse, it was Wheaton's Homecoming game. Still worse, Wheaton's 2006 national runner-up team was honored at halftime for the 20th anniversary of their storied season.

Wow.

When I first saw the score yesterday I figured that it must've been a red card game, because those can sometimes get out of hand, especially if the losing team gets two red cards and has to play 9 vs. 11 for any substantial amount of time (which is what happened when NPU went to Augustana last season). But, no, Wheaton played all 90 minutes yesterday with 11 men on the field.

This must be Wheaton's worst defeat ever -- which is really saying something, because the Orange and Blue have been playing intercollegiate soccer since the Great Depression, generations before any other CCIW school embraced the sport.

Speaking of North Park going to Augustana, NPU paid a return visit to Thorson-Lucken Field yesterday and came away with a 2-1 win. The visiting Vikings had the run of play all day and enjoyed numerous opportunities to score, but couldn't find the back of the net until the second half. They blew the shutout by getting greedy and sending too many men forward at the end of the game rather than just riding out the win by playing keepaway, which led to an Augie counter goal in the 87th minute.

North Park is a pretty battered outfit right now, with multiple starters out injured, but the Vikings are nevertheless all alone in 1st place as the only unbeaten and untied team remaining.

I watched some of the Millikin @ Carroll game, which was entertaining if a bit cringeworthy for those who enjoy good defense. To Carroll's credit, the Pioneers came back from a two-goal deficit to send the Big Blue home sulking on the CCIW's longest busride after Carroll's 5-4 win.

North Central got a goal from Alecs Duncevic in the opening minutes, his sixth of the season, and made it stand up for a 1-0 victory over Elmhurst at Langhorst. NCC thus kept pace with idle Illinois Wesleyan in a third-place tie at 1-0-1, a half-game behind Carroll at 2-0-1.

In the other non-con game, Carthage lost at home to Loras, 1-0. I watched some of this game as well, and the Firebirds spent very little time on the Loras side of Keller Field, even less in the forward third. Carthage's offensive struggles are obviously an ongoing issue.

BTW, thanks to Scott Peterson at the D3 Stat Lab for really getting into the weeds with that research. I learned a lot that will help me out if I ever have to explain a similar situation when I'm on the air.

Good point, and I suspect that next year's D3 convention will see a proposed amendment to the rulebook that will contain your suggestion or something like it in order to prevent mid-season cancelations that were motivated by NPI.

Quote from: lmitzel on October 01, 2026, 04:05:34 PMHere's the thing with this though as far as I can tell: Chicago can't declare this a forfeit win because NCAA rules don't allow it.

Quote from: NCAA Soccer Rule 7.6.1When a scheduled game is terminated before it begins, it is recorded as "no contest." Neither team is credited with a win or loss, regardless of the reason why the game was terminated.

Exactly. But the possibility did exist that the NCC coach might have agreed to accept a forfeit in his conversation with his U of C counterpart -- or that the Maroons coach may have interpreted it that way -- which is why I was noncommittal.

Quote from: ziggy on October 01, 2026, 06:15:52 PMThis will certainly be a no contest and the only way this ends as anything else is if they actually make up the game. Rules are clear on that.

This forfeit stance makes UChicago look silly in a situation that, from all I have heard, I think NCC is the bigger transgressor.

It appears to me to be a great big he said / she said, and since the NCAA rules back up the "he said" (i.e., North Central) unless there is some sort of proof that he agreed to a forfeit, the game is most likely going to end up as a simple cancelation with no penalty ascribed to NCC.

I don't know who the bigger transgressor is (you might have inside info that I don't, Zac), or if there even is a transgression rather than two people completely misunderstanding each other, but I do agree that the U of C looks silly because of that press release. Heck, even though the online Maroons schedule indicates the forfeit, neither it nor the Maroons stats page records the forfeit win. Both show the U of Chicago women's soccer team with a 7-1 record, not 8-1. Same with the UAA website, which shows no result for last night's phantom soccer match.

Yep. In terms of forfeits a win is a win as far as the D3 Championships Committee is concerned.

As to who will adjudicate the North Central @ Chicago contretemps, that's unclear at this point. It sounds as though the facts might be in dispute regarding the agreement (or lack thereof) reached by the Cardinals and Maroons coaches last night. If it was a league game the issue could be settled by the league's commissioner, but, alas, the two teams represent two different leagues.

Wheaton jumped into the win column with a convincing 3-1 triumph over Millikin at Joe Bean Stadium last night. Illinois Wesleyan improved to 1-0-1 in league play with a 3-0 throttling of Augustana at Neis Field, and, although Carthage did manage to end five halves of CCIW scoreboard silence with a second-half tally last night, the Firebirds still succumbed to Carroll up in Waukesha, 2-1.

In the lone non-conference game last night (North Central vs. Edgewood was postponed), #25 North Park put down a stingy UW-Platteville side, 1-0, on a set-piece header goal by CB Dennis Rinne in the 81st minute at Holmgren.

Neither North Central nor the CCIW has recognized last night's non-contest in Hyde Park as a forfeit loss for the Cardinals. Both NCC and the league continue to show it as a postponement on their respective websites, although North Central hasn't posted a gamer on its website explaining the postponement and updating the game with either a  new date, time, and location or a TBA, as is customary in the event of a postponement.

Quote from: Patrick Coleman on September 27, 2026, 12:40:06 PM

Quote from: Titan Q on September 26, 2026, 07:47:14 AMThe "two deep" in IWU's game notes is created before the first game of the season and isn't updated.  It's a preseason depth chart to give fans/media personnel an idea who the top guys are coming in. It's not meant to be a week-to-week/real time thing...and not billed as such.

Just for the record, this is atypical.

You have a much better grasp of sports information policies across the breadth of D3 football than I do, Pat, so tell me: How many other programs have a fixed, one-edition-only version of a two-deep? And if there are others, which schools are they?

AFAIK, Illinois Wesleyan is the only CCIW football program that uses this static two-deep model.

CCIW opening day results are in:

(Well, sort of opening day. Elmhurst and Carthage got a head start last Wednesday, with the 'jays topping the Firebirds 1-0 in Kenosha.)

Illinois Wesleyan 1, North Central 1 in Naperville
Carroll 0, Augustana 0 in the QC
North Park 3, Wheaton 2 in Chicago
Millikin 2, Carthage 0 in Kenosha

Initial thoughts:

* Not used to seeing Carthage start off 0-2, especially when those two initial losses involved being shut out at home by teams that aren't typically upper-echelon CCIW outfits. The Firebirds are certainly having some struggles this season.

* Is Millikin for real? The Big Blue started off the season with three ugly losses, but they've taken care of business lately, and for now I'll credit them with a quality win yesterday at Keller Field.

* Illinois Wesleyan has zero quality wins -- the Titans have played an absurdly easy schedule to date -- but drawing at NCC yesterday was certainly an impressive result. Gotta give them that.

* Speaking of the Cardinals, those three straight games they played against MI Double A teams, all on the other side of the lake, really seem to have knocked them down a peg or two. And yesterday's outcome against IWU didn't help matters.

* Wheaton has a craptastic record this season, but don't be fooled by that. And don't be fooled either by the ridiculously lopsided statistics against them in their two losses in the Windy City over the past four days. The Orange and Blue are a decent team that can take a lot of blows and then get you with outstanding counters. Aside from their two-goal loss to PLU nobody's beaten them by more than a single goal this year, including the two Chicago-based powerhouses. They'll be heard from in the CCIW race.

* I'm really starting to like this North Park team. The Vikings aren't flying under the radar anymore, since they're receiving votes in the national poll, but they seem to be embracing their lot as the primary CCIW contender du jour. They're taking care of business against lesser teams and finding ways to beat the better ones.

Millikin 31
North Park 27

For the third time this season NPU lost a close game on the road. The Vikings were up by 10 with 9:23 remaining and had the Big Blue pinned back at their own one-yard-line after a great 49-yard Hugo Backing punt. But MU drove 99 yards in 14 plays to score, and then,  with four minutes and change remaining, the Big Blue recovered an onside kick at the MU 44. Again they drove it in for a TD, this one with only 40 seconds left.

That's ridiculous. There are no calculated attempts on the part of SIDs, in collaboration with coaching staffs or otherwise, to game the system by disseminating two-deeps that are crafted to deceive opposing coaches.

As Pat said, coaches put together the two-deeps; SIDs merely distribute them. And I'm not saying that there aren't less-than-honest head coaches (as opposed to merely optimistic ones in the case of player injuries) who play fast-and-loose with two-deeps. But SIDs have professional standards to which they are required to adhere -- standards that don't include conspiring to lie to other schools.