FB: American Rivers Conference

[DriftlessDuhawk]

https://kohawkathletics.com/sports/football/schedule

Coe has released their schedule. The Kohawks play their longtime rival Cornell to start off the season in which has been an incredibly one-sided affair in the 21st century. Their second noncon game is at UW-River Falls who went 7-3 last year with lots of high-quality wins. This should be a step up in competition, even from playing UW-Eau Claire last year, in which the Kohawks barely beat them in OT. UWRF beat UWEC 71-14 last year for context.

https://athletics.central.edu/sports/football/schedule

Central has also officially posted their schedule with noncon games against Illinois Wesleyan and Randolph Macon. We have already discussed the Randolph Macon game on these boards, but it should be a fun matchup. Illinois Wesleyan is back on the Dutch's schedule this season following a Central 49-14 win in 2024. IWU hired a new coach this year following the retirement of long-time head coach Norm Eash, and the program is looking for a resurgence.

[doolittledog]

Two away games for Coe, though Mt Vernon is only a few miles down the road.  Seeing their countdown and noting in 2 weeks I can tell my wife it's now 150 days until college football season.  That will rate an eye roll from her!

[HansenRatings]

Not every ARC school has announced their 2025 schedule, yet, but the top 4 teams of the last few years all have, so I figured I would plug those schedules into the ol' Hansen Ratings machine to see how they stack up. First, here are my preseason conference ratings as of right now, which haven't been adjusted for returning starters, yet.

Rk	School		Rating		AdjO		AdjD
15	Wartburg		33.6		37.7		5.2
27	Central		27.6		38.6		11.6
29	Coe		27.0		36.4		10.1
56	Dubuque		15.6		36.0		21.2
137	Loras		-6.9		29.1		37.5
138	Simpson		-7.1		24.5		33.2
165	Nebraska Wesleyan		-12.5		18.1		32.0
168	Buena Vista		-13.3		20.5		35.2
214	Luther		-31.3		9.7		42.8

And then looking at the schedules and projections for the top 4:

School		SOS		Proj. W-L
Wartburg		0.545		8.7-1.3
Central		0.546		8.0-2.0
Coe		0.488		7.5-2.5
Dubuque		0.586		5.6-4.4

[doolittledog]

Simpson released their schedule
https://x.com/scstormfootball/status/1911805417639780402

[Pat Coleman]

If you like game times for that schedule:
https://d3football.com/teams/Simpson/2025/index

[HansenRatings]

Adding Simpson's schedule to my projections:

School		SOS		Proj. W-L
Wartburg		0.545		8.7-1.3
Central		0.546		8.0-2.0
Coe		0.488		7.5-2.5
Dubuque		0.586		5.6-4.4
Simpson		0.505		3.8-6.2

Augustana will be a good early measuring stick for a team that I think most people expect to keep improving, even with J Jensen III graduating. My current projections have them as a 11.5 point underdog. A close game or a win should bode well. Crown should be an easy win, and then they're projected to go 2.6-5.4 in conference. A 0.500 season is definitely within the reasonable range of outcomes.

[Captain_Joe08]

Buena Vista has updated their schedule: https://bvuathletics.com/sports/football/schedule

Road trip to Benedictine and a home game against Wisconsin Lutheran

[DriftlessDuhawk]

https://duhawks.com/sports/football/schedule

As previously said, the Duhawks will get the Flying Dutchmen at home and then travel to BenU in week 2 for a night game.

Luther has posted their schedule with noncon games against Millikin and Martin Luther. Millikin is a bottom tier CCIW team, they went to 0-10 last season, and Martin Luther, a UMAC team who went 6-4 last year, although against a lack luster schedule. Hopefully, Luther can start making some things happen in the nonconference season to help bring up the bottom of the conference.

Although it hasn't been posted, I'm told that Loras is continuing with their noncon series against Hope and Benedictine this year. Hope was a fantastic team last year, winning the MIAA and making it to the second round of the playoffs. Benedictine went 5-5 in the NAAC last season and has played in some incredibly competitive games with the Duhawks over the last few seasons. Last year's game against BenU was very fun to watch, and it was down to the wire. The game against Hope was not productive for either side, and I'm not sure what led to renewing the contract, if I'm being quite frank. I'm sure that Hope would like to get an easy win in the NPI era and Loras feels that it is a good test against a good team. We shall see... 

[HansenRatings]

With Dubuque and BVU going on the road to Benedictine, that means BenU has 6 home games. Must be nice. BenU also favored against each of the two (-3.5 vs. Loras & -9.8 vs. BVU).

Anyways, here's the projections table updated with everyone's schedule.

School		SOS		Proj. W-L	Conf. W-L
Wartburg		0.545		8.7-1.3	7.3-0.7
Central		0.546		8.0-2.0	6.6-1.4
Coe		0.488		7.5-2.5	6.4-1.6
Dubuque		0.586		5.6-4.4	5.4-2.6
Loras		0.564		3.2-6.8	2.8-5.2
Simpson		0.505		3.8-6.2	2.6-5.4
Nebraska Wesleyan		0.503		2.7-6.3	2.3-5.7
Buena Vista		0.510		3.0-7.0	2.3-5.7
Luther		0.480		0.9-9.1	0.3-7.7

Luther playing Millikin and Martin Luther in non-conference, and they're more than a TD underdog in each game (oof-da). NWU playing two NAIA schools, as discussed previously, so that won't matter for any SOS calculations in NPI(which is good, because they were a bigger underdog in those matchups than I expected before I ran the numbers). For the other 8 schools, the cumulative non-conference record is expected to be 7.1-8.9. Not great. You'd like to see that above 0.500 to help get a second (or third) team into the playoffs. But still, with the expanded playoffs 1-loss should be enough, barring a conference-wide implosion in the non-conference slate.

[DriftlessDuhawk]

With Dubuque and BVU going on the road to Benedictine, that means BenU has 6 home games. Must be nice. BenU also favored against each of the two (-3.5 vs. Loras & -9.8 vs. BVU).

I can't sit idly by while you miscontrude my favorite football team with the neerdowells up the street from us Logan 

[DriftlessDuhawk]

Anyways, here's the projections table updated with everyone's schedule.

School		SOS		Proj. W-L	Conf. W-L
Wartburg		0.545		8.7-1.3	7.3-0.7
Central		0.546		8.0-2.0	6.6-1.4
Coe		0.488		7.5-2.5	6.4-1.6
Dubuque		0.586		5.6-4.4	5.4-2.6
Loras		0.564		3.2-6.8	2.8-5.2
Simpson		0.505		3.8-6.2	2.6-5.4
Nebraska Wesleyan		0.503		2.7-6.3	2.3-5.7
Buena Vista		0.510		3.0-7.0	2.3-5.7
Luther		0.480		0.9-9.1	0.3-7.7

I do find it very intriguing that the bottom 5 teams in the conference are projected to have less than 3 wins each. The basement of the ARC could really use some nonconference wins to help boost up the overall SOS of the conference and also the national opinion of all the teams in it. With all 5 of these teams being projected less than 3 wins (I highly doubt Simpson will go under this based on what they were able to improve on last season) it tells me that instead of the floor being raised, the teams in the bottom 5 are more so content in simply trying not to finish last then really trying to break into the upper tier of the conference.

[HansenRatings]

With Dubuque and BVU going on the road to Benedictine, that means BenU has 6 home games. Must be nice. BenU also favored against each of the two (-3.5 vs. Loras & -9.8 vs. BVU).

I can't sit idly by while you miscontrude my favorite football team with the neerdowells up the street from us Logan 

I'm not sure what came over me. Unforgiveable.

[HansenRatings]

Anyways, here's the projections table updated with everyone's schedule.

School		SOS		Proj. W-L	Conf. W-L
Wartburg		0.545		8.7-1.3	7.3-0.7
Central		0.546		8.0-2.0	6.6-1.4
Coe		0.488		7.5-2.5	6.4-1.6
Dubuque		0.586		5.6-4.4	5.4-2.6
Loras		0.564		3.2-6.8	2.8-5.2
Simpson		0.505		3.8-6.2	2.6-5.4
Nebraska Wesleyan		0.503		2.7-6.3	2.3-5.7
Buena Vista		0.510		3.0-7.0	2.3-5.7
Luther		0.480		0.9-9.1	0.3-7.7

I do find it very intriguing that the bottom 5 teams in the conference are projected to have less than 3 wins each. The basement of the ARC could really use some nonconference wins to help boost up the overall SOS of the conference and also the national opinion of all the teams in it. With all 5 of these teams being projected less than 3 wins (I highly doubt Simpson will go under this based on what they were able to improve on last season) it tells me that instead of the floor being raised, the teams in the bottom 5 are more so content in simply trying not to finish last then really trying to break into the upper tier of the conference.

This got me thinking. I was curious if there had been less "churn" in the conference standings recently than the norm. I decided to check this by comparing teams' finish in the conference standings to their finish the previous season (first image) and their finish the previous two seasons (second image). Last season was the season with the least amount of movement in the standings over the last 20 years (Simpson went up 1 spot in the standings, and Loras went down 1 spot, for an absolute change of 2). It's subtle but that's a trend that appears to be stabilizing in the post-COVID ARC.

[DriftlessDuhawk]

Thanks for the charts Logan! I do think that the trend is something to note, as the top of the conference is separating itself from the bottom of the league. I would assume that I am one of the younger people on this board, as I have only followed the conference for about 8 years now. But in those 8 years, it has felt like the haves (Central/Wartburg/Coe/ud) and the have-nots (the rest) have not done much flip-flopping. Now I think this is pretty normal for most football conferences, as we typically don't see teams going from worst to first in this particular sport. But it does beg the question, how much longer will this go on for, and what does one of the teams in the have-nots group need to do to break through? I would love someone to hear the opinions of those who are a bit more seasoned on this board on the matter, as they have probably seen and know more about the history of the league.

[HansenRatings]

Thanks for the charts Logan! I do think that the trend is something to note, as the top of the conference is separating itself from the bottom of the league. I would assume that I am one of the younger people on this board, as I have only followed the conference for about 8 years now. But in those 8 years, it has felt like the haves (Central/Wartburg/Coe/ud) and the have-nots (the rest) have not done much flip-flopping. Now I think this is pretty normal for most football conferences, as we typically don't see teams going from worst to first in this particular sport. But it does beg the question, how much longer will this go on for, and what does one of the teams in the have-nots group need to do to break through? I would love someone to hear the opinions of those who are a bit more seasoned on this board on the matter, as they have probably seen and know more about the history of the league.

I would say that there are definitely some leagues where there are pretty stark differences in institutional priorities that drives a lot of the stratification (the MIAC and former makeup of the ASC immediately come to mind), but that's not really the case in the ARC. Wartburg as an institution definitely puts a premium on athletic success, but if you look at federally-reported revenue/spending numbers, the whole conference is basically on the same playing field. Some institutions have other issues (general financial health of the college, dwindling nearby population), but there's nothing on the scale of St. Scholastica vs. St. John's to overcome.

This is anecdoctal, but for me coming out of high school (class of '08), I had barely functional dial-up internet at home, and I was only going to hear about a school from in-person visits or mailers, and then everything I knew about them was essentially learned from my on campus visits. Now a kid from Arizona can meet a coach from Iowa at a recruiting fair, and then in the next fifteen minutes they'll know who the best teams are in their conference and send a DM to their coaches on Twitter. That can make it more difficult to climb the ladder, but not insurmountable.

I also look at success in other sports. There's abosultely no reason for a school like Luther to be struggling as much as they have been in football. If you exclude football from the All-Sports Trophy last year, Luther finishes first in the conference, and they're regularly finishing in the Top 3 in the All Sports Trophy even including football, and have the third-most outright All Sports Trophy wins all time, behind Wartburg and Central.

The stasis right now can feel entrenched, and I do think the availability of information for recruits can make that entrenchment more "real," but I think pretty much every school in the ARC is only 1 great coaching hire away from moving into the upper half of the conference.