Quote from: Bucket on October 03, 2026, 05:27:09 PMAmherst should be concerned with making the NESCAC tournament. Any thoughts of making the NCAA Tournament is a pipe dream for the Lord Mammoths.

You're underestimating how many ties in the NESCAC will help Amherst in NPI. Just watch, they'll beat a couple of the bottom dweller teams in the conference, get a couple more ties against good teams, and get right back on the bubble.

Quote from: VASoccerDad on September 29, 2026, 06:48:19 PMKind of surprised Montclair (now 8-2) didn't receive any votes after their beatdown of Christopher Newport.

Coaches rankings (particularly USC) are a joke and not to be taken seriously. Don't even get me started on their All-American teams over the years...

Quote from: D3fanboy on September 29, 2026, 03:04:05 PM

Quote from: blue_jays on September 29, 2026, 02:32:57 PM

Quote from: #1OacFan on September 29, 2026, 01:44:52 PM

Quote from: D3fanboy on September 29, 2026, 01:17:09 PM

Quote from: #1OacFan on September 29, 2026, 09:07:12 AMThink about the great players from the 90s and early 2000s. Would those guys turned down an opportunity to play one more game against a team like W&J, Wabash, Washington U, etc?

Yes.  Playing in a meaningless "bowl game" is beneath the Mount Union football program.  Dartt has driven it down faster than anyone could have expected in 6 years, but we are not at the level of celebrating mediocrity...yet

Playing in the Swenson's Bowl would be more embarrassing than 2026 has been so far.  No chance it would happen.

Now, Heidelberg just lose your couple of games and this chat shouldn't even matter

You my friend are the problem at Mount Union, NOT Coach Dartt!

TOUGH TIME CREATES STRONG MEN,
STRONG MEN CREATES EASY TIME.
EASY TIME CREATES WEAK MEN. WEAK MEN CREATES TOUGH TIME!" "MANY WILL NOT UNDERSTAND,
BUT YOU HAVE TO RAISE A WORRIER"

Let the Boys quit or have the worriers battle and play Football.

Don't waste energy debating with a person whose favorite hobby is to complain on this message board. Life's too short.

well that's simply not true.  My favorite hobby is supporting my alma mater's football program, which up until 5 years or so ago was the greatest dynasty college football has ever seen.  You're either high as a kite or a fan of a program that doesn't matter much if you think my "complaints" over the past few years are not valid.

Didn't say your complaints weren't valid, but the only thing I ever see you posting about involves complaints and saying Geoff Dartt's name more than his wife does.
Once again you prove yourself such a charming presence on these boards...

Quote from: #1OacFan on September 29, 2026, 01:44:52 PM

Quote from: D3fanboy on September 29, 2026, 01:17:09 PM

Quote from: #1OacFan on September 29, 2026, 09:07:12 AMThink about the great players from the 90s and early 2000s. Would those guys turned down an opportunity to play one more game against a team like W&J, Wabash, Washington U, etc?

Yes.  Playing in a meaningless "bowl game" is beneath the Mount Union football program.  Dartt has driven it down faster than anyone could have expected in 6 years, but we are not at the level of celebrating mediocrity...yet

Playing in the Swenson's Bowl would be more embarrassing than 2026 has been so far.  No chance it would happen.

Now, Heidelberg just lose your couple of games and this chat shouldn't even matter

You my friend are the problem at Mount Union, NOT Coach Dartt!

TOUGH TIME CREATES STRONG MEN,
STRONG MEN CREATES EASY TIME.
EASY TIME CREATES WEAK MEN. WEAK MEN CREATES TOUGH TIME!" "MANY WILL NOT UNDERSTAND,
BUT YOU HAVE TO RAISE A WORRIER"

Let the Boys quit or have the worriers battle and play Football.

Don't waste energy debating with a person whose favorite hobby is to complain on this message board. Life's too short.

Quote from: CarollFan on September 23, 2026, 08:55:07 PMSince quiet middle of the week, I'll throw this out there.

Should UWRF be #1?

Based on recent results, I would say UWRF should be #1. NCC's O-line issues are a legit concern against top tier opponents.

Quote from: IC798891 on July 28, 2026, 11:27:24 AM

Quote from: AndrewB on July 28, 2026, 11:01:25 AMThis from a coaches perspective makes absolutely no sense to me.  I think of Coach Walker for River Falls.  He constantly did interviews with local networks in the Minneapolis area, Pat Coleman and even Pat McAfee.  Maybe he still gets the job at Drake, but it didn't hurt that he could act like a higher level coach and give good interviews. 

Coaches are insanely busy and there's only so many hours in a day. You can't say yes to everything.

I once wrote a story on advice coaches would give others on maintaining a work-life balance to avoid burnout, and basically every college coach said "There really isn't any way to balance it. At best, you find a way to take some time to yourself."

But you'd ask them how they made time, and it'd be these insane things like "I try to take a 20-minute walk around campus during lunch" or "I don't start a new task after 10 p.m." or "I schedule a two-hour meeting once a week that's just my time to read a book, or get a haircut, or send personal emails"

It was never "I go home for dinner every night with my family" or "I never miss my kids' recital". It was basically "Yeah, I work 70 hour weeks, but I sure as heck don't work 80!"

As someone who worked in college athletics for 15 years and is now out of the industry, the only way you get through those 70+ hour weeks is a grind mentality. You know if you don't do it, it won't get done. The amount of work is normalized, it's just what you do on a daily basis. Summer is a welcome respite to bring down the burnout level, but fall prep starts quick. Crossover seasons (November and March/April) were the absolute worst and make you question your life choices.

Quote from: SierraFD3soccer on July 08, 2026, 12:34:17 AMA lot of truth here -

https://x.com/TheSammahmood_/status/2074434672201785728?s=20

It's a spot-on post. A broken system produces broken results. The U.S. has commodified every sport to the nth degree, and it's hurting athlete development across the board. Look no further than the AAU culture that everyone buys into. With all the advances in training and technology, you see better athletes with middling/worse results in almost every sport, which shouldn't happen. When the old heads complain that the players aren't as good as they used to be, they're not far off. Our sporting culture has been emphasizing the wrong things for too many years, and it hurts the product/players. The examples in pro basketball, football and baseball are too numerous to get into. It's systemic.

Quote from: stlawus on July 07, 2026, 04:27:40 PMNetherlands and Germany didn't make it further than the round of 32. Brazil and Portugal got as far as the round of 16. All were considered World Cup contenders. Can say it was a disappointing finish last night since it was, but you'd think we finished in last place going off some of reactions.

If you mean the general public reaction, they only pay attention to soccer every 4 years. Social media's cottage industry is overreactions. It's a very "if you're not first, you're last" kind of mindset.

What the other soccer powers did in comparison to the U.S. doesn't really matter. Moral victories of "at least we made it farther than them" don't exist. Those countries can have their own existential crises for the next couple years until qualifying comes back around. The U.S. is now back in their familiar position of "shouldn't we be better than this?" And the answer is both yes, and no.

Considering how handily Belgium beat the U.S. earlier this year (5-2), I was feeling pessimistic about America's chances. The 4-1 scoreline makes total sense. The U.S. can't handle top competition, they get exposed every time. They beat who they're supposed to beat, and it ends there. We are not a serious soccer nation, and frankly never will be. Our nation's best athletes are drawn to the flashy pro sports (football/basketball), we just don't value soccer like the rest of the world does.
And at the end of the day, that's OK. The U.S. has other sporting priorities, can't be the best at everything. They'll stay a middle-of-the-pack team, with an occasional run at random tournaments, build up some hype, then come up short. Rinse and repeat. But a World Cup title? Never gonna happen.

Quote from: DagarmanSpartan on June 08, 2026, 04:41:10 PMOK, so I just Googled it and found this.

https://www.hpherald.com/evening_digest/university-of-chicago-eyes-further-deficit-cuts-staff-raises/article_0d5db265-b2dd-43b0-800e-612287bb9a53.html

Yeah, it looks like the deficit is coming down, but its causes appear to be multi-faceted.  Had no idea that John Rockefeller's pet university would ever get so deeply in arears.

Never imagined it.  Hopefully, they'll get rid of their deficit completely over time.

As someone who worked at UChicago for more than a decade, there's a whole lot of spending going on. They upped their student enrollment, and had to build new dorms and buildings to house them. Whenever viable land in Hyde Park became available, they were snapping it up quick. They've had 3 hiring freezes in the last 14 years. I remember in 2013/2014 when they announced a $4.5 billion capital campaign and a hiring freeze in the same email (they had already raised $2 billion in the quiet phase).

There are a lot of factors when it comes to the high debt, but overexpansion is high on the list. They have multiple international campuses in Europe and Asia. Every time big gifts are made, it's some billionaire like Pritzker who wants to start a new major and build a new building. That money is earmarked just for those projects, and the operating budget just continues to swell. After all, the most expensive line item is personnel. Big time faculty get treated like royalty. The regular old staff members always got the short end of the stick. "Who needs a raise when you have the prestige of saying you work here?"

Frankly, you'd be very surprised at how low UChicago coaches are paid considering the expensive urban environment. Plenty of hiring candidates pull out of consideration from that factor (or don't apply to begin with).

One area that I think/hope they've remedied is athletic fundraising. Multiple times during my time there, a successful athletic alum wanted to make a big gift just to athletics, and they were told that they couldn't do it unless they gave an equally sized gift to the university in general. Needless to say, those alums were none too pleased about that ask, and that faucet would dry up quick.

All that being said, I did enjoy my time working there and I still hold UChicago in high esteem. Every institution has their quirks, but it's an amazing school for a reason.

UChicago men's tennis wins its 3rd NCAA title since 2022, with a thrilling 4-3 upset win over Claremont-Mudd-Scripps. I say upset, as CMS previously beat the Maroons handily 4-1 at ITA Indoor Nationals back in late February, and the Stags also have the best player in the country who provides automatic points in singles and doubles.
UChicago dug deep and showed championship pedigree to claim the title. CMS meanwhile continues to be the most snakebitten program in any sport I've ever seen (6 national runner-ups since 2013 with 1 title).

Quote from: Kuiper on May 20, 2026, 12:09:53 AMCross-posted from the 2026 Schedules Thread

Tufts

They trade out Husson for Thomas College and MIT for WPI, which are both probably like-for-like, and  Emerson for Westfield State, which is harder to peg since Westfield State had a much better record than Emerson last season, but in a weaker schedule.  The biggest challenge for Tufts might be the road trip to Amherst and Hamilton on 10/3-10/4.  It's under 2 hours to get to Amherst, but over 3 hours to get from Amherst to Hamilton and then over 4 hours to get home to Tufts from Hamilton.  That's called doing errands in some parts of Texas, but will be the most Tufts has to travel during the regular season. I doubt it will matter much though.  As New Englander said [in the 2026 Schedules thread], with 10 out of 15 games at home, including all the non-conference games, this is a very friendly schedule from a travel perspective.

Amherst

UChicago's closest conference opponent is 4.5 hours away.

Quote from: Ralph Turner on April 28, 2026, 11:48:00 AM

Quote from: blue_jays on April 27, 2026, 09:51:21 AMUChicago baseball just won its first conference title since 1913. The Maroons will make their second-ever NCAA postseason appearance. Great turnaround after a tough first half of the season.
https://athletics.uchicago.edu/news/2026/4/26/baseball-clinches-uaa-title-for-first-conference-championship-since-1913.aspx

So, UChicago's last title was in the "Dead Ball Era"?
 

Indeed it was, going back to the old days of Amos Alonzo Stagg. The fact the Maroons won 11-straight UAA games to clinch this past weekend was quite the feat.

UChicago baseball just won its first conference title since 1913. The Maroons will make their second-ever NCAA postseason appearance. Great turnaround after a tough first half of the season.
https://athletics.uchicago.edu/news/2026/4/26/baseball-clinches-uaa-title-for-first-conference-championship-since-1913.aspx

Quote from: north central on April 14, 2026, 10:35:11 AMI think this is where a coach or former coach needs to call out the administration publicly because that's the only way stuff will change .

For a current coach, this would be an objectively crazy thing to do, literal career suicide. Unless you are sufficiently monied for the rest of your life, no one would ever do this.