It's not our father's college football (any division)

Quick review of the out of conference schedules for 2026 based on 2025 records:

Mount 19-6 Wheaton/Grove City
Etta & Wilm 14-8  Westminster/MSJ, Wooster/Hanover
ONU 13-7 Adrian/Bluffton
Musk 11-10 MSJ/Franklin
Heidi 10-10 Maryville/Rose Hulman
BW 9-12 Bethany/Alma
Ott 7-13 Calvin/Manchesster
Cap 6-14 Waynesburg/Anderson

Tough shooting night for Mount except foul line was great. Turnovers hurt too. Entertaining game. Mount by far, must have the most coaches on the bench of any team in the ncaa's.

Ott (20-37) and UWP (31-21) was tale of two halves.  Ott played much harder in the second half and seemed to rattle UWP.  The refs did make it tough to watch, equally bad for both.

Heidi seemed to hang and hovering the whole game vs IWU, even though only scoring 15 points in the first half.  Amazed at the run for the main group of undersized and Heidi ironmen.

JCU (still related to OAC this year for me) had the best round one draw of the four OACers.

Congrats to the OAC getting three teams into the tourney.  Hopefully, all three can win game one to add credence to the process.

How 'bout them apples?  Heidi 16-12 (7-9 in league) wins OAC.  They played relaxed and confident.  Surprised they could do it mainly playing six men all year, none listed over 6'4".  Did get a seventh player tonight in for over 10 minutes.

Congrats to the core four that stayed at Berg for final year (maybe one jr?) and nice recruiting older three guys that fit and were key players.

Should be three teams from OAC in tourney.  When was the last time that happened?

Two entertaining, hard played semi-final games.  The foul near the end on a 33% FT shooter could've been a 'hack-a-shaq' move?  MU had several chances after that.  Raiders will still be in NCAA tourney.  Will be two OAC schools in with shot at three if Heidi pulls another upset.

Why was there no technical foul on the Otterbein player rushing the floor after winning shot with 1.3 seconds left on the clock? 

What are the rules?

Chicone was the 40 minute man yesterday vs Depauw.  Just didn't have enough help as JCU lost the lead late.

Early, I was concerned Mount's malaise was going to last three games. Collier seemed to wake the whole team and the rout was on.  A nice 8 for 10 from deep!

Marietta needs a lot of help.

What happened to the Muskies? Lost 5 of 7 after a 10-1 start with only a 3 point loss to Mount.

Ott vs Mount on Saturday.  Good test for both.

Some ugly basketball today...Mount both halves, Muskie and Etta turned halfime ties into 14 and 23 point stinker losses.

Not quite the same intensity in the Mount vs Etta basketball game tonight as in the past.  FloCollege has not been an upgrade for viewers! Vanderwal's recruiting post-final four team seemed to fall off and the Pioneers have not recovered.

Good summary on the JCU impact players.

Individual transfers have historically made an impact in the OAC.  Many probably have much better detail than me.  A few I recall include Mount getting over the top with Scott Woolf and Jim Ballard had it rolling.  Maybe the two best individual transfers were London Fletcher transferring to JCU from St Francis and Pierre Garcon arriving at Mount from Norwich.

JCU is the first OAC school I can come up with as getting good numbers of impact transfers together.  Basketball did it in the '22-'23 season going from 3-13 (last) to 16-2 (first).  Football didn't need the dramatic rise, but has advanced farther this year than ever.

Some of these current transfers give JCU a shot in the arm several school experienced in the COVID years.  Impact players with 5 to 7 seasons under their belts past high school make life better for coaches.

Mid-December look... Mount & Muskies in their own group, with Ott in the next tier and then lump everyone else in the third bucket.

Watching the M&M game, I can see why Doc A commented as he did.

Witt certainly the early season surprise along with Woo's 3-4 start. 

Entertaining game.  JCU's advantages:
   D1 transfers better than Mount's D3 transfers
   Defenses overall pretty even, but trusted JCU's secondary more
   Offense play calling
   Poise
   Field goal kicking, barely