That's a fair opinion. But there's some brand bias in the SEC sense with that. In the examples of ULAX and UWP, the former couldn't get past SJU, who wound up losing to Sus, and the latter did lose to Wartburg. Outside of them being WIAC schools (a league that's earned its rep) neither of those schools has beaten anyone of note in the playoffs or nationally recently. Doesn't mean they won't this year. But you gave examples of 3 schools with more recent success, deeper playoff runs, and more marque wins (multiple of them over the best of the WIAC). To say you'd favor UWLAX and UWP over Cortland, Wart, or Sus given what's happened the last two season is a fair opinion. But it's rooted in "the WIAC is just better" than in what's actually happened with all the schools mentioned on the actual field.

Quote from: HansenRatings on August 11, 2025, 01:53:10 PMJust posted on the-website-formerly-known-as-Twitter: 2025 UMAC Conference Preview

I have been informed since I posted this that Sivert has tranferred.

Sivert and UNWSP's top offensive lineman visited Bethel this Spring exploring transferring. With the Geebli returning and a group of really strong freshman coming in, we couldn't promise any path to playing time at RB. Good to see he found a place to land, it'll be interesting to see if he can get PT at Maine.

Thing is, the WIAC canibalized itself during the regular season, still got two teams into the tourney but then got bounced pretty early. They didn't have a Top 10 team last year, as good as the league was overall. What is different at this point in the preseason?

Quote from: OzJohnnie on August 14, 2025, 06:44:39 PM

Quote from: faunch on August 14, 2025, 09:10:24 AMThis guy is good.
https://x.com/gottliebshow/status/1955831016293355750?s=46

Yeah, but unfortunately he'll either be fired or running a dumpster program in three years. There are far too many people who don't adhere to the same value set as he does.  And that's a shame.

This kid, the new punter for Nebraska, from Frankston ('Frangers' in Melbourne slang) is making big waves over the last day.  A good boy that loves him family.  He's 18 and hasn't been home in almost a year.

https://x.com/cfbonfox/status/1955397849606394014?s=61&t=KbCNsWeom8KlUt8-D0TUlw

Saw the Nebraska Punter's video. He's been getting all kinds of love after this posted. Not the same as seeing family face to face, but people are rooting for him to succeed. Also a good reminder that these players we so passionately follow are people first. Easy to lose sight of the person when we obsess over their successes and failures.

Quote from: GoldandBlueBU on August 11, 2025, 10:19:16 AM

Quote from: OzJohnnie on August 10, 2025, 08:12:05 PMEDIT: I imagine any talent in the Pioneer is raided pretty heavily.  The Tommies did very well with a D3 roster.  The Pioneer is obviously not a D1 talent destination.  Any talent that does end up there is gone pretty quickly, it would seem.  Must suck for the Tommies to be a recruiting minnow that has talent stolen by bigger programs and better financial packages, only to see that talent sit on the bench...

Chickens, roosting, coming home and all that jazz.

NIL has made that a reality across most of D1 now.  Smaller schools won't be able to keep anyone who has a big year, because they'll get spotted, and a major D1 will come calling with $$$.

I felt like that became pretty evident in the March Madness tourney this year for hoops...the small school's didn't have any ability to make a Cinderella run.

It's also been a major detriment to high school kids getting recruited. Coaches spend as much time re-recruiting their own rosters and raiding other rosters that HS kids are simply far less a priority than they were a few years ago. Interesting to hear HS coaches talk about it. Kids just get less interest than they used to, and kids now actively go into signing day with an eye towards the next stop. Most D2 or FCS commits have clear strategy for how they'll make their way up the chain.

Quote from: DuffMan on August 01, 2025, 08:28:51 AM

Quote from: emma17 on July 31, 2025, 01:07:58 PMI saw some great fish photos from a guy wearing a St. John's t-shirt. He fished at Witch Bay Camp in Ontario. Beautiful Walleye, Pike and Musky.

Got a link?  I wanna see if I know this guy.
 

I initially thought this was a joke, and that the guy he was referencing was you Duff. Figured it was Emma being cheeky for a second.

Fun news out of Arden Hills, Bethel officially has lights on the field and will play a night game to kick off the season against Northwestern!

@Logan, thanks for those stats. Fascinating side by side of two of the best SJU QB's of the last 30 years. No one asked, but I'd rank them 1. Erdmann 2. Keating 3. Syverson 4. Linneman 5. Ramler 6. Koefed

Erdmann was just all world level elite, but lacked another elite playmaker on offense with him. Keating was the Joe Montana/Tom Brady, made everyone around him better and has the Chip to prove it. Syverson's accuracy was insane, never played with an elite D. Linneman was remarkably good, but also had an incredible defense and running game. Koefed gets overlooked way too much. He was great, but played with the least talent around him when compared with the rest of the list IMO.

Please keep us updated on Jeff Thorne as you're able. I lost my dad to cancer in 2020 and have a soft spot for people in our football community going through these things. Will keep praying, but updates are appreciated.

I'm assuming we're referring the feud with Frank the Tank. I'm team Logan all day, but I gotta say, I do love the drama. There are few people I've seen in sports media so easily riled up and so incapable of moving on from an argument as Frank. The perverse part of my soul loves watching it unfold. Keep poking the bear Logan ... fight the good fight ... win one for the Gipper ... yada yada 

Quote from: Pat Coleman on July 24, 2025, 05:29:18 PM

Quote from: DuffMan on July 24, 2025, 02:45:34 PMAfter losing Syverson to graduation, SJU at #5 is laughable.  I have no doubt his replacement will be good, but that is a lofty ranking for a huge unknown.

Everyone has unknowns, more so than usual, but I agree losing Syverson is a huge unknown.

NCC and Mount both replace their Stagg Bowl QB's too. Syverson was ridiculously good and will leave huge shoes to fill.

This year feels like more of a crap shoot than ever for Pre-Season Top 25. It's the first time we won't have teams with 10-15 COVID seniors since 2021. I think every fan feels like their team has an unusual amount of holes to fill. In reality, I think all of the teams do.

Quote from: art76 on July 25, 2025, 09:42:42 AMIt's a minor slight, but it is a little surprising to see Bethel below Wartburg, who they beat in the playoffs last year. There are probably other "flips" in this pre-season poll that I just didn't see/know about. I think it is going to be an interesting season in the MIAC this year because of the complete round robin. We shall see.

Yeah, I think it's probably just a matter of looking at final records and not diving deeply into team finishes. That said Wartburg was very good last year, and a great game.

Potential Top 10 matchup if they each hold serve in the first few weeks of the season!

Very sad to hear, I'll definitely spend some time praying for Jeff and the Thorne family.

Quote from: HansenRatings on July 18, 2025, 09:35:02 AM

Quote from: hazzben on July 17, 2025, 03:55:34 PMI know NWC's president very casually floated the idea of going D3 (given his Simpson roots) but it didn't go anywhere. That was probably 15 years ago.

NWC, Morningside, Dordt, and Grandview migrating would lead to an insanely good conference in a number of sports. NWU and BVU would benefit with the NW Iowa group of schools. You'd have natural rivalries between NWC, Dordt, and Central with the Dutch Reformed angle. And if you went to some sort of divisional format you could alleviate travel strain.

But this is discussion board dreaming ... the ARC schools aren't going NAIA. And the recent success of all those GPAC schools + Grandview in NAIA makes it seem like a hard sell the other way too.

Now an ARC vs MIAC post season bowl, that seems like a much more doable option. I'd love to see that. But with the expanded field you're probably talking about 2 vs 3 or even 3 vs 3 a fair number of years. Not sure if that diminishes excitement for something getting setup.

Imagine how good that wrestling conference would be. Twenty nine national titles between Grandview & Wartburg.... and I'm sure the rest of DIII would probably try to put Augsburg and UWL in their qualifying tournament again in the next round of re-alignment.

Not at wrestling's level, but men's and women's basketball and volleyball would also be loaded. It'd be a power conference. The issue is that to sustain that level of excellence in a program you need to have consistent postseason success. And moving all those quality programs into the same league diminishes their access to elite status and deep postseason success. NWC and Morningside taking turns for the past decade at being one of the top 2 NAIA programs is possible, but if Grandview was in that conference as well, one of those 3 gets pushed down a peg IMO.

In the ARC you've had typically two top dogs the last 20 years. Wartburg a lot and then Central. And then a rotation of the Coe's of the world when they are up and say Central is a bit down. But the best Wartburg and Central teams didn't exist concurrent with long stretches of national excellence at Coe or Simpson or UD. There's just not enough postseason access to sustain that many elite programs in a single conference.

I know NWC's president very casually floated the idea of going D3 (given his Simpson roots) but it didn't go anywhere. That was probably 15 years ago.

NWC, Morningside, Dordt, and Grandview migrating would lead to an insanely good conference in a number of sports. NWU and BVU would benefit with the NW Iowa group of schools. You'd have natural rivalries between NWC, Dordt, and Central with the Dutch Reformed angle. And if you went to some sort of divisional format you could alleviate travel strain.

But this is discussion board dreaming ... the ARC schools aren't going NAIA. And the recent success of all those GPAC schools + Grandview in NAIA makes it seem like a hard sell the other way too.

Now an ARC vs MIAC post season bowl, that seems like a much more doable option. I'd love to see that. But with the expanded field you're probably talking about 2 vs 3 or even 3 vs 3 a fair number of years. Not sure if that diminishes excitement for something getting setup.