Springfield graduated basically the entire offense, and you can see their numbers have dipped across the board. Also, Tom Blumenhauer played at IC and IC was not intimidated at all by triple option teams (and still aren't) So they won't need to win this one 45-40

But Springfield's defense looks very strong this year. And Cortland's offense has struggled against better opponents than what the E8 typically offered.

I think 24-20 Red Dragons sounds about right

Quote from: ICGrad on November 16, 2025, 02:48:20 PMGiven the recent expansion of the playoff field and the fact that 5-0% of the at-large teams have 2 (or more losses) over the past two seasons, this is a shame, and not where you want to be as a conference

I really hope, as a conference, we don't become dependent on blaming the Buff State's and Hilbert's and start asking why our teams cant run their OOC schedules if they want a Pool C bid.

Yeah Hilbert is godawful and Buff State slightly less awful, but man...go 9-1 and just quit letting a computer determine your fate.

Sure, maybe Ithaca was never going to do that since it mean beating Hopkins, who is just in a different weight class than anyone in the LL.

But Union lost to both Cortland and Susquehanna, both fringy top 25 teams. They had 8 turnovers and two offensive touchdowns — one of which was in garbage time.

RPI played Utica, the LL runner up, and their secondary looked like they'd never played a down of organized football before, let alone be the one you'd want to bring with you into the playoffs.

Hobart managed to lose to 4-6 Alfred and 6-4 Brockport.

Yeah, maybe Ithaca could have fooled the algorithm and snuck in had Hilbert been replaced by someone else. But no one should be penciling in the Bombers for a alternate universe win considering they needed a QB switch, second half comeback, and last second red zone stand to beat Rochester two weeks after Hilbert.

Everyone but the Union dudes should be asking how their team can be better, not just wondering about hypothetical schedules

Ultimately, Ithaca waited 30 minutes too long to make their QB1 switch.

I don't know if they beat Union if Michael Reed starts that game, all I know is

1st half: 6 drives, 101 yards, 0 points
2nd half: 3 drives, 209 yards, 14 points

Congratulations to Union on making the plays at the end of the season. Patch Flanagan will be the deserving POY and Union's coaching staff should win it as well. Best of luck in the playoffs, especially if you end up playing Cortland at some point

Congratulations to Ithaca for getting the best OOC win for the conference.

Ugh...though it was going to happen. But that might be a backbreaker.

Quote from: jknezek on November 14, 2025, 07:16:52 PMThey don't care. They already have your money and it's all AI stuff cobbled together from the web.

Exactly. They're not employing people to research and write that stuff.

Worst game for me as an IC fan probably isn't a LL game. I'm sure others may say one of the 2019 losses, but the whole Germinerio thing...let's just say, I'm not touching it.

2021's loss to Cortland was a coaching disaster class, from the most obvious onside kick ever baackfiring, to Swanstrom's failing basic football math in not trying for 2 at 26-14, to just once again leaving  winnable game on the field — and then complaining about not getting a Pool C bid when they controlled their own destiny and blew it.

The plus side is that it made the 2022 season in which Toerper went 12-0 ("with Swanstrom's players" as others have said) unforgettable, and proved the flaw in that kind of thinking.

Quote from: unionpalooza on November 13, 2025, 03:57:54 PMYeah, this is a dumb take.  You took the worst four-year run in modern history of a team that was a founding member of the league and its predecessor going back to 1995, during which three decades it has had five losing seasons.  Buff St. is a football-only member that has nothing institutionally in common with the rest of the LL and has won seven games in its six years in the league.  Hilbert is a football-only member that has nothing institutionally in common with the rest of the LL and has won no games in its first four years. Neither school has recently demonstrated an institutional willingness to invest anything remotely comparable to the resources other LL teams invest in their program. They are both 90 minutes to the west of the farthest edge of the league's geographic footprint. Neither are needed for the LL to earn an AQ.

To put this another way, can you think of a single compelling reason that Buff State or Hilbert SHOULD be in the LL?

You guys (all of you complaining about this) don't want to boot Buffalo State because they're not a "good fit" for the LL and they're an outlier geographically.

You want to boot them because they're bad and it's easier to blame Buffalo State being bad for the lack of Pool C bids than it is to blame your own teams for losing winnable out of conference games.

Okay, so what happens if Union, or Ithaca, or RPI start being lousy and Buffalo State gets better? How bad is bad enough? How long does it have to last?

I know we're all off scoffing at that idea because uh...well... come on bro, but no one's immune to being terrible, and no one is prohibited from hiring the right coach and fixing their program.

Quote from: ICGrad on November 12, 2025, 02:32:58 PMThat doesn't mean I think it's a good idea, long-term, watering down the LL brand with the inclusion of Hilbert. We now have not one, but two associate members in football, and both are, to put it mildly, bottom feeders - or to be more scientific, both are bottom 30 (out of 240) programs. That only significantly weakens the league, and hurts the standing of each and every team in the league.

There's a certain level of irony in people complaining about LL teams missing the playoff as an at-large when the conference has shown, repeatedly, an inability to beat playoff caliber teams — and even fringy non playoff teams.

Replacing an 0-10 Hilbert with some 6-4/5-5 type team may get the job done in terms of fooling the computers and earning a bid. But it's not changing my mind about the quality of the league.

And if Ithaca/Union/RPI can't beat Utica, Cortland, or Susquehanna, why should we think replacing Hilbert with, Grove City or W&J is going to result in a win?

Also, to continue with a point I made earlier.

Records from 2013-2016:

St. Lawrence - 32-9
Buffalo State - 25-17
Ithaca - 25-18
Union - 8-32

Heck, even RPI, who isn't included here, went through a stretch where they had a different head coach every 6 weeks*

*Okay, it wasn't that bad, but still
 
Treating these "bottom feeders" like they're a permanent underclass is really baffling to me.

I have no sympathy for LL teams. Handle your OOC schedule.

Cortland and Susquehanna aren't unscalable mountains — they're both top 20-25 teams. Utica's a step below that. They're exactly the caliber of teams you run into in the playoffs in round 1. If you can't beat them in the regular season, you're not making a strong case for yourself.

Morrisville State is 0-9 and they only lost by 6 to the same Utica team that blew RPI off the field.

Grove City isn't even the best team in their own conference and they embarrassed Cortland on their home field. The same Cortland that turned Patch Flanagan into a one-man turnover exhibit, and is about to end Ithaca's Pool A chances in three days.

Quote from: CNU85 on November 11, 2025, 04:19:09 PM

Quote from: IC798891 on November 11, 2025, 04:10:33 PM

Quote from: MCScots2013 on November 11, 2025, 11:48:45 AM

Quote from: Ron Boerger on November 11, 2025, 10:47:45 AMSurprisingly, CNU's admission rate is somewhere in the mid-80s (86% for the class that entered last year per CNU itself).  Of that 86%, only 18% actually enrolled.

Admitting 6300 freshmen with a total student body of 4500 seems a little crazy. Can't be a common practice, right?  Would probably run into issues if more students decided they wanted to live near the water.

No, this is standard practice. You have your estimated yield rate, and work from there to get the size you want.

Yes, if one year you unexpectedly get 20% instead of 18%, you're going to end up with an extra 126 students. Not only is this something most colleges would kill for, you make it work. Singles turn into doubles, doubles into triples, people stay in lounges, you loosen your off campus housing policy.

I think in the past 15 years or so, Virginia Tech ran into an issue when more accepted than they predicted with the yield. They were putting 3 to a 2 person dorm room and renting hotel rooms nearby.

Ithaca did the same thing in its heyday. You don't even blink at it because they're still paying more than they're costing you and everyone who graduates is a potential rich alumni donor.

You don't necessarily want to make it a practice, because you have to grow other areas of campus in ways that might come back to bite you when you have to tighten things up when they return to normal (which is what schools mean when they say "right-sizing")

But in this environment? Good luck finding an enrollment management person who's going to complain about too many students in the incoming class.

Just as an example, say you want an incoming class of 1,000 students.

You do your research — based on myriad factors — and estimate you're going to get a yield rate of 10%. So you're going to need to accept 10,000 students.

There are plenty of ways to still "miss" your number, though.

Maybe you only get 9,500 applicants.

Maybe your yield rate is 9%, instead of 10%

Maybe you get 12,000 applicants but they're not dispersed in a way where you can take 10,000. If a lot of them are in programs where you have hard enrollment caps due to space limitations — there may only be so many rehearsal rooms or editing bays, or whatever — then an extra 100 people applying to be musical performance majors can't help your enrollment the way 100 more sociology majors would.

Quote from: MCScots2013 on November 11, 2025, 11:48:45 AM

Quote from: Ron Boerger on November 11, 2025, 10:47:45 AMSurprisingly, CNU's admission rate is somewhere in the mid-80s (86% for the class that entered last year per CNU itself).  Of that 86%, only 18% actually enrolled.

Admitting 6300 freshmen with a total student body of 4500 seems a little crazy. Can't be a common practice, right?  Would probably run into issues if more students decided they wanted to live near the water.

No, this is standard practice. You have your estimated yield rate, and work from there to get the size you want.

Yes, if one year you unexpectedly get 20% instead of 18%, you're going to end up with an extra 126 students. Not only is this something most colleges would kill for, you make it work. Singles turn into doubles, doubles into triples, people stay in lounges, you loosen your off campus housing policy.

Hartwick also did this.

In general, I get it. Yes, you lose out on those who might pay full tuition, but waiting around to find out what financial aid you're going to be getting must be stressful. I just interviewed an Ithaca alumna who was not going to be able to come to IC had she not gotten the scholarship she did.

Just having a sense of "this is what it's going to cost us" is probably very helpful to families

Agreed here. Quit being cute. If you're going for two, run a play

The logic, I'm guessing, was that since Ithaca had already blocked a kick (Well, it looked like it got blocked) that they would sell out to block another one, and be caught overcommit. Credit to Ithaca for being prepared.

So the autobid scenario is as follows:

Union- In with a win.
RPI- In with a win and an Ithaca loss.
Ithaca- In with a win and a Union loss.

Here's hoping Toerper was nice to Isernia in the handshake line