Quote from: doolittledog on February 11, 2026, 07:00:54 PMSo I guess we aren't getting the band back together (For those young ones on here, St Ambrose was in the conference until the early 50's)
Loras and St Ambrose did play 3 times in the early 2000's.  3 Loras losses by a total of 5 points.  Sounds like similar results as another Loras rival I know 

Downvote.

https://sau.edu/about-sau/news-events/news/2026/st-ambrose-university-pursuing-conference-move-to-elevate-the-student-athlete-experience.php

On the conference addition front, St. Ambrose is looking to move to a new NAIA conference. St. Ambrose feels like it would make sense and would be an easy add for the ARC if they ever wanted to make the jump to NCAA D3. This move makes that seem less likely. I think that St. Ambrose would be a great addition for the ARC, adding a presence in the Quad Cities (and would make an excellent travel partner for Monmouth if they are still interested). I hope the league office has a plan in place.

It also means that the Victory Bell (Loras' oldest rivalry trophy) will be staying in Davenport for the foreseeable future.

I am very excited for week 2 as it looks like North Central will be traveling to Waverly to play Wartburg. Going to be a fun matchup and I think the whole conference will get a good idea of what type of team Wartburg is next year. Will they continue their dominance of the league or will this be the year someone dethrones them?

Quote from: MediaGuy on February 05, 2026, 04:41:06 PMI just learned that in the year 2000, Wartburg Mens Basketball beat UCF in what seems to have been an exhibition game in Florida and feel bad since i was on campus at the time and dont even remember.  Anyway, since its the off-season and I love stories like this I thought I'd ask the group...what is your schools best "beating a bigger school" moment from any sport?

(And im not counting a win over Iowa Teachers College in 1949)

https://duhawks.com/news/2022/3/1/baseball-duhawks-down-hawkeyes-in-interdivisional-matchup-3-1.aspx

Loras beat Iowa in a pre-season baseball game a few years ago in Iowa City. As fun as it is to say I'm not sure Iowa played any starters and they used it more so as an exhibition to try players at new positions. 

The more you know! Thanks for the fun fact Pat!

Most interestingly, Bauder was also a finalist for the Loras head coaching job. Clearly he wants out of Platteville! (and/or he feels he's ready to be a head coach.) Even as a Loras guy, UWL is clearly a much better job. I wonder if UWL will go outside the family with him or if they will promote a coordinator. All three of the finalists have some very solid resumes as players, yet none of them have head coaching experience. A little surprised that UWL is choosing to go this route. Feels like a WIAC job in a bustling college town, that has very recent history of success on the national stage, would be able to allure some up and coming head coaches away from lower tier programs.

Not sure I have ever seen a school openly announce their top three candidates and then host open forums for community members/students to come to and ask questions, but that is what UWL is doing.

https://uwlathletics.com/news/2026/2/2/three-finalists-announced-for-head-football-coach-position.aspx

Quote from: CarollFan on January 24, 2026, 04:55:01 PMMillikin has their 2026 schedule out and they show Olivet as their first game.

https://athletics.millikin.edu/sports/football/schedule/2026

Interesting to note that Millikin is scheduled to play Luther week 2. As far as I know the new 11 team Midwest conference has not openly stated how they will be handling their scheduling next year. Many figured they would do a closed schedule with a full round robin. Seems this isn't the case.

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

Looks like both Loras and Central will fill one of their 3 nonconference games with a trip to St. Paul to play UNW out of the UMAC. Game should be very winnable both both teams.

I love Coach O and wish him the best. Salt of the earth guy who truly cares about his athletes. I think he will do good things in Mount Vernon. When his offenses were working in Dubuque, they were a thing of beauty. Good get.

And I thought the Duhawks were going young hiring Sanders to be their DC 

https://duhawks.com/news/2026/1/14/powers-sanders-and-bjork-join-football-coaching-staff.aspx

Any thoughts from the SJU posters about Sanders/Bjork hires for a curious Loras alum? I know that are both much younger guys who played under Novak at SJU. Clearly Novak seems intent on continuing his same defense/coaching style he had at SJU while at Loras, as he is bringing a lot his former players to Dubuque (I'm told more former SJU guys are currently being contacted for other staff positions).

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

https://nwusports.com/news/2026/1/5/nebraska-wesleyan-university-names-jacob-donohoe-head-football-coach.aspx

NWU makes their hire going with the former Coe OC Jacob Donohoe. Donohoe oversaw a very explosive offense at Coe last year.

From people I have talked to, it's going to be a very tough job to turn the NWU program around. NWU is offering only 2 full time assistants for the football staff and the administration wants 135+ on the roster. Lot of student athletes with not a lot of full time staff IMO.

I can't say I follow a lot of ARC basketball, as I am mainly a football guy. But if Loras is having a good season, I would find myself tuning into a game or two, especially in the conference tournament. This will completely deter me from watching any ARC conference tournament play. As someone who is a fan of the school but not a huge basketball guy, the conference will have completely lost my viewership.

Congrats ARC...

I have the utmost respect for Coach Spenser as I think he's the best coach in the division. But man the TO usage and the way he fumbled the clock management to end the first half were not good. It looked like a guy who hasn't had a lot of end of half opportunities/didn't know how to use his TOs effectively when losing late. You just can't use a TO down two scores to get an offensive play call right. All of those TOs need to be saved for when the other team gets the ball back. And it looked like NCC was so worried about not giving UWRF the ball back before the half that they forgot to try to score themselves.  This is an issue of NCCs success for sure as they are not in many 4th quarter games. But I would think a guy might want to look into that over the summer instead of planning out practice plans for the two weeks before the Stagg Bowl.

Quote from: D3fanboy on December 31, 2025, 04:19:09 PMthe Mount/UWW Stagg streak was full of dudes that would be getting paid six figures to transfer out in today's college football....and that doesn't even bring up the coaches.  It was a golden era, and the portal and NIL has pretty much killed it

I'm sure it was a golden era if you cheered for one of those two teams. Personally, I think having more parity in d3 makes it much more interesting and more entertaining to follow. Even if the number of teams that can likely win a title has gone from 2 to 5-6. I for one, am very happy with where the sport is now