FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Jbothe]

Augie Preview

Loaded with experience. New turf at Lindberg Stadium. They got some votes in the AFCA poll. New DC with new scheme. Breyden Smith WR was going to return for a 5th year but will miss the season with a broken collarbone.

Am I reading it correctly that Augie has 42 seniors and five 5th years coming back?  47???

[CarollFan]

Augie Preview

Loaded with experience. New turf at Lindberg Stadium. They got some votes in the AFCA poll. New DC with new scheme. Breyden Smith WR was going to return for a 5th year but will miss the season with a broken collarbone.

Am I reading it correctly that Augie has 42 seniors and five 5th years coming back?  47???

Yes, that's the way I interpreted it. Out of the 47, 19 returning starters. 9 on offense, 8 on defense and 2 kickers.
They were 7-3 last year.

[CarollFan]

Some of you guys are going to be announcing, "Butkus with the tackle." 

[Jbothe]

Augie Preview

Loaded with experience. New turf at Lindberg Stadium. They got some votes in the AFCA poll. New DC with new scheme. Breyden Smith WR was going to return for a 5th year but will miss the season with a broken collarbone.

Am I reading it correctly that Augie has 42 seniors and five 5th years coming back?  47???

Yes, that's the way I interpreted it. Out of the 47, 19 returning starters. 9 on offense, 8 on defense and 2 kickers.
They were 7-3 last year.

I give the current Augustana Coaching staff credit for recruiting and retaining so many older players.  That has been a strength of Coach Bell and his assistants. 

[CarollFan]

Wheaton is ranked #5 in the country yet they are not favored to win their conference.
I would think that would be rare to have a top 5 team not favored to win their conference. I may be wrong.

I saw a message indicating some people concerned NCC could lose a game this year. I'll throw this out there. If both NCC and Wheaton go 9-1, I wouldn't be surprised to see Wheaton end up with a higher NPI ranking.

[Jbothe]

I just looked at Augustana roster and counted 32 seniors and 4 grad students.

32 is still a large number.  47 is hard to believe.

[CarollFan]

I just looked at Augustana roster and counted 32 seniors and 4 grad students.

32 is still a large number.  47 is hard to believe.

I think the key is the number of starters who are 4 year or 5th year.
The article has a picture of 5 fifth year players. Two players in that picture Carl Thomas (20) is listed as a junior on the roster and Ben Hartman is listed as redshirt.

4rth or 5th year in school won't necessarily be listed as senior or graduate on the roster. I think on the roster what your listed as is tied to eligibility.

[Gregory Sager]

The article has a picture of 5 fifth year players. Two players in that picture Carl Thomas (20) is listed as a junior on the roster and Ben Hartman is listed as redshirt.

4rth or 5th year in school won't necessarily be listed as senior or graduate on the roster. I think on the roster what your listed as is tied to eligibility.

Two things:

1) "Redshirt" is not a class. Freshman (or First-Year), Sophomore, Junior, Senior, and Graduate are classes. "Redshirt" modifies the class status to indicate that the student-athlete has spent an academic year practicing with the team but not suiting up for games. It's usually affixed to freshmen to indicate that they're going to be playing for the first time this season but that they've had a year to practice, learn the system, bulk up in the weight room, get used to college, etc. -- but you can list players as Redshirt Sophomore, Redshirt Junior, etc., as well. But, whether your school lists your class by eligibility or by academic status, you can't simply be a "Redshirt" any more than your position can be "Right" or "Left". The Augustana sports information office needs to fix Ben Hartman's roster entry and give him a proper class, either Senior or (if the caption of the pic in the Quad City Times article is correct, which I'm not taking on faith) Graduate.

2) Redshirting is illegal in D3. Hartman played in one game for Augie as a freshman in 2022, two games as a sophomore in 2023, six games as a junior in 2024, and none last year. He did have his portrait taken last year in his 2025 Augustana football polo, and it appears on his bio page, but he didn't play and he wasn't listed on the 2025 roster. So most likely he was injured in preseason and missed all of last season, and is now enrolled as either a fifth-year senior or as a graduate student at Augustana in order to use his final year of eligibility for football.

Even if he had played in a game or two last season before being hurt, his eligibility this season would've been granted by the CCIW because of what's called a medical hardship waiver. The informal name for it is "medical redshirt", but it isn't really a redshirt at all. He didn't practice with the team, which is the whole point of redshirting. Like a redshirt, he is taking five years of schooling (or perhaps 4 1/2) to play four seasons, but he doesn't have the redshirt's benefit of the extra non-playing year spent honing his craft with his teammates. More likely, he was recovering from and then rehabbing whatever serious injury had taken away his 2025 season. And since he didn't even play at all last season, the whole point about a medical hardship waiver is moot, anyway; he's only used three years of eligibility, and thus he doesn't need permission to waive his participating in a small part of a fourth season.

Listing him as "Redshirt" is not only erroneous in terms of class listing, it's also inaccurate in terms of describing why he is playing in his fifth year as an Augustana student. Worse -- much worse -- is that Augustana looks like it's breaking D3 rules just by having the dreaded R-word attached to his name, especially without any further explanation. If Augustana wants to convey the impression that it's illegally redshirting players, that's Augie's business. But if I was an Augie fan, I'd tell the Augustana sports info office to fix Ben Hartman's listing tout de suite. It makes Augie look bad.

[Jbothe]

The redshirt designation is odd without a class attached to it I agree.

I know at least one of the Augie 5th years did not come out for the team one year because he did not like the position change he was asked to make. After sitting out a year he came back.


The last time Augie really broke through and beat WashU it had an old team.

I noticed Wesleyan had 91 on its roster assuming it's up to date.

[NCC2010]

Attended the NCC open practice last week and the scrimmage last night against the University of Chicago. Here are my takeaways:

Definitely going to miss having Aidan Ellison kicking. I'm not saying we're back to 2023, when they wouldn't even attempt field goals from more than 30 yards out, but the kickers I saw left a lot to be desired. There's a huge difference between having the best kicker in D3 last year and what they're working with now.

The caveat to the following is that the first team offense and defense each only played 5 series in the scrimmage last night.

The offense scored four touchdowns in five drives, with one 3 and out. That said, on another TD drive they converted a 4th and 18 from inside their own 30, something I doubt they'd go for in a real game unless they were trailing big.

The starting offensive line is rolling with two sophomores and a true freshman. They pass protected well against Chicago but didn't run the ball that well, with only two runs of 10+ yards (one of which was called back for holding). This is definitely the position group with the most cause for concern heading into the season. I assume they'll improve by the end of the year, much like they did last season, but opening against Bethel and Wartburg will definitely be a challenge. They weren't able to run the ball at all against the NCC first team defense in the open practice.

In the scrimmage, Wilson threw an 80 yard TD pass to the transfer WR from Winona State, who looks firmly locked into the top 3 WR rotation. He caught the most passes in both the scrimmage and the open practice. Rummell and sophomore David Ballard III are the other two WRs who saw the most targets from Wilson.

Jordan Williams has operated as RB1, with a mix of guys rotating in behind him.

The defense looks like it will only have a slight drop off after graduating Sullivan, Roby, and co. They gave up 2 first downs in 5 drives against Chicago and had 2 interceptions, both by Kaden Hartnett. Bobby Medina and Maverick Ohle have both stood out on the defensive line.

Both Matt Janiak and Brayden Garrigan were held out of the scrimmage and open practice, and the defense still looked very solid overall. The NCC first team offense wasn't able to muster much against the first team defense. They have a true freshman who's been rotating in with the first team at defensive end and playing almost all of the third and long snaps there.

Lastly, Donnie McNeal was walking around on the sidelines without a limp, and I couldn't even tell from the stands which leg he tore his Achilles on. That's at least promising for his comeback possibility next year.

[CarollFan]

NCC has been #1 in rushing in the conference throughout this whole championship run. If they struggle running that could make things a little more interesting this year. We'll see.

[Jbothe]

This sounds like the most questions marks a NCC team has had in a while.

[CarollFan]

Have not seen a preview for Carroll but they announced their captains listed below.

Looks like their starting QB will be #11 Jr. Elisha Nieves. He came into a bunch of games last year and started some too.

#0 Sr. RB Marcus Johnson missed most of last year due to injury but in 2024 he had 537 yds rushing on 89 attempts, avg of 6 yds per attempt.

#15 Sr. DB Amarrion Bridges was 2nd team All-CCIW last year with 4 ints, one a pick 6.

#1 LB Sr. Evan Griffiths led the team in tackles last year with 80 tackles, 7 TFL's.

#11 DL So. August Johansen had 5 TFL's and 2.5 sacks as a freshman last year.

#87 WR Sr. Zach Johnson, special teams.

[Gregory Sager]

The redshirt designation is odd without a class attached to it I agree.

I know at least one of the Augie 5th years did not come out for the team one year because he did not like the position change he was asked to make. After sitting out a year he came back.

They don't really have a "shirt" name for student-athletes who take a year off from the sport and become a student-at-large due to disgruntlement with the coaching staff. Anyone have a suggestion?

Back in the day, when D3 first got rid of redshirting and WIAC tuition was still so dirt-cheap that a student-athlete in that league could afford the luxury of five years as an undergraduate without worrying about finances, WIAC teams continued to recruit players and then stash them away for a year -- except that, as per D3's new anti-redshirt regulations, the newbies weren't allowed to practice with the team. So these dormant players-in-waiting were dubbed "grayshirts", a whole new category of players-who-aren't-really-players.

Back in the Oughts, Wheaton had a superstar men's basketball player named Kent Raymond. He was an all-time great, in fact; he's one of only three players who've ever won the CCIW's Most Outstanding Player three times. But after his superb freshman year in 2004-05, in which he was the CCIW's second-leading scorer and made the All-CCIW second team, he announced that he was not going to play basketball during his sophomore year at Wheaton because God had told him to set basketball aside.

Of course, God greenlighted Kent to return to the hardwood a year later, as he went on to win those three MOP awards and become a two-time first-team D3hoops.com All-American while playing his final season in 2008-09 as one of the first graduate students to ever compete in CCIW athletics. But during that distressing 2005-06 season for Wheaton fans in which they wondered if the Lord would ever let Kent Raymond play basketball in a blue and orange uniform again, I suggested on the CCIW MBB board that he should be referred to during his hiatus as a "hairshirt".

The Wheaties were not amused.