FB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[Bishopleftiesdad]

A little (very little additiononal Ingo on OWU.
https://www.owu.edu/about/offices-services-directory/student-health-center/covid-19-coronavirus-information/safe-campus-opening-task-force/

[Shamrock]

https://goyeo.com/news/2020/7/8/fall-sports-announcement.aspx

Oberlin has cancelled fall sports.

[BashMan]

I just joined this board last fall but never posted.  Long time viewer of the board and I appreciate all the insights about the games, the schools and players from everybody who posts here.  I applaud Oberlin for cancelling fall sports.  If the rest of the NCAC schools follow Oberlin's lead, though I love football, just like all of us, it will be sad.  I'll dearly miss reading every body's  comments and watching the games, but for me the students health is the only concern.  Maybe the NCAA can look into Spring football if a vaccine is found?  Wishing everybody good health and safety, to you your families, communities and friends.

[ADL70]

Nearby, CWRU and CMU have cancelled fall schedules in all sports.

[Pat Coleman]

NCAC made its announcement: https://northcoast.prestosports.com/News/2020-21/Releases/NCACFallUpdate20

[wally_wabash]

I'm gonna dive in here a little bit.  There's a little bit more information in DePauw's announcement about the NCAC announcement.  Some of the more interesting bits to me:

NCAC members will maintain consistent, clear, open and transparent communication with the NCAC Office and other member institutions; Members will notify the NCAC Office and ADs of opposing teams from the previous weekend if a student-athlete or staff member has tested positive for COVID-19 (AD responsibility). Notification must also be made to the appropriate respective local health authorities, per campus policies. The Conference will maintain an updated list of notifications, shared daily with all member Presidents and ADs. Names of specific student-athletes will not be disclosed publicly.

Critical to have transparency amongst potential competition partners.  I was really glad to see this codified. 

NCAC members will play limited conference-only schedules, based on geographical groupings that eliminate overnight travel. All NCAC contests will be played once or twice a week using Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Limited play reduces any potential spread between campuses. It also eases the pressure on an already compressed academic calendar, and potentially expanded  daily academic schedules. Friday, Saturday and Sunday will all be used as contest days in order to reduce the load on staff and facilities in any one day.

Emphasis mine, btw.  I don't think I'm reading what's not there by saying this pretty clearly indicates that there will not a be a full round robin for NCAC football.  The Indiana schools overnight to everywhere except each other.  Maybe for this year they could not overnight to Witt/OWU/Denison, but that's still a huge ask for those teams to ride 3-5 hours on a bus the morning of a contest and step off the bus and onto the field.  Saying nothing of whether or not 3-5 hours on a bus is even advisable. 

It's difficult, given this language, to see NCAC play happening in a way other than East/West divisions, probably with home and homes to fill out an 8 game schedule.  Except...

NCAC members recognize and respect the institutional autonomy of members to make more restrictive decisions on competition for their respective campuses.

Oberlin has already opted out (more on that in a moment) and this language definitely doesn't put institutional peer pressure on anyone else to not do the same.  If you do get a divisional situation and Oberlin is the only school that isn't participating (which they won't be), you've got uneven divisions and teams that are going to be stuck with less games available than the others.  At least until somebody from the westerly group of schools opts out. 

Oberlin's choice to opt out, I think, was pretty foreseeable given their class-staggered term system for this academic year.  I know their language said allowances would be made for student-athletes whose competition seasons happen during a term when their class isn't on campus, but that's a logistical nightmare.  We've seen other schools (RPI and MIT for sure) run into this same issue where sports, even if they did believe they could do safely, would be difficult to accommodate with a significant chunk of the student body being asked to stay distant from campus. 

What I'm watching now is to see if Oberlin's choice precipitates fall athletics opt outs from peer schools in their region (most/all of the NCAC is in that basket).  There's a lot of follow-the-leader on these kinds of things in higher ed, and I'll be interested to see if Oberlin is the seed that precipitates similar choices amongst the private lib arts schools in the midwest.  We'll see.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[sigma one]

I recently posed this situation to a Dad/Mom whose son had a very successful DIII football experience some years ago.  Your son approaches after his first (freshman) year during which he played a good deal and says, "I don't want to go back to school this fall.  The college's football schedule has been canceled (or greatly reduced).  A big  part of my identity is caught up in football.  I do recognize that academics should come first, and I've always paid attention to being good in the classroom and on the playing field.  I want to play four years of football to finish my formal sports career.  After all, the delay won't be all that significant.  You and I can discuss what I will do if I'm not in school  You will be able to postpone paying tuition and fees for what will be a diminished campus experience for me.  I will graduate, at most, a year later. (Division I athletes routinely take more than four years to complete their college experience).  And, finally, I will have a better chance of staying healthy."
     How would you respond?  I imagine that this or a similar conversation is happening or will happen before students return to campus this fall--and not just with an athlete who plays football, and not just with an athlete who got a lot of playing time during his/her first year.
     I will say that the Dad gave me one answer and the Mom another 

   

[jknezek]

I recently posed this situation to a Dad/Mom whose son had a very successful DIII football experience some years ago.  Your son approaches after his first (freshman) year during which he played a good deal and says, "I don't want to go back to school this fall.  The college's football schedule has been canceled (or greatly reduced).  A big  part of my identity is caught up in football.  I do recognize that academics should come first, and I've always paid attention to being good in the classroom and on the playing field.  I want to play four years of football to finish my formal sports career.  After all, the delay won't be all that significant.  You and I can discuss what I will do if I'm not in school  You will be able to postpone paying tuition and fees for what will be a diminished campus experience for me.  I will graduate, at most, a year later. (Division I athletes routinely take more than four years to complete their college experience).  And, finally, I will have a better chance of staying healthy."
     How would you respond?  I imagine that this or a similar conversation is happening or will happen before students return to campus this fall--and not just with an athlete who plays football, and not just with an athlete who got a lot of playing time during his/her first year.
     I will say that the Dad gave me one answer and the Mom another 

   

I'd be fine with it. My kid would be looking for a job for the year or a whole lot of volunteer activities to fill his time. I'd probably also encourage him/her to take some online classes somewhere. Maybe not things that would transfer back credit wise, but stuff that really interests him/her and keep those study habits going.

[Whitecarrera]

No overnight travel? Can you imagine a year with the Monon Bell being the only game?

[Mr. Ypsi]

No overnight travel? Can you imagine a year with the Monon Bell being the only game?

Not really.  Both DePauw and Wabash have plenty of other rivals within an easy there-and-back in one day distance.  (Though from what I read of Monon Bell spectators getting sloshed, an overnight would probably be wise! )

[OzJohnnie]

I recently posed this situation to a Dad/Mom whose son had a very successful DIII football experience some years ago.  Your son approaches after his first (freshman) year during which he played a good deal and says, "I don't want to go back to school this fall.  The college's football schedule has been canceled (or greatly reduced).  A big  part of my identity is caught up in football.  I do recognize that academics should come first, and I've always paid attention to being good in the classroom and on the playing field.  I want to play four years of football to finish my formal sports career.  After all, the delay won't be all that significant.  You and I can discuss what I will do if I'm not in school  You will be able to postpone paying tuition and fees for what will be a diminished campus experience for me.  I will graduate, at most, a year later. (Division I athletes routinely take more than four years to complete their college experience).  And, finally, I will have a better chance of staying healthy."
     How would you respond?  I imagine that this or a similar conversation is happening or will happen before students return to campus this fall--and not just with an athlete who plays football, and not just with an athlete who got a lot of playing time during his/her first year.
     I will say that the Dad gave me one answer and the Mom another 

   

I'd be fine with it. My kid would be looking for a job for the year or a whole lot of volunteer activities to fill his time. I'd probably also encourage him/her to take some online classes somewhere. Maybe not things that would transfer back credit wise, but stuff that really interests him/her and keep those study habits going.

My eldest daughter has extended her stay in the USA by five months, continues to do her internship in New York City this summer and will study her University of Melbourne courses remotely while living in State College with the friends she made on exchange to Penn State last semester.  In the face of adversity she chose to double down and go full speed ahead, damning the torpedoes.  And I'm damned proud of her.

[sigma one]

The following is merely a thought experiment because I am becoming less certain that fall sports will be played by the NCAC.  Keeping that in mind, here's what could happen if the NCAC lifts its restriction on OOC play.
1.    The conference permits schools to seek games that can be played without overnight travel, while adhering to the NCAC mandate of playing teams in the conference without overnight travel.  Let's say within X miles of their campus.  For Wabash and DePauw this would mean trying to make arrangements with teams in Indiana, western Ohio, and Illinois;  for the Ohio teams, teams in Ohio, eastern Indiana, and western Pennsylvania; for Allegheny, teams in eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania.  This supposes that other conferences lift their restrictions on OOC play.

2.  Lifting restrictions on OOC play would allow the already scheduled OOC games to be played if the later dates can be arranged (some probably would not).  The already scheduled OOC games, with the exception of Kenyon v. Catholic (408 miles) do not require overnight travel:  Allegheny v. Thiel (18 Miles), Denison v. Ohio Northern (98 miles), DePauw v. Butler (50 miles), Hiram v. Bethany (187 miles), Ohio Wesleyan v. Otterbein (18 miles), Wabash v. Rose Hulman (50 miles), Wittenberg v. Washington and Jefferson (201 miles), Wooster v. Geneva (135 miles).  To allow teams more rest after their travel game times could be adjusted to later in the afternoon, taking daylight hours into account.

  3.  The conference could take the initiative of establishing a committee (of ADs, ADs and coaches, or otherwise) to determine of those teams which played five or more games who will be the NCAC  representative in the DIII playoffs.  They could establish a set of criteria for selection.  Would there be dissent from one or more schools--probably, but it's a special year.

     Of course, this way of proceeding would be possible only if other conferences agreed to something similar, and permitted their teams some latitude in scheduling--a long shot.

Without this or a similar arrangement, I doubt whether under the current NCAC policy for this fall that a schedule of more than a couple of games will be possible unless teams play each other twice (and I see no provision for this in what the NCAC has mandated).   And a lot of dominoes would have to fall for this arrangement to work.

Under the current NCAC stipulations of east and west playing only each other, a probable western alignment would be Wabash, DePauw, Wittenberg, and Ohio Wesleyan.  The east would become Allegheny, Hiram, Wooster, and Kenyon.  Denison appears to be the team in the middle, and could be placed either east or west  For Wabash the drive to Denison is 254 miles!  Is this possible for student welfare without an overnight?  All this supposes that no other school besides Oberlin cancels fall sports:  at least one, and probably more, of the nine remaining schools is likely to cancel the fall.  (Finding a way to play football is only one of several impediments, including the very rightful insistence that all sports be treated equally.  So what happens to cross country, soccer, and all women's fall sports?)

Here are the western distances, using only the mileage from Wabash:  DePauw--28 miles, Wittenberg--178 miles--Ohio Wesleyan--232 miles, Denison--254 miles.  The east is a bit tighter overall.

Possible?  Probably not.  Likely?  Probable not.  After working through this scenario (others can develop their own case), I can see that there are too many complications; but I thought is worthwhile to do the exercise if only to see how difficult is to make football happen this year.  Its been fun trying to think through the potential.    Most importantly,  let's keep everybody safe and hope that if the fall is gone the spring is possible.  Losing a whole year--and two seasons for spring sports-- would be terrible for some student-athletes.

[Pat Coleman]

I would hope that schools of great distance also consider finding a place to meet in the middle. For example, is there a municipal field in the Dayton area that could host Denison and Wabash?

[sigma one]

Good thought, Pat.  In the same spirit, I wonder whether some of the campuses in the middle would make their fields available.  A possible downside is whether a campus would say we don't need another bunch of outsiders running around in our facilities.   As I continue to think about how a season may be possible, so many ifs, ands, and buts come to mind that I wonder how it can happen that any fall sports get played even if the campuses and the NCAC tries to cooperate.  Then,  where I started is that I am increasingly pessimistic about schools even being willing to attempt a fall sports season, to say nothing about the NCAC, like the Centennial Conference, saying let's just shut down the seasons.

[Pat Coleman]

Yeah, I agree that a campus might not want to take on that potential risk -- that's why I thought a city field might be better.