FB: American Rivers Conference

[DriftlessDuhawk]

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

Coe has released their schedule. The Kohawks play their longtime rival Cornell to start off the season in which has been an incredibly one-sided affair in the 21st century. Their second noncon game is at UW-River Falls who went 7-3 last year with lots of high-quality wins. This should be a step up in competition, even from playing UW-Eau Claire last year, in which the Kohawks barely beat them in OT. UWRF beat UWEC 71-14 last year for context.

https://athletics.central.edu/sports/football/schedule

Central has also officially posted their schedule with noncon games against Illinois Wesleyan and Randolph Macon. We have already discussed the Randolph Macon game on these boards, but it should be a fun matchup. Illinois Wesleyan is back on the Dutch's schedule this season following a Central 49-14 win in 2024. IWU hired a new coach this year following the retirement of long-time head coach Norm Eash, and the program is looking for a resurgence.

[doolittledog]

Two away games for Coe, though Mt Vernon is only a few miles down the road.  Seeing their countdown and noting in 2 weeks I can tell my wife it's now 150 days until college football season.  That will rate an eye roll from her!

[HansenRatings]

Not every ARC school has announced their 2025 schedule, yet, but the top 4 teams of the last few years all have, so I figured I would plug those schedules into the ol' Hansen Ratings machine to see how they stack up. First, here are my preseason conference ratings as of right now, which haven't been adjusted for returning starters, yet.

Rk	School		Rating		AdjO		AdjD
15	Wartburg		33.6		37.7		5.2
27	Central		27.6		38.6		11.6
29	Coe		27.0		36.4		10.1
56	Dubuque		15.6		36.0		21.2
137	Loras		-6.9		29.1		37.5
138	Simpson		-7.1		24.5		33.2
165	Nebraska Wesleyan		-12.5		18.1		32.0
168	Buena Vista		-13.3		20.5		35.2
214	Luther		-31.3		9.7		42.8

And then looking at the schedules and projections for the top 4:

School		SOS		Proj. W-L
Wartburg		0.545		8.7-1.3
Central		0.546		8.0-2.0
Coe		0.488		7.5-2.5
Dubuque		0.586		5.6-4.4

[doolittledog]

Simpson released their schedule
https://x.com/scstormfootball/status/1911805417639780402

[Pat Coleman]

If you like game times for that schedule:
https://d3football.com/teams/Simpson/2025/index

[HansenRatings]

Adding Simpson's schedule to my projections:

School		SOS		Proj. W-L
Wartburg		0.545		8.7-1.3
Central		0.546		8.0-2.0
Coe		0.488		7.5-2.5
Dubuque		0.586		5.6-4.4
Simpson		0.505		3.8-6.2

Augustana will be a good early measuring stick for a team that I think most people expect to keep improving, even with J Jensen III graduating. My current projections have them as a 11.5 point underdog. A close game or a win should bode well. Crown should be an easy win, and then they're projected to go 2.6-5.4 in conference. A 0.500 season is definitely within the reasonable range of outcomes.

[Captain_Joe08]

Buena Vista has updated their schedule: https://bvuathletics.com/sports/football/schedule

Road trip to Benedictine and a home game against Wisconsin Lutheran

[DriftlessDuhawk]

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

As previously said, the Duhawks will get the Flying Dutchmen at home and then travel to BenU in week 2 for a night game.

Luther has posted their schedule with noncon games against Millikin and Martin Luther. Millikin is a bottom tier CCIW team, they went to 0-10 last season, and Martin Luther, a UMAC team who went 6-4 last year, although against a lack luster schedule. Hopefully, Luther can start making some things happen in the nonconference season to help bring up the bottom of the conference.

Although it hasn't been posted, I'm told that Loras is continuing with their noncon series against Hope and Benedictine this year. Hope was a fantastic team last year, winning the MIAA and making it to the second round of the playoffs. Benedictine went 5-5 in the NAAC last season and has played in some incredibly competitive games with the Duhawks over the last few seasons. Last year's game against BenU was very fun to watch, and it was down to the wire. The game against Hope was not productive for either side, and I'm not sure what led to renewing the contract, if I'm being quite frank. I'm sure that Hope would like to get an easy win in the NPI era and Loras feels that it is a good test against a good team. We shall see...