FB: Presidents' Athletic Conference

[unionpalooza]

This isn't high school. Size of enrollment isn't actually a primary driver of Division III football success. Mount Union won all 13 of those championships with an average or below-average enrollment for a D-III school.

While that's generally true, I'm not sure it's true for a high academic. You have a lot more recruiting leeway at 6,500 students then you do at a NESCAC, where the football roster is typically 5% of the student body. The only school with an acceptance rate south of 75% who won a title this century is Cortland (~60%). The talent pool from which Mt. Union and Williams can recruit are not the same.

[Patrick Coleman]

The talent pool from which Mt. Union and Williams can recruit are not the same.

This is not because of the size of the school, though.

[AndrewB]

The talent pool from which Mt. Union and Williams can recruit are not the same.

This is not because of the size of the school, though.

But the point of this discussion was wether a NESCAC team would be a serious contender for a Stagg Bowl appearance.  Not with the small enrollment and low acceptance rate.  Unless they give special consideration to football players and compensation to them (NIL), they won't be playing in the National Championship game  anytime soon.  If you went to a Mega Camp this summer, out of the 50 best prospects, how many would be acceptable to these schools.  Maybe 5, but every single one, I would bet, would be accepted into Mount Union or Whitewater. 

[unionpalooza]

Yeah my point is just that while being small is generally not a serious challenge, it probably is a problem if you're also very selective.

[DagarmanSpartan]

The talent pool from which Mt. Union and Williams can recruit are not the same.

This is not because of the size of the school, though.

But the point of this discussion was wether a NESCAC team would be a serious contender for a Stagg Bowl appearance.  Not with the small enrollment and low acceptance rate.  Unless they give special consideration to football players and compensation to them (NIL), they won't be playing in the National Championship game  anytime soon.  If you went to a Mega Camp this summer, out of the 50 best prospects, how many would be acceptable to these schools.  Maybe 5, but every single one, I would bet, would be accepted into Mount Union or Whitewater. 

Here's the thing.  CWRU has higher average SAT scores than some of the NESCAC schools.

But guess what?  Coach Debaljak admitted in an interview a year or two back that recruited football players get an extra thumb on the scale in the admissions office.

I'm pretty sure it's the same for football players in the NESCAC.  They will not necessarily meet all of the same academic admission standards that the rest of the admitted students do, and as a result, the talent pool they recruit may be larger than one would think.

[unionpalooza]

The talent pool from which Mt. Union and Williams can recruit are not the same.

This is not because of the size of the school, though.

But the point of this discussion was wether a NESCAC team would be a serious contender for a Stagg Bowl appearance.  Not with the small enrollment and low acceptance rate.  Unless they give special consideration to football players and compensation to them (NIL), they won't be playing in the National Championship game  anytime soon.  If you went to a Mega Camp this summer, out of the 50 best prospects, how many would be acceptable to these schools.  Maybe 5, but every single one, I would bet, would be accepted into Mount Union or Whitewater. 

Here's the thing.  CWRU has higher average SAT scores than some of the NESCAC schools.

But guess what?  Coach Debaljak admitted in an interview a year or two back that recruited football players get an extra thumb on the scale in the admissions office.

I'm pretty sure it's the same for football players in the NESCAC.  They will not necessarily meet all of the same academic admission standards that the rest of the admitted students do, and as a result, the talent pool they recruit may be larger than one would think.

For sure, there is absolutely a thumb on the scale at the NESCACs, and every school in D3.  But you can give that thumb a lot more weight without materially messing up your reported metrics when you have 6,500 students rather than 2000.  It's just the admissions office math. It may be that CWRU is just as judicious with the thumb as a NESCAC - in fact I'd wager it is.  But it has more latitude, if it wanted to use it.

EDIT:  In the NESCAC, there is also the fact that the league has a banding system and rules that limit the number of athletes that can be admitted that are moderately or significantly below normal admissions standards, so the constraint is quite real.  They have some leeway in terms of how they allocate those slots across sports; an interesting question is whether one or more decide to prioritize football in order to be more nationally competitive.  But that would mean deprioritizing other sports, in which the NESCACs are often quite nationally competitive.