FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[robertgoulet]

As we all know much of the country, certainly including the Midwest, has been boiling under a stifling heat wave for much of summer. In conjunction with the possible ill effects of practicing/playing sports under such conditions, have heard at least one conference team has been having some practices at 11:00 PM. Presumably this will no longer be an option once classes start.

Part of it, I am sure, is the unknown of who will be throwing him the ball and how good they'll be (and how much time they'll have to throw). Wouldn't surprise me if he's an AA at season's end, but lots of variables in play for his stats.

[Gregory Sager]

As we all know much of the country, certainly including the Midwest, has been boiling under a stifling heat wave for much of summer. In conjunction with the possible ill effects of practicing/playing sports under such conditions, have heard at least one conference team has been having some practices at 11:00 PM. Presumably this will no longer be an option once classes start.

When you're a football team that has to share your field with the men's and women's soccer teams, you get used to exotic practice times every preseason, not just during preseasons that have excessive heat waves. F'rinstance, North Park was out there practicing at Holmgren even before the clock struck 6:00 am this morning -- and, thanks to the fact that at least one member of the NPU media team was out there with them, the Vikings have the Instagram photos to prove it.

[GusD]

Hope those boys got to bed early last night 🌙 😉.

[CarollFan]

2025 CCIW Schedule

NCC and Elmhurst with the bye week 1 and everyone else with the bye week 2.

Looks like some rematches from last year in the nonconference schedule.

[Gregory Sager]

North Park season preview:

https://athletics.northpark.edu/news/2025/8/21/vikings-football-look-to-keep-momentum-going-heading-into-2025.aspx

[Crusader92]

Wheaton finally released its roster today. 35 freshman, 118 total players - if I counted correctly


https://athletics.wheaton.edu/sports/football/roster/2025?sort=name

[markerickson]

Three teams below North Park in the coaches' poll?!  NPU lost a great pair of linebackers and its four-year starting QB.

[CarollFan]

Three teams below North Park in the coaches' poll?!  NPU lost a great pair of linebackers and its four-year starting QB.

That's probably the reason NPU is 7th. Losing some key productive players.
You need to consider the other 3 teams.
Last time Millikin won a game was 2022. They have a brand new coaching staff.
Elmhurst new coaching staff also.
The bottom 3 need to prove they've improved.

[CarollFan]

Some info on the WashU team in their last season in the CCIW.

https://www.studlife.com/sports/2025/08/25/ahead-of-final-cciw-season-football-has-something-to-prove

[CarollFan]

Millikin's HC interview.

https://youtu.be/6ZAivqumQM4?si=z0Fz8nCyLLQHhPqH

[lmitzel]

Hold up, you can start a network to host all of your conference's live streams and not force it behind a paywall?

10/10 no notes, CCIW.

https://cciw.org/news/2025/8/26/general-cciw-partners-with-hudl-to-launch-cciw-network.aspx

[markerickson]

NPU's head coach landed 47 freshmen for the fall 2021 season. Four academic years later, in spring 2025, I believe only 11 (23%) graduated. I never previously crunched graduation numbers, but I know NPC/U has always had its football roster heavily consist of freshmen and sophomores. Rooker's 2025 team is no different with a roster that  comprises approximately 26% of juniors and seniors.  This is not the path to "keep momentum going," per the NPU press release, following a 5-5 season.

Stellar WR Jereme Ombogo graduated (one year of eligibility left) with High Honors while performing extremely well in track.
https://athletics.northpark.edu/news/2025/1/28/ombogo-tabbed-as-csc-academic-all-american-first-for-npu-football-since-1987.aspx  This season's QB must learn quickly to throw the ball deep to Ombogo, a sprinter.  And not just once per half.

[Gregory Sager]

The CCIW Network has been launched:

https://cciw.org/news/2025/8/26/general-cciw-partners-with-hudl-to-launch-cciw-network.aspx

This is an important read, regardless of whether you just follow a specific CCIW team, or you're a fan of CCIW sports in general.

[wally_wabash]

Hold up, you can start a network to host all of your conference's live streams and not force it behind a paywall?

10/10 no notes, CCIW.

https://cciw.org/news/2025/8/26/general-cciw-partners-with-hudl-to-launch-cciw-network.aspx

It's true.  I love this for the CCIW whose schools generally have really good broadcasts. 

Of course, I love the D3Football.com scoreboard for a one-stop shop that aggregates stream and stats links, but when I'm putting games up on the big screen, conference networks like this are by far the best way to access that content away from your laptop.  I use a Roku stick with "channels" for all of the conferences that have this kind of setup- WIAC, PAC, E8, NCAC, MAC, and on and on.  This kind of arrangement is the gold standard, IMO. 

[Gregory Sager]

NPU's head coach landed 47 freshmen for the fall 2021 season. Four academic years later, in spring 2025, I believe only 11 (23%) graduated.

You're discounting former players who left the program, stayed in school, and graduated as students at large. That describes a number of those 47 freshmen.

I never previously crunched graduation numbers, but I know NPC/U has always had its football roster heavily consist of freshmen and sophomores.

It's one of the top reasons why the program had never made any headway in the past. Attrition is a fact of life for most football programs (Wheaton being a notable exception), but at North Park it's been especially acute over the decades, proof positive that just as winning begets more winning, losing begets more losing.

Rooker's 2025 team is no different with a roster that  comprises approximately 26% of juniors and seniors.  This is not the path to "keep momentum going," per the NPU press release, following a 5-5 season.

Disagree. Retention percentages obscure one of the two most important aspects of competitiveness, which is the raw number of returnees. (The other is the quality of returnees.) Take a look around the league, Mark. The CCIW, like a lot of D3 leagues, features supersized rosters of well over 100 players; NPU has 120 players listed on the roster, an all-time high. (Hooray for Kyle Rooker and his staff for thumbing their noses at the demographic cliff over which American higher education has just begun to plummet! ) It's been commonplace for many years now to see a few schools (Carthage and North Central especially come to mind) even top the 150 mark on the roster. The vast majority of players on those supersized rosters will never set foot on the field during a varsity game, and one by one they will gradually turn their attention away from playing college football, so the high attrition that you're complaining about is something that's endemic to D3 football and is thus hardly specific to NPU.

NPU returned 61 players from last season's team. That's a massive number of returnees by the historical lights of NPU football, and it's definitely the path to "keep momentum going."

Stellar WR Jereme Ombogo graduated (one year of eligibility left) with High Honors while performing extremely well in track.
https://athletics.northpark.edu/news/2025/1/28/ombogo-tabbed-as-csc-academic-all-american-first-for-npu-football-since-1987.aspx  This season's QB must learn quickly to throw the ball deep to Ombogo, a sprinter.  And not just once per half.

There's a lot more to NPU's air game than just heaving the ball downfield to their track All-American. Wesley McCloud is an outstanding talent in his own right. He was an All-CCIW second-teamer last season whose 57 catches ranked third in the CCIW, and he finished 8th in the league in touchdown receptions (4) and 4th in receiving yards (815), averaging just under 80 yards per game. McCloud had 100+ receiving yards in four different games last season. And watch out for senior Micah Catron, who had a great spring practice season and whom the coaching staff is very high on to have a breakout campaign.