FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[CarollFan]

Game notes for Wheaton vs. Mount Union with 2 deep roster.

https://athletics.mountunion.edu/documents/2025/9/4/2025_Football_Game_Notes_Wheaton.pdf

[CarollFan]

Halftime. Mount Union 27 Wheaton 7
Wheaton had a couple drives deep into Mount Union territory stopped on 4rth down.
Mount Union has 335 total yards in first half. Wheaton with 183.

Millikin might have a chance at breaking that losing streak today. They've taking a 7-0 lead. They have a junior transfer starting at QB #2 Sylas Gomez, transferred from Sam Houston State.

[Crusader92]

Wheaton drops their opener on the road 29-37 to an obviously excellent Mount Union team. As has become a familiar refrain for Wheaton the last several years against the very best teams in D3, the Defense has just not been good enough. Do give the team huge credit for playing hard all game, when a lesser bunch might have thrown in the towel. This team never did.

[USee]

Wheaton 29
Mt Union 37

Wheaton 383 total Yds
Forcucci 23-42 273 yds, 2 TD, 1 INT
Wheaton rushing: 22 carries 110 yds 2 TD
Kortenhoeven 11 rec 107 yds, 2 TD
Titherington 5 rec 73 yds
Juska 1 rec 18 yds (1 2pt conv), 3 rush 21 yds

Mt Union 462 total yds
Maloney 19-24 307 yds 5 TD
Mt Union Rush: 39 rush for 155 yds ( 4 ypc)
Cockrell (Elmhurst transfer) 3 rec 106 yds 2 TD
Turner 8 rec 89 yds 1 TD

Mt Union dominated the first 3 quarters and had a 37-7 lead. They put in their 2nd team offense at the end of Q3 and they stalled. Wheaton then went on a 22-0 run to make it 29-37 and Mt put their 1st team offense back in and they ran out the clock (though they fumbled on 3rd and 4 and luckily recovered for the first down).

Wheaton is not on Mt Union's level currently (and therefore North Central's). This game was not as close as the final score showed, but Wheaton is also better than they played for 3 Quarters, which is why they made it close after Mt got careless in Q4 (which nearly cost them).

My biggest beef is the lack of called runs for the Thunder. They averaged 7 yds a carry in the first quarter and after Mt Union scored to make it 20-7 at the end of the 1st Quarter, Wheaton's next called run was in the 3rd quarter when the game was 37-7. They then had 5 called runs in Q4 and averaged 6 yds a carry. Forcucci had 9 carries but 7 of them were pass plays that became scrambles/sacks. So they finished with 13 called runs (6 yds per carry) and about 50 called pass plays. Forcucci, who completed 71% of his passes last year, completed 55% and Wheaton had 2 drives that were turned over on downs in Mt Union territory. Wheaton, typically very balanced run/pass, was anything but that today. Clearly the strength of Wheaton's team is the QB and the WR unit, led by Kortenhoeven (who looks as good as any WR in D3). The are RB by committee so I'm sure they thought they needed to throw to win. But they had great success on the ground when they called it so I'm not sure why they didn't adjust.

Mt Union, for their part, looked very good. They only returned about 5 starters from last year but they still start 10 upper classmen on offense and 8 on defense, which is what great teams do (reload with upper class players who have been in the program). Maloney is as good as advertised at QB. Both Kaleb Brown and Wheaton's Johnanik had sacks and were impact players today.

Mt Union plays ranked Grove City next week (who beat #10 Cortland today) and Wheaton is off before travelling to Rock Island in 2 weeks vs Augie to open conference play. 

[CarollFan]

Millikin 33 Luther 3 Final
Big Blue breaks 20 game losing streak
One thing I heard on their broadcast is Millikin due to injuries to kickers reached out and got a 31 year old kicker who had 1 year of eligibility left. I know Luther is not that good but Millikin did look improved.

Central 27 IWU 18  Final (IWU had a 90 yd KO return)

One top 25 score caught my eye UW-Platteville 41 Aurora 0

[CarollFan]

NCC's opponent next week UWO 31 Linfield 14 final at Linfield.

Game Stats

[CarollFan]

UWEC 29  Carroll 7 Final

Game Stats

Not much to add here. Carroll switched QB's in second half and brought in a sophomore #11 Elisha Nieves who led their only scoring drive. He looked good until he got hurt in the 4rth Q.
Their best chance before that was the end of first half they got down to the UWEC 4 yd line with  no timeouts and clock ran out on them.

So the team voted 7th in the WIAC pre-season coaches poll won by 22 over the team voted 5th in the CCIW coaches poll. Don't know what, if anything, that says about the relative strength of the two conferences.

WIAC is going to go 7-0 week 1. They have 4 teams in the top 25. Next week it might be 5 teams in the top 25. Let's worry about our backyard.

[Gregory Sager]

It's intermission up in Ripon, with North Park leading 21-0. And, gee, have yourself a first half, Jereme Ombogo. The NPU senior wide receiver caught TD passes of 43, 98, and 37 yards, and chalked up a 40-yard punt return for good measure.

Ombogo has 193 receiving yards already. Contrast that to Ripon as a team, as the Red Hawks had 90 yards of total offense in that half.

[CarollFan]

Augie 42 Simpson 41 OT

Augie tied it on a FG with seconds left in 4rth Q. Augie scored first in OT went up    42 - 35. Simpson scored and tried the 2 pt conversion. It looks like the pass got knocked down by the Augie DL.

Augie had 4 turnovers and gave up a 98 yard KO return that helped Simpson but they find the win.

[CarollFan]

Carthage 51 Lakeland 40 final

Didn't watch this one but looks like Carthage leaned on the run with 330 rushing yards on 48 attempts. #25 Bryce Frank had 230 rushing yards.

[CarollFan]

CCIW goes 5-3 week 1.

WashU 49 Rhodes 0. This was over early as WashU jumped to a 21 - 0 lead in the first.
NPU 35 Ripon 19. Ripon could not handle NPU's speed.

Around D3, Adrian of the MIAA beat Valparaiso (FCS school) 10-7.

[Gregory Sager]

North Park 35
Ripon 19

After Wesley McCloud opened the second half by taking the initial kickoff 96 yards to the house to make the score 28-0, North Park got pretty complacent. The rest of the third quarter was mostly played in the middle of the field, but on the last play of the quarter Ripon finally struck paydirt with a TD pass. The Red Hawks would get two more of them in the fourth quarter, as Jack Berens did a great job of keeping plays alive with his feet to avoid a pretty consistent NPU pass rush and then finding a man downfield; Berens moves about as well as any 6'5", 220 D3 quarterback I can remember. NPU did claw back the first Ripon TD with a nice 56-yard flag route strike from Justen Green to Micah Catron, but that was the only other score the Vikings had despite dominating the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. They did have a 93-yard fumble return TD, but it was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct on the ball carrier as he was running down the field -- first time I've ever seen that call made over something that happened in the middle of the play. It turned a TD into a mere gain of 41 yards on the fumble return, and NPU didn't score on the ensuing drive.

That was why the second half left a lingering bad taste in my mouth (and I'm sure in the mouths of the NPU coaches as well) -- penalties, penalties, penalties. The Vikings essentially duplicated last season's Golden Hanky Festival against Ripon by being flagged 13 times for 140 yards. Some of it was just opening-day mistakes, but there was a fair amount of undisciplined foolishness as well (including the aforementioned UC penalty that negated a touchdown and a second UC penalty for bodily heaving a Red Hawk off of a slow-to-untangle pile, plus another one for an orchestrated celebration after one of Ombogo's TD catches). That flurry of flags will undoubtedly cast a pall on the busride home for Kyle Rooker, although I'm sure he's glad to pocket the win.

Lotta stuff to clean up over the next two weeks before taking the long busride in the opposite direction (Decatur), but there's a lot to like about this NPU team. The line play, as I said, was really solid, and Justen Green looked like he belonged in the starting QB slot (14-23 for 312 yds and 4 TDs, with only one pick). Linebacker D.J. Johnson had 14 tackles in his debut as a starter, and Sam Aguirre picked off a couple of passes. It's not a bad start to the season at all.

[CarollFan]

They did have a 93-yard fumble return TD, but it was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct on the ball carrier as he was running down the field -- first time I've ever seen that call made over something that happened in the middle of the play. It turned a TD into a mere gain of 41 yards on the fumble return, and NPU didn't score on the ensuing drive.

That unsportsmanlike on the fumble was strange. I never saw that either. When they threw the flag where they did, I was like there are no Ripon players in sight, just NPU players running downfield. They show the replay and all I saw was 2 players
high-fived each other as they're running to the end zone.

[WUPHF]

Millikin 33 Luther 3 Final
Big Blue breaks 20 game losing streak
One thing I heard on their broadcast is Millikin due to injuries to kickers reached out and got a 31 year old kicker who had 1 year of eligibility left. I know Luther is not that good but Millikin did look improved.

How did they even find this guy?  Looks like he is from Decatur but still...

https://athletics.millikin.edu/sports/football/roster/blake-allison/12008
https://quhawks.com/sports/football/roster/blake-allison/2565

Millikin really hit the portal this year.

[Gregory Sager]

Millikin 33 Luther 3 Final
Big Blue breaks 20 game losing streak
One thing I heard on their broadcast is Millikin due to injuries to kickers reached out and got a 31 year old kicker who had 1 year of eligibility left. I know Luther is not that good but Millikin did look improved.

How did they even find this guy?  Looks like he is from Decatur but still...

https://athletics.millikin.edu/sports/football/roster/blake-allison/12008
https://quhawks.com/sports/football/roster/blake-allison/2565

Millikin really hit the portal this year.

Ten years? Blake Allison wasn't in the portal; he was in the Springfield Mystery Spot.