FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[NCC2010]

This article has an update on Augie QB. Also mentions IWU QB Dermot Smyth hurt his shoulder in Augie game.

https://qctimes.com/article_08ab9e9a-0824-4f80-88c8-833a69e36fe2.html

Was going to ask if anyone knew what happened to Smyth. When I turned on the game, I saw the backup was in.  Hard to tell based on the play-by-play when he got hurt as IWU only attempted 1 pass in the 4th qtr.

[Gotberg]

Yes NPU had 2 close non conference games. I saw a little of both. Their offense was moving the ball and scoring. QB performed well. Carroll and NPU came into the season with new starting QB's and both have performed well.

As I said yesterday, there's a lot to like about what Paul Palmer brings to the table for NPU. And he's doing it with a retooled WR corps, as the high-powered duo of Jereme Ombogo and Wesley McCloud have graduated. I think he's the beneficiary of a better O-line this year (although the North Central game illustrated that they have to get better at blitz reads), but Palmer is showing why everybody on the NPU coaching staff was so disappointed when he broke his foot in his first appearance last season as a freshman.

I had a chance to watch some of the first half Saturday.  Paul seems like a great quarterback and the skilled players seemed pretty young.

A couple of tough losses at the beginning of the season that could have gone either way. If the team remains in tact, they could be pretty strong over the next couple of years.  I hope the players don't get down with the current record.

[NCC2010]

Observations from NCC's 45-10 win over North Park...

Third game, third different starting offensive line combination. Sophomore Dennis Dracup started at LG instead of freshman Tyler Nevious. Apparently, Dracup got hurt on the very first play against Bethel and has been out since. At center, senior Jorge Ortiz got his first career start. He had only played in three varsity games over the course of his career thus far, all late in games last season. Freshman center Jack Iakiri, who played the entire second half against Wartburg, was out with a concussion. I expect the starting line for Augustana to be Cramer at LT, Dracup at LG, Iakiri at center, Cortez at RG, and Buckley at RT.

Duke Guenther got the start at RB and had the most carries on the day, followed by Jordan Williams. However, WR David Ballard III might just be the best RB at the moment and seems to be lining up more often in the backfield as the season moves along. IMO, he is their best player with the ball in his hands. Jack Rummell had a career day, and it could have been even better as he dropped a wide open 70 yard TD. WR Jim Curtin did not play due to injury.

Overall, the offense was not very sharp and pretty choppy throughout. Wilson had an errant swing pass to Ballard that turned into a fumble recovery by NP after Coach Rooker successfully challenged that it was a backward pass.

I thought the defense played to their normal standard despite giving up 10 points. As mentioned by others, Paul Palmer made some really nice throws. He had four or five deep passes that were perfectly thrown, and not much a defender could do to prevent them. Starting CB Kenny Rutherford was out with injury.

Feels like the bye week is coming at a pretty good time so they can get a few guys healthy and hopefully figure out the plan on the offensive line moving forward.

[CarollFan]

This article has an update on Augie QB. Also mentions IWU QB Dermot Smyth hurt his shoulder in Augie game.

https://qctimes.com/article_08ab9e9a-0824-4f80-88c8-833a69e36fe2.html

Was going to ask if anyone knew what happened to Smyth. When I turned on the game, I saw the backup was in.  Hard to tell based on the play-by-play when he got hurt as IWU only attempted 1 pass in the 4th qtr.

I took a look this morning at the archive. Late 3rd Q, under a minute left. It's second down, pass play, gets pressure, rolls to his right, pass incomplete but he takes a big hit. Stayed in for one more play then they punted and he didn't come back next possession.

[Kovo]

I actually contemplated looking up the last time that NPU had had a lead on North Central and sharing it on the air,

2016

[Jbothe]

I did not know Wesleyan QB got hurt Saturday.  Any idea if it is a long term thing?

Wesleyan has a good team but I see according to that article that the injuries are adding up again.  That really held them back last year.

Augie has some tough luck with Makuh getting hurt that bad.

Injuries suck in football.

[Jbothe]

Observations from NCC's 45-10 win over North Park...

Third game, third different starting offensive line combination. Sophomore Dennis Dracup started at LG instead of freshman Tyler Nevious. Apparently, Dracup got hurt on the very first play against Bethel and has been out since. At center, senior Jorge Ortiz got his first career start. He had only played in three varsity games over the course of his career thus far, all late in games last season. Freshman center Jack Iakiri, who played the entire second half against Wartburg, was out with a concussion. I expect the starting line for Augustana to be Cramer at LT, Dracup at LG, Iakiri at center, Cortez at RG, and Buckley at RT.

Duke Guenther got the start at RB and had the most carries on the day, followed by Jordan Williams. However, WR David Ballard III might just be the best RB at the moment and seems to be lining up more often in the backfield as the season moves along. IMO, he is their best player with the ball in his hands. Jack Rummell had a career day, and it could have been even better as he dropped a wide open 70 yard TD. WR Jim Curtin did not play due to injury.

Overall, the offense was not very sharp and pretty choppy throughout. Wilson had an errant swing pass to Ballard that turned into a fumble recovery by NP after Coach Rooker successfully challenged that it was a backward pass.

I thought the defense played to their normal standard despite giving up 10 points. As mentioned by others, Paul Palmer made some really nice throws. He had four or five deep passes that were perfectly thrown, and not much a defender could do to prevent them. Starting CB Kenny Rutherford was out with injury.

Feels like the bye week is coming at a pretty good time so they can get a few guys healthy and hopefully figure out the plan on the offensive line moving forward.

How was the running game for North Central on Saturday? 

[NCC2010]

The final stats look decent, 38 carries for 227 yards, but it was not as good as it appears.  Definitely not to the level they had when McNeal got rolling in the second half of the season. Ballard had a 47-yard TD run that was a jet sweep/reverse that sort of caught NP off guard. If you take that away, they had 43 yards rushing in the first half. They added another 60 yards rushing on the scoring drive that started with 6 minutes left in the game. The NP announcers rightly pointed out that NCC basically went hurry up offense to score another TD and make it 45-10 when they could've easily run out the clock instead. 

I think the center they started the season with sort of has the yips with his snaps, as he came in on the very last drive with the backups and immediately had another high snap. So they basically started their 3rd string center, since the 2nd stringer had a concussion and the original starter can't figure out the snaps. They also just don't have a RB as dynamic as McNeal, and Wilson is not close to the running threat that Lehnen was, so they have to rely on the offensive line to win at the line of scrimmage, and that is not happening at the moment.

The running game did take awhile to gain some traction last year as well but not sure if that was more them coming together or McNeal taking over as the main RB, as he was not the featured runner to start last season. 

[washdupcard]

North Park not only stopped North Central on the first two Cardinals drives -- the second one a three-and-out -- but actually took a 7-0 lead in the first quarter on a beautiful over-the-shoulder throw and catch from Paul Palmer to Aidan Delisi coming out of the backfield for 50 yards to paydirt. I actually contemplated looking up the last time that NPU had had a lead on North Central and sharing it on the air, but I decided that I didn't really want to know that sad fact myself, let alone let the viewers know.

Of course, it vanished soon thereafter in a puff of smoke, as North Central's elite speed took over the game and did what was expected of the Cardinals. A couple of tough 4th-and-short failures may have deprived the Vikings of a few more points that in the end wouldn't have made the slightest bit of difference, but I applaud Kyle Rooker's aggressiveness in his play-calling in those situations.

This was sophomore Paul Palmer's first home game as NPU's starting QB, and there's a lot to like about what he seems to bring to the table for North Park football.

Educated guess...sometime in 1998 or 1999. I vaguely recall NPU leading during one or both of those games.

[CarollFan]

CCIW Players of the week.

https://cciw.org/news/2026/9/21/wheatons-forcucci-illinois-wesleyans-lappin-and-augustanas-fortney-earn-cciw-weekly-football-honors.aspx

Offense - Wheaton QB Mark Forcucci
Defense - IWU DB Lucas Lappin
Special Teams - Augie WR/Returner Tyreke Fortney

Honorable Mentions:
Carroll RB Marcus Johnson
NCC QB Garret Wilson

[USee]

Forcucci, who threw for 5 TD's vs Millikin, broke the Wheaton career TD passing record on Saturday that had stood for 40 years. Keith Bishop (son of then head coach JR Bishop) led the "Air Bishop Express" back then, starting for 3 years and setting a lot of NCAA records at the time when Wheaton would routinely throw for 400-500 yds in a game.

[Gregory Sager]

As NCC2010 said, I was questioning on the air why the Cardinals were playing hurry-up with their first-string offense* (at one point lining up and snapping the ball before the chain gang had even gotten downfield to reset on the sideline) and throwing the ball in the waning minutes when the Cards were already up by four TDs and the win had long since been put in their back pocket.

I'm long past the days when I would get salty over an opponent running up the score against NPU, especially now that Norm Eash has attached a laminated playsheet to his belt on a Saturday afternoon for the last time. I haven't done so since that time Wheaton under Mike Swider threw that inexplicable  long TD pass against NPU in the final minute of a rout. Swider later apologized to Mike Conway, who was NPU's head coach at the time, and blamed the play call on an overzealous assistant coach. That explanation satisfied Conway, so it was fine by me. And that was before Covid -- like I said, a long time ago.

I didn't get upset on the air on Saturday. I was merely mystified. It didn't seem like something that Coach Spencer would do, especially since he, like the Thornes before him, has had a lot of practice with game management when his team is up big in the 4th quarter. We NPU sports information staffers were speculating in the press box about his reasoning afterwards.

Was he aware on the NCC sidelines that Wheaton was imposing an epic beatdown on Millikin and therefore felt compelled to score more points against NPU for the sake of point differential? That theory didn't make sense to me, because I'm pretty sure that that doesn't figure into NPI rankings.

Whatever. It's certainly not gonna keep me up at night if I never find out why North Central found it so urgent to go 89 yards and get another score in the final five minutes in order to turn a four-TD win into a five-TD win.


*Aside from the 3rd-string RB, the fantastically-named Galashky Blaise. Seriously, that may be the best name I've ever seen for a running back, with the possible exception of the immortal Bronko Nagurski.