FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[Charlie]

While I agree with much of what you are posting lets also consider the fact that NESCAC has been behind the times for awhile. So lets not applaud them for things that should have been done awhile ago. From this stand point only if you are going to adjust roster limits next year for the playoffs it seems very simplistic not to touch the rosters at all for this year.

[lumbercat]

Charlie-
There must be an echo in here, that must be the case.

[Yipper]

Schools with 120-150 players on their rosters? Let them. NESCAC schools generally have 2000 students -- some less than that. Thus about 1000 men. A football roster with even 100 players is way out of proportion -- it would mean 10% of the men are playing that one sport and admissions has to keep that in mind. If you live for that one sport perhaps that makes sense but, otherwise, the presidents actually possess some wisdom. That said,I'm 100% for a lenghtened season and being able to compete for national championships. Even if you lose, even if you get crushed, that's an experience you'll be talking about at your 50th reunion.

[VoodooDoc]

Yipper

Wabash College in Indiana has an enrollment of 900 students and traditionally has had between 110 to 125 players on the football team. Since 2002, Wabash has been to the Division 3 playoffs a number of times.  While there a limits of around 60 players on the sidelines in the play-offs, when playing the regular season and the playoffs, it takes a lot of depth to be going strong at the end.  Just look at the roster sizes of North Central and Mount Union.  The NESCAC schools should give a good account of themselves ala John Hopkins, but not with inadequate depth. 

[nescac1]

Wabash has an acceptance rate of 63 percent and needs a huge football team just to enroll a full student body, so I don't think that comparison is going to persuade any NESCAC schools with 8 percent acceptance rates and who field as many as 32 varsity sports, and whose other coaches want good recruits too.  Plus of course have pressure to enroll a zillion other categories of non-athletes as well. Honestly, an 80 man roster seems absolutely fine and allows for a solid two deep at every position.  And maybe the kid who would have been the 81st guy at Trinity actually gets to be a meaningful player at Hamilton instead.  A bit more competitive balance in the league is more important anyway than one team each year maybe having a better chance to win a second round playoff game before eventually getting killed by a Mount Union type program. It's not like guy 81 is going to be the one who puts say Trinity over the top against these monster programs.   

I agree that getting nine games and  a playoff game for the champ are huge victories that would have been unthinkable ten years ago.  The balance overall seems right now to be in the sweet spot. 

[VoodooDoc]

Nescac1

I cited Wabash as an example of a school of around 900 students being able to field enough players for a football team to be able to have sufficient depth to be able to get into the third round of the playoffs.  Yipper had concluded that NESCAC schools of around 2000 students could not do so.  There are many differences between a Midwest college like Wabash and the NESCAC colleges, acceptance rates being just one, but having a squad of adequate size can be done.  Johns Hopkins has demonstrated that it can consistently have success in the D3 Playoffs and the NESCAC colleges could do likewise, but for arbitrary limitations on depth.  A squad of around 80 +/- can function for a 9 game season, but to have sufficient depth to go 14 games, where the opponents do have sufficient depth and only get better is going to place a limitation on the potential for success by the NESCAC colleges.  If you look at other men's and women's sports where NESCAC colleges are not unnecessarily handicapped, they have done quite well within D3 nationally.  Amherst's President who came from  Emory University certainly understands this.

[Gray Fox]

Wabash is all male. 

[nescac1]

The point is that Wabash is a completely different type of school with vastly different institutional priorities.  Of course NESCAC schools COULD have more success in a playoff scenario if they prioritized football above every other institutional priority - that goes without saying. Heck they could start paying NIL money, too. The question isn't "could" but "should."  And I agree that, generally, for Nescac colleges, who field more varsity sports than any other D3 schools, and have a zillion niches to fill with students outside of athletics, it's not worth having over ten percent of your male students be recruits for a single team out of 32.  Admissions is a zero sum game, after all. 

[VoodooDoc]

NESCAC1 - you got rather far afield from original post.  Yipper suggested that colleges with enrollment around 2,000 could not support a football team of 100 players.  I pointed out an example of a college with 900 students (albeit all male and generally the equivalent of a coed institution of approximately 2,000) which does and has had some success in the D3 playoffs. My point is that it is not impossible to do. A number of athletes do participate in more than one sport.

As will become evident next year when NESCAC starts participating in the playoffs, depth is a crucial factor to be successful in the playoffs.  A squad of 80 or so players will have trouble matching up with a squad of 150 as a team goes deeper into the playoffs. 

Of course there are many differences between Wabash and the NESCAC colleges, and I was not suggesting otherwise. I was just providing Yipper with an example of a school that has done what was being suggested as impossible.

[Nescacman]

#24328
August 23, 2025, 09:17:46 PM
Quote from: RamapoRUFan on August 21, 2025, 09:06:47 PM
I have posted 2025 Team Previews for Amherst, Trinity and Middlebury at https://nescacfootballreport.com/team-overviews/

Ramapo HS (Raiders) or Ramapo College (Roadrunners)...that is the question....

Ramapo HS Raiders, sir

Excellent....love to see local NJ influencers covering the NESCAC! Please reach out to us to discuss the 9 Weeks NESCAC podcast...

NM

[Nescacman]

The NESCAC presidents voted not to change roster limits so there will be cuts coming on many rosters. I did here not sure on how this works that schools can elect not to abide by the rule and be sanctioned by the NESCAC and receive a penalty. I do not know that penalty will be. I also heard that some schools will allow players to practice but not dress for games. It seems there is a great deal of uncertainty. No matter what the schools have decided the Presidents have voted and what each school does with the roster limits remains to be seen.

We said this was coming months ago...should not be a surprise to anyone that closely follows this thread.

NM

[Nescacman]

Schools with 120-150 players on their rosters? Let them. NESCAC schools generally have 2000 students -- some less than that. Thus about 1000 men. A football roster with even 100 players is way out of proportion -- it would mean 10% of the men are playing that one sport and admissions has to keep that in mind. If you live for that one sport perhaps that makes sense but, otherwise, the presidents actually possess some wisdom. That said,I'm 100% for a lenghtened season and being able to compete for national championships. Even if you lose, even if you get crushed, that's an experience you'll be talking about at your 50th reunion.

We will stay away from giving our opinion on this since there are strong arguments on both sides. However, let's not forget that several (possibly many) NESCAC schools are having a challenge recruiting male students so football (and other "helmet" sports) provides a means for increasing male enrollment at these schools. 10% of the male students playing football may seem out of whack, but if you can't get men to apply, maybe it makes sense?

[Nescacman]

Let's get back to football now that the NESCAC openers are less than a week away...

We all know that QB is the most important position in football, no matter what level/league including the NESCAC. This has been discussed many times on this Board before. This year may very well be the most wide open year that we may have ever seen at the QB in position in the NESCAC. At least half of the teams in the league will feature new starters (Hartford State, Wesleyan, Tufts, Williams, UBates), 2 teams return ineffective starters (Amherst, Hamilton), one team returns an inexperienced starter (Bowdoin...actually two inexperienced starters), and only two teams return experienced starters who have had some level of success in the NESCAC (Middlebury, Colby).
 
Here are our QB team-=by-team positional rankings headed into the 2025 season:

1. Middlebury: They arguably have the best returning QB so by default, they are ranked #1. Brian Moran is not the best Pants QB by any stretch, but hs is the best in the NESCAC headed into 2025.
2. Hartford State: We feel like we've seen this movie before. HCOF Jeff brings in a FCS/FBS transfer. The kid is going to be the next coming of Joe Shield. We're from Missouri on this one. Why would a 4-star recruit from SMU transfer to Hartford State given all of the other options including the Ivy's, Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, etc? Even if he's not the guy, there is enough other talent here surrounding whomever the starting QB is to rank them #2.
3. Colby: Second best returning QB (Miles Drake) and a solid group of returning WRs. The question is will they be able to give him time to throw?
4. Wesleyan: Wes has a long history of strong QB play. They have at least the 2 juniors battling for the starting job and possibly a third wild card. They always have good WRs as well. We think there is upside here.
5. Tufts: Let the post-Berluti era begin. Hard to even remember what the Jumbo's looked like before Berluti was the QB. They have a good history at the position and have had stud receivers (including near NFLer Phil Lutz) in recent years, so we'll give them the benefit of the doubt. HCOF Civetti and QB Coach Frank Hauser do a great job with their QB room.
6. Williams: Looks like this is going to be a 3 yards and a cloud of dust offense with Johansen probably leading the way. They haven't thrown the ball particularly well since Bobby M. graduated so that may not be a bad thing.
7. UBates: Triple Option/flex option offense. Potentially a platoon with a converted WR (Sergio Beltran) and a new starter playing. They run the ball an awful lot (and well) led by All-NESCAC/OPOTY candidate RB Ryan Lynskey so it may not matter much who the QB is.
8. Bowdoin: They return two guys (one of whom is a Junior, the other a sophomore). Neither was particularly successful last year in limited duty and they don't return a stellar group of skill position players so we have them ranked near the bottom.
9. Hamilton: They return 1.5 guys who combined for 8 TDs and 7 interceptions in 2024. Boynton is a talent at WR but without a viable running game (2.4 YPC in 2024), they'll have a challenge throwing the ball (and winning) in 2025.
10. Amherst: When was the last time the Lord Mammoths had a decent QB? We had to go back to Ollie Eberth in 2019 to find the last decent LM QB. This year, word out of Amherst is that they are going to go with Soph Marek Hill and give the triple option a shot, at least part of the time. Given their challenges throwing the ball in recent years, might not be a bad "option".

More to come....

NM

[Charlie]

This is last I will say about roster limits. I have looked at endowments at these schools and schools for example like Amherst , Williams , Colby and Middlebury to name a few have such large campus. Why would they not keep the same admissions standards as they currently have and add more housing for students and increase there enrollment. They could easily increase the student population make more money while keeping the integrity of their academics. There certainly seems to be a surplus of land and money at all of these schools. I am not saying doing this for football but the overall student body , sports and academics. Why has NESCAC not wanted to increase to a size or smaller to that of a Wesleyan or Tufts ?

This week is going to be a very interesting week in the NESCAC for opening games.

[Pat Coleman]

Some reporting on this topic from Frank Rossi last night:
https://x.com/FrankRossi/status/1964875428642123855