FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[Trin9-0]

Fair enough, Spring. Here's a few luke warm takes to get us back on track:

Amherst will have at least 3 more losses.
The Ephs finally get over the Wes hump.
Bants tie for the league title with Williams despite the head-to-head (petic after their hotly debated/disputed co-championship in '23).
Colby wins the CBB and finishes above Tufts.
Midd loses a nailbiter on Saturday to drop to 2-4 but then wins out to salvage a winning season.

[Nescacman]

Fair enough, Spring. Here's a few luke warm takes to get us back on track:

Amherst will have at least 3 more losses.
The Ephs finally get over the Wes hump.
Bants tie for the league title with Williams despite the head-to-head (petic after their hotly debated/disputed co-championship in '23).
Colby wins the CBB and finishes above Tufts.
Midd loses a nailbiter on Saturday to drop to 2-4 but then wins out to salvage a winning season.

Can't wait to revisit these Hs8-1 takes in 4 weeks...We'll take the under.

[Nescacman]

Nine Weeks: A NESCAC Football Podcast

Nine Weeks: A NESCAC Football Podcast is the first podcast of its kind in NESCAC history. Hosted by Chris Grace (play-by-play announcer for Wesleyan) and Dave Bagatelle (Wesleyan Alum and former player), our weekly show features coach and player interviews, game analysis, rankings, previews, and predictions.

Available Now!!! Season 2 Episode 6 featuring Williams College Head Coach Mark Raymond, Bates College Linebacker Ryan Rozich, and NESCAC Football Report's Jon Keith.

The podcast is available on YouTube, Facebook, Apple and Spotify. Search for "9 Weeks NESCAC"...the first and only podcast of its kind.

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[lumbercat]

Trin 9-0
Based on wins and losses I won't deny he's an outstanding coach and I never have.

However, I don't change my contention that he has advantages at Trinity he wouldn't have anywhere else in the NESCAC. If he switched places with Mills or any of the others he would not fare as well in those programs.

Can you see Devanney at Amherst in the past few years when the Amherst administration tightened up significantly on admissions and the whole institution provided very little Football support? Or lets place him at Williuams after Whalen left, He would have no idea how to navigate those circumstances.

He's achieved a fine record at Trinity and deserves a great deal of credit though he's clearly the last guy on the list of coaches I named. He will probably retire from Trinity. One of the best jobs in all of D3 and maybe beyond.

I don't know lumber, that just seems like such an odd take to say that Devanney is one of the four best coaches you've ever seen in the NESCAC while at the same time saying he'd only be successful at Trinity.

Also, it's pretty clear that Mills himself couldn't navigate Amherst during the years you referenced (averaging 3.4 wins the last 5 seasons). But somehow in this hypothetical scenario Devanney would be a exposed as a bad coach if struggled the exact same way Mills did? I'm having trouble following your logic.

Trin 90

You're twisting my comments here to continue this years old debate. You've grown a set of rabbit ears on this topic over the years.

I said Devanney is one of the best coaches Ive seen in the NESCAC based on a great W-L record.
Never said he "would only be successful at Trinity". That's just incorrect. I said I would place him at the bottom of the list compared with other coaches I named.
I also said I don't believe he would be as successful as coaches like Mills and Farley in those respective programs. You'll never acknowledge that the Football program at Trinity has some advantages that don't exist at other NESCAC schools.
 

[nescac1]

A shot at some all-league projections (minus offensive line, that's too hard to say) heading into the second half of the season:

QB: Owen Johansen / Matt Fitzsimmons (right now dead-even for first team, with a head-to-head pending).  Marek Hill is also worthy of an all-league spot if they pick three QBs total and could squeeze out either with a big finish. 

WR: first team, Donte Kelly, Nolan O'Brien, Zach Falls; second team, Carter Jung (neck-and-neck with Falls), Mike Ahonen, Blake Newcomb
RB: first team, Ryan Lynskey and Jon Oris; second team, Connor McClellan (neck-and-neck with Oris) and Demetrius Smith.  Christian Shapiro could also squeeze on. 

RS: Nolan O'Brien and Carter Jung, those guys are way ahead of the field.

Some defensive guys who will likely be represented (obviously there are a lot more): Luke Harmon, Kermit Smith, Luke Mangini, Zakkai Moore, Ryan Rozich, Carson Skotak, Declan McNamara, Matt Shaw, Dylan Connors, AJ Morris, Charlie Cooper, Will Gale, Luke Ventura, Jason Irizarry, Lincoln Moore, Jack Mullen, Johnny Ferrelli, Ty Kazanowski, Shane Mosia

TE: Jimmy Montesano would be the obvious choice, but he may not play enough games due to injury?  After him, I have no idea. 

OPOTY: Johansen, Fitzsimmons, Hill, Lynskey, Kelly and O'Brien are the candidates
DPOTY: it's gonna be Luke Harmon barring an injury.  Dylan Connors and Ryan Rozich also in the picture. 
ROTY: Obviously Donte Kelly

[DannyG]

Current Hamilton senior here. I played football for Hamilton until my sophomore year, ultimately stepping away for a variety of reasons, none of which had to do with the coaches or teammates (they were great). I still follow Hamilton football pretty closely and have been reading this thread for a few years now, mostly for nescacman's predictions and spreads.
That thread actually inspired me to build a website that creates lines and spreads for every D3 football team. You obviously can't bet on them, it's just for fun, but the site is called d3lines.com. It's been a fun passion project, and while the numbers are in a decent ballpark, I'm sure the lines would get crushed if they were ever in a real market. Just thought I'd share.

[Nescacman]

Current Hamilton senior here. I played football for Hamilton until my sophomore year, ultimately stepping away for a variety of reasons, none of which had to do with the coaches or teammates (they were great). I still follow Hamilton football pretty closely and have been reading this thread for a few years now, mostly for nescacman's predictions and spreads.
That thread actually inspired me to build a website that creates lines and spreads for every D3 football team. You obviously can't bet on them, it's just for fun, but the site is called d3lines.com. It's been a fun passion project, and while the numbers are in a decent ballpark, I'm sure the lines would get crushed if they were ever in a real market. Just thought I'd share.

Danny G,

Hats off to you for taking the initiative. We love the enthusiasm and the passion. Glad to see that we are inspiring and influencing others in non-traditional ways!!!

We took a look and the NESCAC lines look vaguely familiar. 

Keep up the good work.

NM
 

[nescac1]

As everyone predicted, all three Maine teams up a TD early. 

[nescac1]

And ugghhh no Johansen for Williams.  Ephs simply can't catch a break with injuries this year. 

[Brady12]

And ugghhh no Johansen for Williams.  Ephs simply can't catch a break with injuries this year. 

Next man up. Renzella came in same class as McHugh and Johansen. I guess you can never recruit too many QB's.

[nescac1]

That is the worst, sloppiest, most self-destructive half of football I've seen the Ephs play since at least their 0-8 season in Raymond's first season.

Now, of course, the ridiculous injury situation has gotten to the point where there just aren't many playmakers left on the field for Williams. They are in particular a totally different team without Johansen at QB.  But also, in this game, Williams:

- turned the ball over on a punt that bounced off a leg
- dropped a kickoff return, having to start at their own 10
- had a personal foul in a key situation (that one Raymond was justifiably irate on, a situation where the guy who started it got away with it, but that happens) and something like four pass interference penalties
- fumbled the ball on I'd say three snaps on offense messing up the timing on plays
- earned a costly delay of game to start a drive
- fumbled a snap on a punt play, leading to a 13 yard punt enabling Bates to tack on yet another TD

Just a comedy of errors for Williams with pretty much the entire team playing terribly, and with very little passing game with this lineup on the field, this will be a pretty tough deficit to overcome.

To Bates credit, they've done a very good job loading up on the Williams run game, and they've also passed the ball surprisingly well, in part by going after a FY CB forced to start due to injuries.  They actually could have even more yards through the air but for a few dropped passes; the QB has been mostly on-target all day and receivers have been consistently getting behind the secondary.   

[nescac1]

And Williams ties the game with two huge passes to (who else) Zach Falls, including one on a trick play from the Williams FB.  This game is wild and I think will continue to be.  As usual, I don't know anything (other than being early on the Falls train ). 

[nescac1]

Utterly insane day in NESCAC. Just when it seemed like there was a clear pecking order.  Very, very close to a four-upset day. 

What the heck happened to Wesleyan??

The second half of Williams-Bates was a mirror image of the first half, with Bates making the big miscues and suffering from a key injury (Lysnkey was not out there, not sure what happened, but obviously a devastating absence).  More thoughts later ...

[Trin9-0]

Wes dropping a head scratcher to a Maine school: set your watch to it!

Trin narrowly escapes a third straight loss to Midd in what would have been another WILD finish. Bants defense holds and sends the Homecoming crowd home happy.

Feeling pretty good about picking Amherst to lose at least three of their final four.

[quicksilver]

Wes dropping a head scratcher in Maine: set your watch to it!

...

Even worse -- the head-scratching loss to Bowdoin took place in Middletown as did last year's loss to Bates.