D3football Daily Dose

Same formula, different name.

Division III calling its power rating formula a “Strength of Schedule Index” was certainly misleading. It didn’t measure how strong the schedule was; it measured how a team did against that schedule. And even though we put a disclaimer on our listing of the index in large, bold type, it didn’t sink in with Division III fans.

But instead of fixing the formula, the championships committee will change the name. This year it will be called the Quality of Wins Index. It still won’t really accurately contribute toward discovering how good a team is, however, and since this is a major factor used in selecting and seeding NCAA playoff teams, it would be helpful if it did.

Here’s the problem — (more…)

This time of year pretty much every Division III team is optimistic. Or at least, that’s what they say publicly. If you read season previews in their unedited form, eventually you’ll begin to believe every team has 18 returning starters, is poised for a breakthrough, looking to build on last year’s success, returning to tradition, etc. It’s a wonder everyone doesn’t finish 7-3 or 8-2.

Try to figure out how they determine number of returning starters. It should really count members of the starting 22 who started half of the previous season’s games. Special teams should be noted separately. But of course, not everyone does this. Sometimes a “returning starter” is anyone who started a game last year. Sometimes schools count up to five special teams starters: kicker, punter, long snapper, punt return, kick return. These are all crucial positions but including them in the same count as the other 22 can be misleading.

Here’s some other examples of preview-speak:

Ah, to be a high school starting quarterback.

To receive admiring glances from your school mates as you roam the hallways of a peer pressure cooker. To take the helm of your team and lead them to glory in weekend battles with cross town rivals. To bask in the longing gazes of cheerleaders and precocious underclasswomen whose heart you can send a flutter with a single smile.

At least that’s what I always imagined it was like.

You know, when I was daydreaming in Spanish class instead of paying rapt attention to yet another round of the “Como-te-llamas-me-llamo-Gordon” drill.

Despite these glory days – real or imagined — the transition to college can be particularly difficult for incoming quarterbacks. Along with getting acclimated to new offensive sets, unfamiliar teammates and a higher level of play, many first year QBs face the reality that, previous honors notwithstanding, they’re unlikely to see significant playing time this fall.

But an unknown arm in 2005 may be “the man” in 2006 and beyond. So we’re letting the incoming quarterback hopefuls take a few snaps for this edition of the Recruiting Recap.

Herron Elects to Join the Presidents

A good feature in The (Charleston, W. VA) State Journal tells the story of Bobby Herron who will attend Washington & Jefferson next fall. The Wheeling Central Catholic High School quarterback joins an offense with lots of weapons returning, including quarterback Chris Edwards who tossed 38 touchdowns last year.

Herron enters college with realistic expectations, telling the Journal, “[W]ith a guy like Chris Edwards coming back, I know that the No. 2 slot is what I’m shooting for this year. Then next year, we’ll see.”

Herron’s story is also a great example of why many talented players decide to play football at the Division III level.

W&J is a smaller school relatively close to home offering Herron a quality education and a chance to play the game he loves. Herron emphasizes that his studies will come first. “I already know that I’m not going to play pro ball for a living, and I know that I’m going to have to turn pro in something. College is where I’ll get the education for the future.”

Well said, Mr. President.

Wartburg Bound

The (Waterloo, Iowa) Courier reports that another talented high school quarterback is headed to a perennial playoff contender. Denver (Iowa) HS quarterback Jake Kuennen will bring his strong arm to Waverly where Wartburg comes off yet another IIAC title.

Like W&J, Wartburg has an incumbent starter returning at quarterback in senior-to-be Reed Hoskins. Despite a relatively weak ratio of 14 touchdowns to 15 interceptions, Hoskins took a large majority of the snaps last year with back-up QB Greg Koenen only throwing three passes.

MIT be a good Fit

Valley Central (N.Y.) HS alum Stephen Toth apparently likes a challenge. So the valedictorian/quarterback plans to play baseball and football at MIT…after he starts classes in pursuit of his chemical engineering degree…after he joins the college’s ROTC program.

Toth told the Middletown (N.Y.) Times-Herald that he was particularly struck by a Mark Twain quote on an MIT brochure – “Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did.”

Class work at MIT plus football plus ROTC plus the rest of college life? Sounds like a challenge.

In other recruiting news that crossed our virtual desk:

- Pontiac (Ill.) HS grad Christopher Green will play at Augustana

- Charleston (Ill.) HS WR/DB Jason Murphy heads to Illinois College

- Lyndhurst (N.J.) HS quarterback Brian Kapp will attend Montclair State

- Carmi-White County (Ind.) HS product Eric Trout will enroll at North Central

- Wyoming Valley West (Pa.) HS rusher Ryan Kraynack will suit up for Union

- Green Bay East (Wis.) HS lineman Matt Klug heads to UW-Platteville

- Bexley (Ohio) HS teammates Matt Ellinger and David Gitlitz will attend W&J

Remember that there are plenty more recruits listed here, including new links to full recruiting classes for Delaware Valley, Franklin & Marshall and Minnesota-Morris.

And you can share recruiting news using the comments feature below, but please provide a URL to verify the story.

Yeah, ok … so your football program is struggling to put kids in uniform, and you just had to cancel the women’s basketball season for lack of student-athletes.

But hey, you have a brand-new mascot, Macalester. Congrats to the 38 football players and five women’s basketball players on the show of institutional support. I’m sure it’s comforting.

The football program bailed out of the MIAC after the 2001 season and there’s no return in sight. The women’s basketball program played just six games this past season — well, five and a half really. They won’t play in the MIAC this season either. Because it took so long to hire last year’s women’s basketball coach, she had no chance to recruit and was doomed to failure. And if the football coach can only get in 15 freshmen, like last year, what are the chances that program will get off the ground?

Great scot, Macalester — there’s a lot more that needs to be done before worrying about a new mascot.

It’s Father’s Day, also a day on which sports sections around the country tend to run heartwarming stories about fathers and their children relating to sports.

Ursinus’ Josh Hannum and his father are the subject of one such story in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer — it doesn’t break a lot of new ground on Hannum’s story and it glosses over his 2004 season, but it’s a good read for those who aren’t already familiar with how and why Hannum got to Ursinus.

Should mention that the Inquirer, like all Knight-Ridder papers, requires free registration.

Hey, St. Vincent fans, first of all, welcome to Division III. Secondly, glad you’re bringing back football.

Sorry you have to wait so long to get in, though — there’s a long line of schools waiting to get into Division III and the NCAA is trying to keep things manageable.

We’re not quite to season preview season just yet but a half-dozen schools have already sent us their 2005 previews, and we’ve posted them.

We’ll send out an e-mail to schools next week looking for football previews (and basketball schedules, for that matter!) so keep an eye out.

Here at the Recruiting Recap we like the easy ones.

Easy like Sunday morning. Easy like dehydrated macaroni n’ cheese. Easy like, well, you get the idea.

So we want to thank some schools who’ve made our job easier by providing lists of their recruits.

We’ve seen releases from Centre and Hampden-Sydney in the South region.

Plus we noticed the recruiting class for the Tigers’ ODAC rival Bridgewater (VA) is posted on Eagles fan site Bridgewaterfootball.com. In fact, you could add that release to this tentative roster for a complete glimpse (if there is such a thing) of their potential lineup.

The Pittsburgh Tribute Review listed a handful of recruits who will join new head coach Jeff Hand at Westminster (Pa.). OregonLive.com is tracking local kids’ college plans, including a healthy dose headed to Linfield.

That’s not to say that everyone on these lists will play the position mentioned or even play at all since Division III schools can’t tie financial aid to athletic participation. And there will probably be other first year players who are not on these lists but will play at these schools next season. But the lists give fans get a better flavor for an incoming class.

So if you’re an SID or coach who is in the know about your school’s recruiting class and you want to share, please feel free to do so by emailing us at news@d3football.com. Or you can follow the lead of Concordia (Wis.) which posted its recruiting class as a comment on the last recap.

Isn’t that Special?

What do you get when you cross Reggie Roby with Reggie White?

The answer is Steve Jones, a 6-5, 300-pound Annapolis (Md.) HS grad headed to Wesley. Jones received regional punting honors in his first season at the position while also playing on both sides of the line.

The Manteca (Calif.) Bulletin highlighted another special teams recruit, Brandon Gresham who will take his kicking talents to Menlo. The Ceres High School punter and kicker heads to Atherton where he wants to study law enforcement. “I want to become a cop like my dad,” Gresham told the Bulletin.

Though Gresham likely doesn’t know it, he has a kindred spirit in Illinois.

The Morris (Ill.) Daily Herald reports that Harvey VanCleave III plans to attend Aurora as his grandfather and father did before him. Harvey the Third and his father played the same position (defensive tackle) wearing the same number (72) for the same coach (Dan Darlington) at Morris High School.

The father-son comparisons don’t stop there as the youngest VanCleave hopes to follow his dad’s professional footsteps by entering law enforcement. “I want to model my life after my dad. I’d like to be exactly like him,” he told the Herald.

With Father’s Day in less than 10 days, that testimony is a very nice gift from one VanCleave to another.

In other recruiting news:

–Augustana has landed Eric Smith from Flanagan (Ill.) HS, Dan Rosenkrans from Pecatonica (Ill.) HS and Matt Todd from Lena-Winslow (Ill.) HS.

–Notre Dame (N.Y.) HS has three soon-to-be alums headed to Division III schools: Chris Harrison to Hartwick, Luke Burris to St. Lawrence and Jesse Scott to Wheaton.

– Lawrence (N.J.) HS does Notre Dame one better by sending four guys to D3 colleges: Neal Amato to Gettysburg, Cameron Barker to Montclair State, Adam Oliszewski to New Jersey and Mark Lenarski to Rowan.

– Mark Kapraun goes from Harvard (Ill.) HS to Loras while teammate Raul Meza goes to Rockford.

– Perry Welch of Eastland-Pearl City (Ill.) HS will attend North Central while his high school teammate Travis Calzavara will become a college rival at Illinois Wesleyan.

Special thanks to NJAC guru and D3football.com columnist Tom Wilson for sharing the NJAC news with us. We don’t often hear much recruiting news from that conference so we value the input. You can get more NJAC tidbits from Tom’s blog here.

If you’ve got recruiting news, feel free to share but please include the newspaper URL so we can verify the story.

Tuesday was the first day of the major league baseball draft, and seven Division III baseball players were selected:

Eastern Connecticut left-handed pitcher Ryan DiPietro was a sixth-round pick of the Royals (No. 172 overall). MLB’s scouting bureau report says he has a similar frame to former big-leaguer John Tudor.

UW-Whitewater’ right-handed pitcher Gregory Reinhard was a sixth-round pick of the Devil Rays (No. 178 overall). He is described as having a Jason Marquis build with a Mark Mulder approach.

Calvin right-handed pitcher James Deters was a seventh-round pick of the Indians (No. 214 overall).

Millsaps shortstop Garner Wetzel was a 10th-round pick of the Rockies (No. 297 overall).

Illinois Wesleyan left-handed pitcher Cory Lapinski was an 11th-round selection of the Astros (No. 344 overall).

Southern Maine right-handed pitcher Thomas Fairchild was a 12th-round selection of the Astros (No. 374 overall).

Alvernia catcher Anthony Recker was an 18th-round selection of the A’s (No. 551 overall). Moneyball readers will be glad to know he had a .544 on-base percentage and led the team with 29 walks in 200 plate appearances, striking out 23 times.

Feel free to post updates from the draft’s second day here. We’ll try to check in as well. With 50 rounds to the draft, there will certainly be more names.

Here’s links to follow construction of some of the various projects:

Albright (photos last updated May 24)
Chapman (photos updated June 2)
Moravian (last images April 1, but link for live camera)
UW-Platteville (photos updated May 31)
Wittenberg (photos updated June 1)

Any others? You know the drill. Post, with a link to the info on a school’s site.