THE IUP Football Thread

[Fightingscot82]

I remember a decade ago people predicting Cal's demise to be an afterthought and a bottom feeder. That never happened. I agree it hasn't been a string of consistency, but they've had some nice years when many people left that program for dead after Armenti was canned and after the whole Penn West thing.

There were a lot of unknowns with Cal. When Luckhardt retired and Kellar left, there were a lot of unknowns. Gary Dunn is a great coach with a strong staff so he's been able to weather the storm of uncertainty at Coal Center University.

[Ram040506]

I remember a decade ago people predicting Cal's demise to be an afterthought and a bottom feeder. That never happened. I agree it hasn't been a string of consistency, but they've had some nice years when many people left that program for dead after Armenti was canned and after the whole Penn West thing.

Consistency was a bad choice of words, because they've been consistently good with Coach Dunn. He's 66-24 in 8 full seasons, which comes out to roughly 8-3 year to year. Even in their off year's, like in 2022 when they went 6-5, they choked a game with Shepherd (region champs), had that crazy penalty ending the game against IUP where they lost by 1 point (IUP was PSAC champs). They are always a tough out.

Back to the original question about optimism amongst the top teams, I think Slippery Rock is in great shape followed by IUP and then Cal (For the West). I still think year to year IUP's ceiling is just a touch higher than Cal's. In the East, Kutztown is a healthy step in front of Shepherd. You could make the argument that ESU should be ahead of Shepherd, I'm not quite there yet, but they have been very steady in their climb going 9-3 and 10-2 the last couple seasons. I was looking through West Chester's recruiting class, they have a bunch of big fellas coming in and the more I read about their coach, perhaps a change in leadership is what they needed in their program too. Coach Greco has a great track record of success as well. I think they are going to be heard from this season.

[EyeoftheHawk]

Go back and look at how last years team started.

The college baseball season is so long it mostly only matters how you’re playing come playoff time. You just need to get in as we saw from IUP last year. Slow starts for northern teams aren’t uncommon. At least IUP has the turf infield now and can get outside some. In my playing days that wasn’t an option and the field was behind the football stadium. There wasn’t even a turf football field to get reps on then. We spent the vast majority of practice time in Zink where it was hot as hell and the lighting sucked.

[IUPalum]

I saw that as well. Basketball in particular seems to have giant swings in the polls and because of the number of games they play there’s almost always several teams that eventually find their way to #1 at some point, not to mention the ones that drop in and out of the top 25.

In D2 baseball, Cavadi had IUP a pre-season #7, but they’re off to a lovely 1-4 start. There’s a long way to go and northern teams typically start slow, but last season may have been a mirage.

Go back and look at how last years team started.

[IUP24]

I'll have to see another sub par year for the Rams to start worrying. Kutztown and Rock are rolling though, Cal is coming off a strong year, but I wouldn't say it's been a string of consistency. As long as Clements is at Kutztown, I'd be pretty optimistic. Same with Lutz at Rock. Great coaches who seem to be on a roll with recruiting.

I remember a decade ago people predicting Cal's demise to be an afterthought and a bottom feeder. That never happened. I agree it hasn't been a string of consistency, but they've had some nice years when many people left that program for dead after Armenti was canned and after the whole Penn West thing.

[EyeoftheHawk]

I'll have to see another sub par year for the Rams to start worrying. Kutztown and Rock are rolling though, Cal is coming off a strong year, but I wouldn't say it's been a string of consistency. As long as Clements is at Kutztown, I'd be pretty optimistic. Same with Lutz at Rock. Great coaches who seem to be on a roll with recruiting.

I can’t imagine your team being down for long. Even though most have gone your way, we miss the big IUP vs Shepherd games.

[Ram040506]

As stated in my original post, “it doesn’t matter.” He obviously just looked at the programs that have been the most consistent as of late and made some very loose predictions.

He mentioned 21 teams and IUP wasn’t one of them. My point is there was a time when no list of top 21 D2 football programs was written about, whether it be January or October, that IUP wasn’t on. Another historically proud program, Shepherd, is also nowhere to be found. I think a tough question for IUP fans, and maybe also Shepherd fans is, would you be more optimistic as a Kutztown, Slippery Rock, or Cal fan over the next five years?

I'll have to see another sub par year for the Rams to start worrying. Kutztown and Rock are rolling though, Cal is coming off a strong year, but I wouldn't say it's been a string of consistency. As long as Clements is at Kutztown, I'd be pretty optimistic. Same with Lutz at Rock. Great coaches who seem to be on a roll with recruiting.

[EyeoftheHawk]

Holy crap! Now last year's baseball season "may have been a mirage." You are an eternal pessimist.

Can you read or do you just selectively read? The first thing I said was “There’s a long way to go and northern teams typically start slow…” Also, I encourage you to ask Google what a tongue-in-cheek comment is.

IUP won today 5-3 over Hillsdale.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

I saw that as well. Basketball in particular seems to have giant swings in the polls and because of the number of games they play there’s almost always several teams that eventually find their way to #1 at some point, not to mention the ones that drop in and out of the top 25.

In D2 baseball, Cavadi had IUP a pre-season #7, but they’re off to a lovely 1-4 start. There’s a long way to go and northern teams typically start slow, but last season may have been a mirage.

Have faith. They start terrible every year down there. The teams they play have a massive advantage. That was probably the first time IUP played outside all season.

They have a strong team this year. They'll be back to normal here soon.

[iupgroundhog]

I saw that as well. Basketball in particular seems to have giant swings in the polls and because of the number of games they play there’s almost always several teams that eventually find their way to #1 at some point, not to mention the ones that drop in and out of the top 25.

In D2 baseball, Cavadi had IUP a pre-season #7, but they’re off to a lovely 1-4 start. There’s a long way to go and northern teams typically start slow, but last season may have been a mirage.

Holy crap! Now last year's baseball season "may have been a mirage." You are an eternal pessimist.

[EyeoftheHawk]

Another sport, but I read the other day that half of the preseason top 10 teams in D1 basketball aren't even ranked at this point, let alone in the top 10. If those polls, which feature teams much more heavily scrutinized than D2 teams, can be that wrong, it's pretty obvious that any such D2 poll should be taken with a large grain of salt.

I saw that as well. Basketball in particular seems to have giant swings in the polls and because of the number of games they play there’s almost always several teams that eventually find their way to #1 at some point, not to mention the ones that drop in and out of the top 25.

In D2 baseball, Cavadi had IUP a pre-season #7, but they’re off to a lovely 1-4 start. There’s a long way to go and northern teams typically start slow, but last season may have been a mirage.

[Ship69]

As stated in my original post, “it doesn’t matter.” He obviously just looked at the programs that have been the most consistent as of late and made some very loose predictions.

He mentioned 21 teams and IUP wasn’t one of them. My point is there was a time when no list of top 21 D2 football programs was written about, whether it be January or October, that IUP wasn’t on. Another historically proud program, Shepherd, is also nowhere to be found. I think a tough question for IUP fans, and maybe also Shepherd fans is, would you be more optimistic as a Kutztown, Slippery Rock, or Cal fan over the next five years?

Another sport, but I read the other day that half of the preseason top 10 teams in D1 basketball aren't even ranked at this point, let alone in the top 10. If those polls, which feature teams much more heavily scrutinized than D2 teams, can be that wrong, it's pretty obvious that any such D2 poll should be taken with a large grain of salt.

[EyeoftheHawk]

I think that article takes the idea of "way too early" rankings to another level of absurdity. Given that a lot of key spots on all of these rosters are still up for grabs and will be filled by transfers that nobody, including the author, knows the identity of yet, to me it goes beyond "don't mean much" to "meaningless", or why even write it.

As stated in my original post, “it doesn’t matter.” He obviously just looked at the programs that have been the most consistent as of late and made some very loose predictions.

He mentioned 21 teams and IUP wasn’t one of them. My point is there was a time when no list of top 21 D2 football programs was written about, whether it be January or October, that IUP wasn’t on. Another historically proud program, Shepherd, is also nowhere to be found. I think a tough question for IUP fans, and maybe also Shepherd fans is, would you be more optimistic as a Kutztown, Slippery Rock, or Cal fan over the next five years?

[IUPbigINDIANS]

I think that article takes the idea of "way too early" rankings to another level of absurdity. Given that a lot of key spots on all of these rosters are still up for grabs and will be filled by transfers that nobody, including the author, knows the identity of yet, to me it goes beyond "don't mean much" to "meaningless", or why even write it.

space filler

[iupgroundhog]

Obviously polls don’t mean much and they especially don’t mean much in February. I’m only sharing this to point out the good old days are gone when IUP was always mentioned in these things. This is from Wayne Cavadi’s D2 newsletter this morning: https://www.ncaa.com/news/football/a...d=bd124bhz0tkc

Slippery Rock, Cal, and Kutztown from the PSAC were mentioned. Don’t come at me with the “this stuff doesn’t matter, yada, yada” responses because you’re right, it doesn’t matter. I’m only pointing out that IUP has fallen completely out of the conversation as of late.

I think that article takes the idea of "way too early" rankings to another level of absurdity. Given that a lot of key spots on all of these rosters are still up for grabs and will be filled by transfers that nobody, including the author, knows the identity of yet, to me it goes beyond "don't mean much" to "meaningless", or why even write it.