RedNeck wrote:Damn it Scott, why do you always have such good answers. I was looking at it from a perspective of the fans having interest in the home contests and also recruiting......." hey we play such and such at home". I like your answer, but the non con home schedule is weak.
hehe....sorry.
I guess, would you rather have home games against Silver Lake (in Wisconsin...a heavy recruiting area for our various teams lately...1 on the men's team, 4 on the women's team) and Trinity Christian (south Chicago suburbs...also big recruiting) or games against Pacific and Southeastern Louisiana (like last year...neither are areas where we do much recruiting).
We also have non-conference matchups against Wisconsin, Hannibal-Lagrange, UIC, Iowa, Creighton, Chicago State, Loyola Chicago, two against Eastern Illinois. Instead of playing against teams from all over the country (like last year), we're playing teams that are almost all within our usual recruiting area and are much easier to get to. How many non-conference games do we have to fly to this year?...any? Furthest one would be Creighton, and they're just across Iowa. Our current starters (who, I think we can say at this point, are pretty good)...2 are from Illinois, one from Iowa (Sioux City...just up the river from Omaha/Creighton), one from South Dakota and one from Wisconsin.
So, I think of it more as both saving travel costs as well focusing on the areas where we seem to get most of our players.
And I'm not sure that the average student really knows the difference between most low-level Div. I schools and a Div. II or NAIA school. They're more likely to know someone who goes to Trinity Christian or Hannibal-LaGrange than someone who goes to Savannah State or Southeastern Louisiana. Same as the difference between us playing Valpo or U of Indy...most students won't know the difference.
one of those schools decided that Trolls would be a good idea for a nickname (are their women the Lady Trolls?)
Scott Lawson - Board Admin