Michigan’s second of two scrimmage opponents in the Big House on Sunday, Concordia (Wisc.) is a D-3 school based in Mequon, Wisconsin. They have animated .GIFs of lightning on their athletics website. This is not a joke (at least not one that they’re in on).
The Falcons were an awful squad last season – which, to be fair, was their first as a varsity squad – and Michigan should have a pretty easy time competing with them (hence the mini-preview instead of the full treatment). They finished #129 (our of 179 D-3 teams) to LaxPower’s computer rankings last season, despite their 8-6 record.
They were slaughtered 21-1 by Wittenberg, a team that Michigan’s club roster dispatched pretty easily last season. Against Michigan’s newly-varsity team, it shouldn’t be much of a contest, or the Wolverines are in for a loooooong 2012.
A trio of Falcons made the all-Midwest Lacrosse Conference honorable mention team. Freshmen attack Cody Chassels, midfielder Justin Krause, and defenseman Curtis Pridham are the players who earned distinction. Chassels put up 45 points to lead the team, while Krause scored 22 points and won 73 of 163 faceoffs. Zack Davis played every minute between the pipes for Concordia-Wisc.
My prediction: Hap-bag will have a field day with this.
Like I said before, the club kids are going to need a little confidence builder after Providence. 2012 and 2013 are going to be awful to watch under this strategy of using club kids, but based on the AD’s comments this was the only way to keep the donations coming in. Hopefully it doesn’t back fire.
From how recruiting seems to be going so far, I’d say it’s not back firing. But time will tell. Can’t criticize for catering to donors. Without them, lacrosse wasn’t getting added at Michigan. Because of them, Michigan was able to do something no big football school has been able to do in 30 years. I wish more schools had donors like that.
What exactly is a “club kid”? Is a player that transfers from Syracuse/Bucknell/West Point/etc varsity to the (former) UM/MSU club team a “club kid”?
What about players recruited by other D1 (or D2/D3) schools that instead went to UM/MSU?
Guess what…Any player that earns CCLA/All American club honors would do just fine at all but the Top 5-10 D1 teams.
Much like the differences between D1-D2-D3, the differences between all but the Top 15 D1 teams and everyone else is a matter of depth. The starters at UM (former club), MSU, BYU, etc are in fact varsity caliber players at most schools.
There might be an exception here and there, but in general the club kids are not DI players. If they were, they would be playing DI. The All American club kids would be decent DIII players maybe DII, which can be good lacrosse, but its not DI. Size, speed and skill are dramatically different. In general its the same going down from DI to DII to DIII. Those attributes will be dramatically different between UM versus Providence, St. Joes and Towson with UMs current roster. Again, there might be an exception here and there but the 25 guys they kept from UMs club team are going to have a difficult year. Just looking at last year the UM team scrimmaged Bellamaire a low end DI program lost by 8 or 9 goals and Wittenberg a top 20 DIII and beat them by a couple of goals. So a roster of DII and DIII guys maybe a guy or two that makes the roster at a lower end DI team.
Hap, I’ve played D1 and your analysis on this entire matter has been way off. Outside of the Top 10-15 or so, the non-starters at almost every other D1 school are pretty much interchangeable with the starters of Top D2 -D3 teams. Keep in mind that D1 rosters carry between 40-48 players and only some of the guys are getting partial scholarships. In other words, lots of guys are paying all or most of their own way.
Also, some of the biggest factors, again outside of the Top 10-15 D1 teams, isn’t necessarily size, speed, and skill. It’s academics and cost. For example, many of the top players at the Top D2 schools could have easily played at Top D1 schools if it wasn’t for their grades in high school. Many of those kids are also local products of nearby colleges that couldn’t afford to play at bigger name schools.
Furthermore, there are many examples (such as the DCC kid that transfered from Syracuse to MSU and earned club All American…as well as the UM kid that made it to the MLL) that prove that top club players would be far more than “decent DIII and maybe DII players”. Again, many of those guys were recruited out of high school to quality D1 and D3 lacrosse programs.
So you believe the club kids and the midlevel DI programs players are of the same level? Meaning you think day in and day out the club kids at UM, BYU or whatever the strong club teams could go toe to toe with midlevel DI teams? Teams such as Navy, Rutgers, Towson, Dartmouth, Marist and Bryant all teams that were in the bottom 1/3 of rankings(40-60) last year? We will get to see very soon.
Also, there are outliers in every normal distribution curve when it comes to anything including lacrosse, but the one club kid playing in the MLL among 120 guys is not exactly validation for the lacrosse prowess of the college club league.
Yes, starters on top club teams (as well as other top club players) are more than capable of playing with mid and lower level D1 players. Some of those top club players might not be starters at the mid/lower D1 level, but they would absolutely make the team at the very least.
Other examples: 1) Central Mich player that just transfered to Ohio State’s varsity team. He is expected to be a major contributor. 2) UM’s recently graduated standout defenseman played 2 years at Bucknell. 3) MSU had a standout player a few years ago who was a transfer from OSU. 4) Detroit-Mercy had a transfer player from MSU.
There’s more than “one example” (I’ve already given 6 off the top of my head) and they’re not just “outliers”.
Tewarton finalist kevin crowley played mcla for simon fraser.
Just came from the first scrimmage. 11-10 providence in overtime. Teams looked pretty even. Michigan had a tough time on face-offs and clearing from longpoles but got excellent goalie play from emil weiss. Yealy was impressive as always. Will Meter looked good for his first game and had two big goals.
I thought Weiss and Meter both looked great for their first official action as college players. I’ll have more thoughts up later today or tomorrow.