Men DII College News
Coming into this weekend Northwestern University had a huge mountain to climb.
With Loyola and Illinois State on the inside track to be the top two in the Great Midwest South, the Wildcats entered this weekend having to beat both of them to make the conference semifinals.
On Friday they took the first step, beating Illinois State in impressive fashion 44-17.
Scores are coming in this Men's DII College weekend and some major ramifications are underway.
Maine defeated Vermont 27-20 in the NEWCRC. Led by 22 points from Shea Wagner, who scored three tries and added two conversions and a penalty, the Black Bears put themselves in excellent position to win the conference.
With Allegheny entering their playoffs and with the Great Midwest figuring out who will be in their playoffs, this is an important weekend.
Friday's Illinois State vs Northwestern game followed by Sunday's Loyola vs Northwestern makes it a massive weekend for the Wildcats.
This past weekend we stopped by IUP to watch them play Wester Virginia, a game the Crimson Hawks won 52-3.
For various reasons (it was cold and wet, I had a three-hour drive after the game) I didn't write a detailed game report, so instead I thought I would approach this a little differently and tell you why IUP is ranked #1 among D2 teams right now.
It's weird times in the NEWCRC.
After being touted quite heavily in these pages for its competitiveness top to bottom, the league has in fact split rather dramatically. The bottom half of the standings is now struggling and it's really a case of some teams going through some rebuilding at the same time that others are returning the majority of really good units.