We’ve watched enough football to know the basics about how the game is played. There seems to be 11 players on a side. Usually a penalty is called if there are more.
To that end, our All-America teams have always included 11 players on offense and 11 on defense. We also name three specialists.
Oddly enough, the American Football Coaches Association does the same. Seems like that’s a pretty good model to go by.
Except, not everyone who publishes an All-American team has the team’s legitimacy in mind. Not when in this past week, a “team” comes out with 35 first-teamers, a similar number of second- and third-teamers, plus, to my best count, one hundred and eighty-seven “honorable” mention players.
It ceases to become an All-American team when it mentions all of America!
Here’s a hint: There should never be more All-Americans than there are teams in America. There shouldn’t be 21 quarterbacks on an All-American team (oh, and by the way, if you’re naming 21 quarterbacks, surely one should be Capital’s Rocky Pentello).
There is nothing honorable about the mention these players have received. It is false hope, a blatant grab at attention from someone at the bottom of the heap. If you were named to this team, especially if you’re below the second team, I’m sorry — it just isn’t worth the PDF file it’s listed on. They’re just trying to get you to buy their products.
It’s sad. Until last year there were three legitimate All-American teams in Division III. Now there are just two: AFCA and D3football.com.
Hopefully, one of the 21 QBs is HSU’s Jordan Neal. His absence from even the front page poll is, IMO, rather conspicuous. 😉
Ehh … I wouldn’t even say two.
The AFCA loves to name (force) seniors. Last year, only four of 25 first teamers were non-seniors, whereas D3football.com had 10 non-seniors on their first team. If my memory serves me correctly, that’s normal practice for them.
I got this comment via e-mail:
Here’s why: guess how many more times the “other team,” and thus the sponsor who put it together, will get mentioned in the media by writers who don’t know better.
Sadly, that’s marketing 101 at its ugly worst, Pat. Podunk U is just going to be thrilled to have seven players named to an “all-America” team, no matter how stupid the selection process (if any) was …. and they’re going to put out releases trumpeting the fact. Besides, doesn’t everyone carry nine punters on their honorable mention team? 🙁
And Josh, no, Jordan Neal was not one of the QBs.
This is what I’m trying to do, combat the stupidity.
Yikes, all this talk of schools having four, five, six players named … and Bridgewater (Va.) only gets one player out of nearly 300 mentioned?
It’s looking like a down year for us! 🙂
Damn! It’s a conspiracy, I’m sure of it! 🙂
And Garcon is not one of the umpteen WRs
cwru70 Says:
The 24th of July, 2006 at 10:28 pm
And Garcon is not one of the umpteen WRs
And I’d say he’s one of the top five players in the country. Was on the sidelines for the Stagg Bowl … was very impressed.
Perhaps Don didn’t catch ESPN2 that afternoon.
mark my words John Kemper from Linfield will be on the post season team at center. I wached him fill in last year several times. This kid is good.
Which postseason team, one with 100 players or one with 300? 🙂
Can someone email me and tell me what this list is and where I can find it. I would like to examine this very “gracious” All-America list.
ryanlarsen@nuorbit.com
It’s publicity for the student-athlete. That’s not a bad thing.
By lying to the student-athlete and to the world how good they are? No thanks, I’m not in favor of that.
I wouldn’t say Don is lying about some of these kids. It is obvious, however, that he forces some of the HM kids so he can get “Football Gazette” on as many .edu sites as possible. One good example is the QB from Maranatha Baptist Bible (Nick Peterson). I’m sure he’s a good kid and all, but MBB won all of four games, with him throwing more interceptions than touchdowns. Not AA-caliber if you ask me.
But another way of looking at the nearly 300 kids named is that Don chose to list who he (or whoever does the picking) thinks the top 2% are (assuming there are around 15,000 Division III football players). In other words, we can look at it as him not recognizing 98% of the country. 🙂
Bob A-
How is it lying to the student athlete? It’s a preseason team- no one knows how good of a 2006 season any of these kids will have- it’s all speculation at this point.
Well, basically because not EVERYONE on this team can be an All-American. Even if they were ALL this good, someone would still have to decide who the best players are at each position.
Why should we coddle our kids and tell them all they are an All-American? Is this the special olympics? Does everyone get a medal? Are we keeping score in Division III or are we playing T-ball?
I tallied the number of Don’s preseason AAs per team, and here are the teams with five or more;
9 – Alfred (DB, DE, DT, OL, P, PK, QB, RB, WR)
7 – Delaware Valley (DB, DE, LB, LB, OL, PK, WR)
6 – Howard Payne (LB, LB, P, QB, WR, WR)
5 – Union (DE, LB, QB, RB, WR, WR)
5 – Bethel (DE, LB, OL, OL, RB)
5 – Brockport (DT, DT, OL, PK, TE)
5 – Cortland (DB, DB, DT LB, LB)
5 – Mt. St. Joseph (DE, LB, OL, PK, RB)
5 – Ohio Wesleyan (DB, DE, OL, OL, RB)
5 – UW-Oshkosh (DB, DE, LB, OL, RB)
5 – UW-Whitewater (DT, OL, OL,, QB, RB)
Other notables;
4 – Linfield (DT, DT, OL, P)
4 – Mary Hardin-Baylor (DB, LB, P, RB)
4 – Merchant Marine (DB, DE, LB, PK) – won three games in ‘05
3 – Mount Union (QB, RB, RB) – where’s Garcon? defensive guys?
3 – Rowan (DE, DE, QB)
2 – St. John’s (DE, WR)
Interesting that an 11-1 Wabash team who gave up only 10 pts a game has 1 AA (LB) and a 2-9 Cornell squad has 2 AAs (both LBs) having given up 30 ppg in ‘05.
CAL LUTHERAN WAS 8-1 LAST YEAR WITH A DEFENSE THAT WAS IN THE TOP 20 STATISTICALLY HAS NOT ONE PLAYER MENTIONED.
Pat,
Thank you for your constant support of D3 football. However, I must give you some advice. Don’t take criticism so personally. If you are in the media, you can’t have such thin skin. And your’s is like “paper mache”.
As for your pre-season All-America team, perhaps, you can leave the task of picking the team to more qualified individuals. There are better ways to go about picking it. Therefore, you would not have to deal with the many criticisms involved with leaving deserving players off the team. For instance, an SID from each conference or other prominent media members. Even Ric, who knows more than just about anybody
Pat,
Thank you for your constant support of D3 football. However, I must give you some advice. Don’t take criticism so personally. If you are in the media, you can’t have such thin skin. And your’s is like “paper mache”.
As for your pre-season All-America team, perhaps, you can leave the task of picking the team to more qualified individuals. There are better ways to go about picking it. Therefore, you would not have to deal with the many criticisms involved with leaving deserving players off the team. For instance, an SID from each conference or other prominent media members. Even Ric, who knows more than just about anybody
when it comes to D3 football, would not be able to pick the team by himself. There are just too many teams.
Thanks for your concern.
However, I do not pick the preseason All-America team by myself. It is a team effort. I simply am the front man for the All-America teams and the Top 25, to protect the anonymity of the voters and contributors and shield them from the criticism that biased fans inevitably provide.
Having voted on polls for other groups where my name was made public, I know full well what fans (and parents and coaches) will do.
Umm, did I miss something, chip? When did Pat take criticism so personally?
Sorry for the confusion kid…it really didn’t pretain to this post…it had to do with some previous responses in other posts having to do with the pre-season All-American team.
A long time back, well before d3football.com, Don Hansen was supporting and promoting DIII football through the FB Gazette. Over the years he has done an admirable job.
Some years back d3football.com came along, and I think that most people who follow DIII football will agree that d3fb.com provides more current information, better content, photos and articles. In short, d3fb.com simply does it better.
During the past few years, the DIII SID’s have bolted the FB Gazette in mass and come over to d3fb.com. At the same time, Don Hansen has experienced some health problems and I believe has now turned over day to day operation of the FB Gazette to his son. The FB Gazette has clearly declined and no longer has the resources or contacts to put together a meaningful All-America Team.
Having said that, d3fb.com writing an article critical of the FB Gazette is kind of like the New York Times writing an article critical of the New York Post. They are simply not in the same class anymore and quite frankly, d3fb.com would be classier by simply ignoring the shortcomings of the FB Gazette, while perhaps appreciating the fact that Don Hansen did more to create the market that they now serve then anyone else.
You display impressive (and accurate, to my understanding) inside knowledge of the situation.
Normally I wouldn’t bother to criticize this selection publicly, except that there are still people and newspapers out there who take this team seriously. It must be exposed for the sham that it is.
The post season team is what really counts. Let’s see how it all plays out.
tlm- well said!
I’m starting a petition to have Don Hansen change the name of his “pre-season all-american team” to “pre-season all-american candidates team”. We must stop this sham. If we can just save one kid from buying a $20 tee shirt from his site our efforts will be worthwhile.
Please support this site by buying the 2006 Kickoff guide!
Tim has a point; however, because many don’t know that Don Hansen doesn’t have the resources to do an informative job, I think is is right for D3.com to call this to people’s attention. Eventually, people will not use them as a source and the dropoff in subscribers/readers of all things D3 might make an inpact so that they reconsider their efforts. Like most media outlets, their revenue is based on sales of some sort – whether it’s merchandise, subscriptions, or advertising. Publishing “faulty” info eventually will impact these revenues, but it will happen more quickly as the word spreads.
Without FB Gazette we wouldn’t know how well we have it with DIIIfootball.com. Thanks Pat for something we all enjoy and are proud of.
Well I just looked at the list myself and I’d also like to recognize the simple fact that Ohio Northern received two honorable mentions. DB Rusty Midlam and OL Kevin Thomas both got the nod.
It would be great if they hadn’t already played four years and graduated.
Well realitycheck, that is Ohio Northern’s reputation as a football factory.
ONU finds the talent, gives them four years of education and football exposure, and then goes and graduates them the year before they burst onto the national scene!
What a bummer! 😉 LOL
My only comment on this matter when Pat first mentioned it to me was “Why not just call it a Preseason All-American Watch List?” like the D-IA Butkus Awards and Outland Trophies, etc. put together. Since anyone technically qualifies as a potential All-American, you protect your legitimacy, although skipping over Pentello, Garcon and some others does show a lack of knowledge of the situation. A watch list carries some weight and still gets the mention by SIDs and small-town news outlets without using the “everybody’s a winner” approach that undermines the legitimacy of being selected.
I know that we at D3football.com can be critical, and rather blunt, about others’ efforts to cover the division, and I know we don’t throw such criticism out there lightly, or by scattershot. We just expect Division III football covered with a certain standard of decency, if not by legitimate journalistic standards. We hold ourselves accountable when we speak on matters, and if you’ll notice, most criticism comes one of two ways: On the blog or message board, where opinions are exchanged freely and the opportunity to reply or rebut is available, or by a columnist who puts his name and photo on his work and subjects himself to the masses’ reactions to his printed word.
I know in Around the Nation, when we look back at the preseason polls in the year-end wrap-up, we poke fun at our own missteps as well as pat ourselves on the back, and when we compare preseason polls (like Lindy’s, S&S, Don Hansen, SI and others), we do so acknowledging that none is more right than any other when a game has yet to be played.
Anyway, I don’t want to get too serious about it, I just figured those were a couple of legitimate things to add to the discussion.
For the record, I just wrapped up the Division II preview for USA Today (since Pat was hogging the D3), and just about every one of their websites recognized their players named to the Don Hansen A-A, treating it as a news release and a headline-worthy item. That proved Ron Boerger’s theory of mass-marketing to pretty much be correct.
Because, generally speaking, no biased observer is going to look critically at the team or how it was put together. They’ll just say ‘hey, our team has x All-Americans, sweet!” and maybe see who their rivals got named to the team.
But as we stated, for the honor to be legitimate and really mean something to the player, there must be fewer than 200-some-odd All-Americans.
Doesn’t there?
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