2025 Season is here! and Valpo plays its lowest ranked opponent in 10 seasons with VU Lynchburg. VU Lynchburg is comparable to Missouri Baptist and College of Faith which were complete routes. This team did win its two NCCAA games a combined 109-6 and played a Division II / NAIA / FCS schedule otherwise. The offense will be coming off a disjointed season but I believe we have the best 4 deep (Mansaray/McNeeley/Simmons/Long) at RB in the conference. Defense will be completely new outside of Nose Tackle (Fowler/Morris) , Corner (Lendino) and Safety (Johnson)
I think Valpo dominates here and hits some big plays on the run to something to the tune of 45-7. You will see a lot of new faces especially in the third and fourth quarter. There will be fireworks after the game and Valpo will move on to a 1-0 record. Anything aside from this and you are looking at catastrophe starting week 3
There will be fireworks after the game
That would be difficult because its a 1pm kickoff! The fireworks are after the 2nd game against Adrian with a 6pm kick.
Just read the season preview on the athletics sites and it sure looks like we will be as small as we have been in many years across the projected starters on OL and DL. I show an average across the OL of 287# and 244# across the DL. Hopefully they are REALLY quick!
There will be fireworks after the game
That would be difficult because its a 1pm kickoff! The fireworks are after the 2nd game against Adrian with a 6pm kick.
Just read the season preview on the athletics sites and it sure looks like we will be as small as we have been in many years across the projected starters on OL and DL. I show an average across the OL of 287# and 244# across the DL. Hopefully they are REALLY quick!
IMO, in some ways FB has come a long way from the leather helmet era. In other ways it has returned to that era — especially in OL space with the emphasis on zone blocking. The technique puts a premium on size and strength. But what if, as 72 states, you just are smaller? Being a lighter, quicker zone blocker buys you very little against a bigger DL.
Showing my age 👴🏻, I played at Valpo in the single platoon era. We played in the ICC against Indiana State and Ball State along with Evansville, DePauw, Butler and St. Joe’s. I was an OG/ILB playing 60 minutes. I was always matched against guys 20-40 lbs. heavier than me - especially against ISU and BSU (but we beat both of them - VU 19-ISU 14, VU 48-BSU 40). Why? We won the LOS (oh, and had Dave Lass at QB as well 🙄). But not with brute force — we opened running holes with angle blocking, trap blocks, dbl teams and misdirection. I can’t remember ever having to do a straight-on drive block on a guy 40# bigger than me. We rolled out, ran play action, and waggled (threw back off the roll out) in the passing game because we could execute at a faster rate than the defense could react to. Same on D — we attacked the LOS faster than their bigger linemen could adjust to. But we were not unique to that era. Alabama won a national championship with a D line that averaged only 195 lbs. And that’s how Davidson turned around their years-long miserable program in only one season.
What I’m saying is you work with what you have and use schemes that optimize who you have. Today’s “undersized” 287# linemen can be trained to pull, trap, dbl team and, angle block but in today’s blocking philosophy that does not happen much anymore. Valpo grad, 236# All-Pro LG, two-time Super Bowl winner Fuzzy Thurston would agree.
Of course, what I’m talking about is not gonna impact either of our first two games.
Should start season 2-2. Not sure if we have a punchers chance versus Western Illinois, but has nice storyline going against Fox. Western Plays at U of Illinois in opener Friday and that should be a route, similar to their beat down at Indiana last year. Not sure if we can get an accurate indicator of how beatable Western is after their buy game in Champaign and then they have a bye week before us to prepare. Anyone know how much we are getting paid at Western and North Dakota?
@burnee77 WIU is paying us $120,000, not sure about North Dakota though since this contract has been made for so long, was originally supposed to be played in 2020 but moved to this year due to covid.
Agree that we should enter PFL play at 2-2. 👍🏻 Good scheduling for a transition year to get the kids in a positive mindset, learn the new system under game conditions and shake out the jitters.
Despite the Fox angle, I think we will be semi-competitive v. WIU and justify our pay check. OTHOH, ND is a legit bodybag loss (with $$$$ perks).
Some weird stuff going on over at their webpage. They still don't have a 2025 roster up. The 2024 roster had like 25 guys listed. The 2025 picture looks like about 70 players. It appears to be an historically Black college. No season preview available.
I don't know about the website but this is a legit school unlike the pineapple Valpo played a few years ago which appeared to be a scam school. That said, offensively I guess the number is 64 since Butler beat these guys 63-0 last year.
Hey guys! We are the student sports directors at WVUR. In addition to broadcasting home football/basketball/baseball games on the radio, we also have a student-run Friday sports talk show at 3 pm CT called The Xtra Point. We talk Valpo sports in addition to NFL, MLB, and other college sports.
We wanted to let you know that this Friday we will be airing a preseason interview we did with Coach Waddle - it was great to hear his hopes for this year, and we'd love for you to check it out. Show starts 3 pm this Friday as always and you can tune in at 95.1 FM in Valpo or on the TuneIn Radio app, just search for WVUR in the app.
Plus Saturday we have coverage starting at 12:20 pm with a studio pregame show and on-site pregame show starting at 12:45 pm before the 1 pm kickoff. We are working hard to increase WVUR coverage of VU sports this year and hope that if you are the radio-listening type, you will notice a big improvement this year. Hope you can tune in to the show or game!
Great news! Keep up the great coverage! Much appreciated! I’ll be tuning in from Texas!
Packed house today it seems.
Good luck to the student media team. We need more of that. My friends were in a sports media track when we were there but no one gave them many opportunities. Not sure how good the classes were anyway based on their comments regarding the curriculum
I'm listening to the game. It's halftime. My radio-based impression is that Keefe should've been pulled after the pick six. Maybe the coaches didn't want to hurt his confidence, but a clearly inferior opponent was given a chance to get back into the game.
I'm listening to the game. It's halftime. My radio-based impression is that Keefe should've been pulled after the pick six. Maybe the coaches didn't want to hurt his confidence, but a clearly inferior opponent was given a chance to get back into the game.
He had looked awful prior. Either some extremely bad throws or just not on the same page with multiple receivers leading me to think they were really bad throws.
...and with that, Keefe looks like a completely different guy in the 3rd Q.
