The Lost Post of 2012

As we were scouring the archives here at UMAC Central we came across a hidden gem of sorts; a post we constructed many months ago and intended to share with the world, yet, somehow this post got lost along the way. Fortune has smiled upon us and allowed us to find this lost article and while it may not be the most timely of posts, as the old saying goes, "Better late than never." We hope you enjoy the 2012 UMAC Central End of the Year Awards... only about 8 months late.


Oh what a long, strange journey it has been in the UMAC in 2012. It was a year full of twists and turns and lots, I mean lots, of ridiculous things which can really only be laughed at. In 2012, we had teams with two of things they should have had one of (Morris Quarterbacks) and teams with one of things they should have had two of (Crown uniforms). We had a plethora of delusional tweets and plenty of horrendous announcing. And, of course the officiating was as questionable as ever. But, it wasn't all bad. In fact, this year was a lot of fun - probably the most parity the conference has seen in a long time and a crazy finish to the year. In what will be our final post of the 2012 season we are proud to present the 2012 UMAC Central End of the Year Awards. Enjoy.


Most Ridiculous Method for Determining a 3-Way Tie
This award goes to the entire UMAC Conference. Accepting the award on behalf of the conference is UMAC Comissioner Corey Borchardt. We have been trying to picture the scenario when this system was decided upon and imagine it went a little something like this:

Corey Borchardt - I think maybe we should have some sort of tie-breaker in case there is a tie.
Random UMAC Coach - A tie? That will never happen.
CSS Coach  - Yeah. We are going to go undefeated anyway. You know we are a top ten defense in the nation...
Corey Borchardt - Well that's true. But just in case....
Greenville Coach - I say whoever has the most obnoxiously brightly colored uniforms wins the tie-breaker
UMM Coach - It should be the team that rotates the most quarterbacks. Or has the heaviest offensive line.
Eureka Coach - That's crazy! It should be the team that plays on the most slanted field.
MLC Coach - The team with the fewest total players!
Westminster Coach - No way. The team with the most passing attempts per game
Crown Coach - The team that has changed their logo the most times in the past five years
NWC Coach - The team with the most six-year starters.
MacMurray Coach - (He wasn't there. Because they probably didn't even have a coach at this time.)
Corey Borchardt - This is exhausting. How bout we just put all the teams in a hat and randomly draw one out.
Coaches - Yeah, that makes sense to us. It's really the only fair way to decide. Let's go read UMAC Central Blog now. Yay!

Please, please, please UMAC coaches and commissioner. Stop mailing it in and come up with a more logical system for determining a tie-breaker next year. This is absurd. 3 teams' entire seasons came down to pieces of paper being drawn out of a hat. This is supposed to be college football. Come on man!

Best In-Game Singing/Chanting Team
Greenville College - All we can say about this is, "I love EMAP. I love EMAP. I love EMAP." We did some research and discovered that EMAP means, "Every Man a Panther" - you're welcome for that little nugget of information. I mean I love non-stop gregorian chants during a football game as much as the next guy, but let's leave the chanting where it belongs - in the softball dugout.

Best Post-Game Singing Team
Northwestern College - This one isn't even close. After the game we were able to see Northwestern play live, they gathered for a postgame huddle and to end it they all stand and sing their team song. The harmonies were so beautiful it nearly brought tears to our eyes. Of course, as the Eagles are probably the only team in the nation with an honorary choir coach (http://www.nwc.edu/web/guest/crossing-the-invisible-line), it comes as no surprise they would champion this award.

Best Announcers
St. Scholastica - No surprise here. Some favorite quotes on the season include, "Get out the DNA test!", "Nick Thiry - BEAST MODE!", and "Apparently Scholastica doesn't know that this is a weapons-free campus because they keep shooting themselves in the foot."

Fastest Tortoise Award
Minnesota Morris - First, allow us to give some background information on the name of this award. Tortoises are known for being slow animals, thus being the fastest tortoise is, in fact, not a particularly impressive accomplishment. Are we all up to speed now? Good. So how does this pertain to Morris you say? Thank you for asking. While the Cougars did finish in fourth place, they were pretty irrelevant as they lost to all of the top 3 teams and were never a legitimate threat to win the conference. Although, they were better than the 5 other teams of the conference... thus making them the fastest tortoise... which is better than being the slowest tortoise I suppose.

Most Dangerous Field
MacMurray College - This is actually for the entire nation, not just the UMAC. Between the endzone that can only go eight yards deep before turning into Bunker Hill, a field that contains more rocks than a quarry, and lines that look like the kindergarteners got into the chalk again it is a surprise that no one has died on their field yet. We hear the U.S. Army is actually going to start doing training on this field to prepare the troops for going into combat zones.


The Block Out the Sun Award
Minnesota Morris' guards - The Cougars' guards start every play from a two-point stance. Need we say more?

Ironic Tweet of the Year
Eureka SID Bryan Moore
This tweet by Bryan was in response to our suggestion that Eureka was focusing more on Sam Durley's rise to fame than winning games. The ironic part comes after this tweet because the Eureka Fighting Durleys lost all three remaining games following the reply, including a humbling loss at the hands of the lowly Highlanders. In reply to your tweet, Mr. Moore: Yes, it appears so.







Most Deceptive Team 

Greenville College- To begin with, the Panthers lull you to sleep by chanting for the entire game as previously mentioned. But the deception really kicks in at the beginning of the game when the "Panthers" show up in Tiger uniforms. All week teams were expecting to be playing against the Panthers, but instead the Tigers showed up. Lesson learned. Never trust a chanting panther.

This is a panther

This is a tiger

Interesting Stat of the Year
As anyone in the nation who pays attention to college football knows, on September 1st (week 1), Eureka QB Sam Durley set the all-time NCAA record for passing yards in a game as he threw for 736 yards against Knox College. But what most people in the nation who pay attention to college football don't know, is over the next 4 games combined Mr. Durley passed for 755 yards. Now I'm not saying breaking a 12-year old national record against a team who boasts the third-worst defense in all of college football and has only won 3 games in the last 3 years is not impressive. But after noting his stats the next 4 weeks after setting the mark, I think it says less about the player who broke the record and more about who the team the record was broken against.

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Congratulations to all of the award winners! Graduating seniors, you will be missed, enjoy your transition into the "real world". Everyone else, put in some hard work this off-season, make yourselves and your teams better, and we look forward to seeing some good competition in the UMAC next year.

Signing off for the year,

-UMAC Central