Looking ahead to Saturday? You bet. This should be a good one — not only for the games Keith McMillan and I are attending but the other games on the schedule as well.
Keith and I fly out today to Chicago and will see UW-Eau Claire at UW-Whitewater in the afternoon, Wheaton at North Central at night. All four of these teams are already on my ballot (not in the order the rest of the voters have, however), so I’m looking forward to seeing in person where they might stack up.
But even without those games it should be a good day of football.
Game that won’t live up to previous years: Bridgewater at Hampden-Sydney. This game should still be pretty good, it’s just that the last time Hampden-Sydney hosted, it came down to the wire. We urge all attending this game to cheer responsibly. First team to make a defensive stop wins.
Game that will be close but shouldn’t be: Guilford at Greensboro. These city rivals are about on the same level but Greensboro hasn’t shown much this season and Guilford has to be worried about where its next win is coming from.
Game that should be close but won’t be: No. 25 Whitworth at Eastern Oregon. Remember when EOU was in Division III? Yeah, it wasn’t that long ago. But Whitworth should be able to win this one handily.
Retired Trophy Game of the Week: RPI at Coast Guard. RPI will take the Shot Glass home for good. Yet another rivalry that Coast Guard is abandoning in dropping its program down from the Liberty League to the New England Football Conference. No more Mug, no more Shot Glass, and now the Secretary’s Cup is going to be played in September? Scratch that off the list of key rivalry games.
First to seven wins: Franklin and Marshall has scored nine points per game, Muhlenberg 16.7, and even that is inflated by the 30 points against The College of New Jersey, some of which were gift-wrapped. Last year, 15-10 F&M.
Top 25 upset waiting to happen: No. 16 Carthage. They need to find that offense, and fast. The trip to Millikin is not an easy one and neither is the opponent.
Getting off the schneid: Best shot, I think, is Massachusetts Maritime breaking its eight-game losing streak, traveling to Framingham State.
Off the hype machine: Remember what a big deal Christopher Newport/Shenandoah was last season? Hmm, not so much right now. Not only are both teams down from last season, it’s not even definite they are the top two teams in the USAC, as Ferrum already has put Shenandoah away.
Wish you were here: In a perfect world filled with time travel and New York Mets World Series trophies, I’d love to catch #22 Hampden-Sydney and #23 Bridgewater in what is as close as you’ll get to a “must win” game in Week 5.
Then I’d hop in my rocket ship and zip out to Chicago for the #18 Wheaton/North Central game. Fortunately Pat and Keith will broadcast the game live for us. Bring me back a slice of deep dish pizza, guys.
Don’t sleep on this one: Stevens Point is 0-2 against Division III teams thanks to HSU and Linfield and the Pointers have nary a Top 25 vote. #14 UW-Lax is 1-0 against Division III teams and hosting Stevens Point for their home opener. Advantage Lax, right?
With this conference, who knows. I’m guessing this will be a nail biter especially if the Eagles take a little while to shake the rust off after not playing since September 10. Nothing like a two-week bye in September.
Most likely Top 25 Team to Lose: I concur with Senor Coleman and like Millikin to beat #16 Carthage on a fun opening day for CCIW play. Isn’t agreement boring?
I don’t think either team loses, but it’ll be interesting to see what new QBs at #4 HSU and #20 Salisbury do against Howard Payne and Newport News respectively.
Gordon’s super ridiculous pick of the night: Puget Sound recovers from a disappointing loss to La Verne and surely defeats Willamette. Gordon dusts off all his bad UPS puns – not that there are any good ones – and wows a WB sitcom TV executive who happens to read the Sunday Daily Dose. Gordon inks a three year deal for the long-anticipated return of “Sister, Sister.”
Saturday night’s alright: Aside from our broadcast of NCC/Wheaton, Saturday night is sort of quiet. #17 St. John Fisher travels to Hartwick which will give us a chance to see what the Cards do without All-American Mark Robinson. Plus it may be a chance to listen to J.C. DeLass who does a phenomenal job for WYSL.com.
And night owls should check out Lewis & Clark/Chapman which starts at 10 PM EST. I’ve got a good feeling about this one for L&C. Then again, that doesn’t say much, given my prognostication skills.
Deep-dish pizza — we got you there man. Good stuff. Yummy. Cheese. And since I didn’t have lunch, it isn’t too dangerous to my attempted diet.
Two real nice stadiums we saw today, also talked to both coaches at North Central and Wheaton. Looking forward to a great game tomorrow.
Gorden – this will be the third game for the HSU QB (Jordy Bernhard). He played nearly the whole game against Louisiana College and went the whole way in a 14-0 win against both Mississippi College and the elements. Interesting context here is that Bernhard and the QB at HPU, Adam Johnson, were teammates at Coppell HS in the D/FW Metroplex.
Nice story on Johnson in today’s Dallas Morning-News, which named him the regional player of the week.
Props to the Mississippi College SID for this game release!
http://www.mc.edu/athletics/football/GameNotes/UMHBNotes.pdf
BfB:
I was giving him a pass on the weather-affected game and figured this was his first start.