OK, so I’ve written in the past about my concerns about Rowan (Immediate thoughts on Week 7 and Week 9). Today my fears came true. Rowan couldn’t muster up enough offense (or, according to observers, much of a sense of urgency) in a 20-19 loss at William Paterson. When was the last time William Paterson was the lead story on D3football.com? Sept. 19, 2002, for a Mark Simon Feature on a pair of Pioneers who returned to football after returning from military service.
Funny, when I started to write that sentence, my assumption was “never” — but I checked it out.
Rowan needs to come out firing next week. They won’t get into the playoffs with two losses, not in their final two games. There might be a two-loss team that gets in the field somewhere, but not in this situation. Rowan wins and it’s in (beating both Cortland State and Montclair, the other two teams they’d be tied with). If Montclair wins, Cortland goes to the playoffs because Cortland beat Montclair.
Nice little 32-0 run, Whitewater. That was another one of the early scores that sent ripples through knowledgeable D-III fans.
Who’d have thought that we could have six potential playoff teams meeting at the Monon Bell, Cortaca Jug and Dutchman Shoes games next week? Cortaca won’t have any effect on whether either team makes the playoffs (Cortland’s at-large bid chances are a longshot at best, they wouldn’t even be the best two-loss team out there) but Ithaca is in and Cortland will be scoreboard-listening. RPI almost didn’t make it to this dance, however, needing a late TD to beat Rochester.
Capital had another great day on defense. In fact, if you throw out the Mount Union game, Capital has allowed just 7.6 points per game all season. Usually I’m not in favor of throwing out a game to make a point, but Capital has allowed just 11.4 points per contest even with that game, and shoot, for most of the past decade the Purple Raiders have been the Priceline of offense — you know, name your own score.
Only today did McDaniel refute my hypothesis that their 4-1 season could very well turn into 4-6. The Green Terror had lost four in a row before beating Muhlenberg today 13-6.
Ferrum clinched its first playoff bid since 1990, UW-Whitewater its first since 1997, and Johns Hopkins its first ever. Welcome to the show. See you on ESPNews in a week.
If Crown plays Southwest Assemblies of God and nobody reports a score, does it count?
E-mail of the day:
Below is the result of your feedback form. It was submitted by
K (xxxxxx@comcast.net) on Saturday, November 05, 2005 at 09:55:34 AM
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Subject: What About Rowan
Notes: I consistanly monitor your website and I think that it great, however you never write anything about Rowan football. Rowan has been at the top of Division III football for many years and you never give them any respect. I would like to see anything about Rowan football Thanks
I think the moral of the story is, don’t complain about lack of respect on Saturday morning. Save it for the blog. Ugh.