Monthly Archives: November 2005

Looking ahead to Saturday

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Yes, definitely looking ahead to Saturday. In fact, I’ve been looking forward to this weekend for a little over a month, since I decided I was going to spend Week 11 at the Union/RPI game. I have to be in the northeast on Sunday to do the selection show on ESPNews and felt this was easily the best use of my time on Saturday. Expect a photo gallery Sunday at some point from the game.

Top 25 team most likely to get upset: It’s not fair to pick Union — even though Union is in the Top 25 and RPI is not, I think they’re pretty evenly matched, plus it’s a rivalry game, which makes it unfair to pick. Thiel is a consideration, so is Rowan and Delaware Valley. Augustana is possible. So is either IIAC team. Going with Coe, I guess.

Top 25 team most likely to have the game in hand by 10:00 of the first quarter: Linfield. Next question.

Tiebreaker most likely to need a slide rule: Keep an eye on that MIAA. If Albion doesn’t beat Olivet and the right other things happen, it could get kind of messy.

Rivalry foreclosed: This weekend will be the last great Secretaries’ Cup game, between Kings Point and Coast Guard. The “Little Army/Navy Game” will move to September next year because Coast Guard is bailing out of the Liberty League. Talk about taking the life out of a rivalry game. Imagine Michigan and Ohio State playing in Week 2?

Why do they have their number? Frostburg State has dealt Salisbury some puzzling losses in recent years, in Regents’ Cup play. (The two Division III state schools in Maryland have a trophy game.) In 2002 and 2003, Frostburg (6-5, 4-5) stuck a fork in some pretty good Salisbury teams (9-2, 7-2). It can happen again. Would like to see if Salisbury’s Dustin Johnson can get a medical redshirt year, though. Once upon a time you could get a medical redshirt if playing four games of a 10-game football season. Otherwise, his college career is done.

Don’t go away mad, just … Anyone notice the midseason cancellation of the Lawrence/Macalester game? Lawrence needed the date to make up its conference game against Illinois College, which was postponed after an IC soccer student-athlete drowned on campus. Ignominious end to Dennis Czech’s coaching career.

Worst predictions ever: Hmm, so someone predicted F&M would go 10-0. (Yeah, someone who writes for this site.) The Diplomats need a win Saturday against Gettysburg to finish 5-5. The quarterback whom we were told “dominated” the Centennial last year has completed just 42% of his passes and thrown four TDs compared to 11 interceptions. Yay, hyperbole. Guess dominated is a relative term — he completed 48% of his passes last year. Must be something in the water — the local paper apparently wrote a story today under the headline “Diplomats on Brink of Dream Season.” Guess “nightmare” was too big to fit in the space. No seriously, here’s the story. If I were editing that story, I’d have said something like “Diplomats Hope to Salvage Season.”

That’s all I got. Now over to Gordon.

Insider: Championship

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Today is Friday November 11, 2005 and there are only two teams in the New England Football Conference that are preparing to play tomorrow, Fitchburg and Curry College. Tomorrow is the conference championship game for the NEFC and potentially the last game that the seniors on the field tomorrow will have a chance to play.

Today is also potentially the last practice for a group of seniors that I have had the privilege to play with for Four years. Us seniors that were honored this past Saturday have compiled the best record in school history with a record of 26-13.

After practice today the team will get together at a certain location at Elliot field to go through what we call “The Burning of the Shoe” which is when coach puts a cleat into a whole and sets it on fire while the team stands around the flames and the seniors get to tell their stories to the younger guys and thank everyone that has been involved in the program. The “Burning of the Shoe” usually is an emotional time for everyone as it could be the last time that that group will ever be together.

Saturday will be a special day for us Falcons as we have been waiting for this day for an entire year. Last year in the championship game we were beat by Curry College in a very tough, hard played football game. Well this year we get the chance to avenge that loss as both teams have taken care of their side of the division and will meet for the right to represent the conference in the NCAA playoffs.

Earlier this year we opened our season with a 28-13 win against Curry, however I expect that both teams will come into the game tomorrow very well prepared and that the game could come down to who has the ball last. Although I have had a tough season I am looking forward to the opportunity to redeem myself tomorrow either by punting well and putting our defense in good field position, or with a big kick that will help the offense.

In all of my years of playing organized football I have won a couple of championships on the Pop- Warner level, but nothing ever as big as the game that will be played tomorrow. Out of all of the DIII football teams in the country only 32 teams are going to play for a national championship, and with a win tomorrow we will get that opportunity

To all the seniors playing their final game tomorrow congratulations on playing four years of college football. Everyone else playing tomorrow enjoy every opportunity because it is going to go fast.

Seeding teams 1-32

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Alright, let’s try something different. Take the 32 teams selected using the NCAA’s criteria, but seed them nationally. What would we get?

This is a seeding of the 32 teams using the NCAA’s seeding criteria. It’s a little rough, obviously, because there are some seeming inconsistencies in the NCAA’s regional rankings, ones which we’ve had to take into account here since they would use the same criteria.

1 Linfield
2 UW-Whitewater
3 St. John’s
4 Wabash
5 Delaware Valley
6 Trinity (Texas)
7 Occidental
8 Union
9 Mount Union
10 Ithaca
11 Thiel
12 Ferrum
13 Mary Hardin-Baylor
14 Rowan
15 Augustana
16 Wesley
17 North Central
18 Concordia-Moorhead
19 Coe
20 Bridgewater (Va.)
21 Monmouth
22 Hardin-Simmons
23 Hobart
24 RPI
25 St. John Fisher
26 Mt. St. Joseph
27 Central
28 Willamette
29 Adrian/Albion
30 Johns Hopkins
31 Curry/Fitchburg State
32 Lakeland

So that leaves this for brackets:

Linfield Bracket
No. 32 Lakeland at No. 1 Linfield
No. 17 North Central at No. 16 Wesley

No. 24 RPI at No. 9 Mount Union
No. 25 St. John Fisher at No. 8 Union

Wabash Bracket
No. 28 Willamette at No. 5 Delaware Valley
No. 21 Monmouth at No. 12 Ferrum

No. 20 Bridgewater (Va.) at No. 13 Mary Hardin-Baylor
No. 29 Adrian/Albion at No. 4 Wabash

St. John’s Bracket
No. 30 Johns Hopkins at No. 3 St. John’s
No. 19 Coe at No. 14 Rowan

No. 22 Hardin-Simmons at No. 11 Thiel
No. 27 Central at No. 6 Trinity (Texas)

UW-Whitewater Bracket
No. 26 Mt. St. Joseph at No. 7 Occidental
No. 23 Hobart at No. 10 Ithaca

No. 18 Concordia-Moorhead at No. 15 Augustana
No. 31 Curry/Fitchburg State at No. 2 UW-Whitewater

Now, believe it or not, this only requires 12 flights. Hobart and Ithaca is a drive, RPI and Mount Union is a drive (seriously, 496.6 miles), Adrian/Albion can drive to Wabash, St. John Fisher and Union can drive. So if someone can pick up the tab for the extra 10 flights, we can get this done. Who’s with me? 🙂