Leftover turkey…check.
Saturday afternoon sweats….check.
Eight great games to decide the regional finalists…check.
Pat Coleman and Keith McMillan went over the (Susquehanna) river and Frank Rossi and Mark Robinson went through the (Upstate NY) woods to bring you Muhlenberg-Wesley and St. John Fisher-Curry respectively on the NCAA Sports broadcasts.
The first game will be a match-up between the underrated, but very good Muhlenberg defense and a Wesley offense with great speed on the outside. The second game will be a test whether Curry has anything left after last week’s blowout of Hartwick and whether SJF can be caught watching the scoreboard a little in anticipation of a rematch with you-know-who. And Mark Robinson immediately becomes the all-time leading rusher in D3sports broadcasting history with his debut today.
Interesting games all over the place, though. Let’s hear about them.
Keith –
I completely agree. Maybe the argument isn’t who gets a fair shake at winning a national title but who gets a playoff birth. There is a little prestige in making the playoffs. Teams like WW, MHB and Mt. Union may be upset if they do not come away with a National Title but most teams are happy with a birth or at least one win.
The great thing about the playoffs is that the top teams usually always make it to the final 4 or at least 8. And the rest of the teams get to enjoy the ride.
My nitpicking just wishes NCWC could have been a 7 seed and maybe they would be in the quarterfinals right now. In the long run it would have not have mattered- but it would have been sweet.
As for the pollsters- They do a fine job and there should not be too much complaining about the top ranked teams. The lower echelon teams in the rankings are a little harder to judge. Everyone knows Mt. Union is better than NCW but is Salisbury? Muhlenburg? etc.
“But hey I am BiasD3FootballFan.”
Good point. Love the honesty.
We are getting a little ahead of ourselves, but a potential UMHB-UWW rematch or another Wesley trip out to Wisconsin, well, which seems more exciting to you?
The thing I think we’re seeing is Whitewater establishing itself as a legitimate year-to-year power, not just in the WIAC, but nationally.
Devil’s advocate might wonder where they’d be (perhaps same place) if the comeback vs. UW-L hadn’t gone so well. But that’s football, UW-W has absolutely rolled from there and looked every bit the part of legit No. 2.
Central took a huge step forward today in my mind, dominating a St. John’s team that looked to have holes on defense when we saw them at the end of Oct., but looked pretty sharp offensively. Their 7 probably more of a surprise to me than Central’s 37.
Would that be enough of a step forward to give the Dutch a chance in Alliance?
Well, we are getting ahead of ourselves for sure … but would be a couple of storied programs meeting if nothing else. Where to go if UMHB and UWW play that same day?
SJF and MUC will be getting very familiar with each other these next few years.
The quote from last year at this time:
“Good teams should play good teams. I admire that they contacted me.” — Kehres, after confirming a deal with St. John Fisher to play a home-and-home series on opening weekend 2008 and 2009.
Wow, I wrote this post well over an hour ago and never clicked submit. Was trying to search down whether the 08 SJF-MUC game is in Alliance or Pittsford (I assume MUC would offer to go on the road first, or do whatever balances the unbalanced home/road sked they’ve had the past two years)
Been really meaning to have that off the top of my head, but can’t seem to Google the info or get it from any of the notes I pull up. It does send me on some interesting tangents though!
RunFerrum,
Re: Both responses, fair enough.
Rachacha,
Thanks for the comments about the poll. I think that’s the advantage of having experienced pollsters, that we see beyond the raw final scores at times, but there are always reasons to disagree with the poll. W&J, I think someone asked about earlier … well, they were 10-0 and deserved the 1 seed, but not many if any voters felt they were better than UMHB or Wesley even though they were seeded higher. Those teams had 1 loss, but they were, let’s say, excusable losses — UMHB’s to a team better than anyone has played non-conference all year (cept for Averett 🙂 ) and Wesley’s in the middle of a 5-game opening stretch that was up there with the toughest nationally, and by a point at that.
vhwon (and others asking similar questions),
“So is UMHB that much better than Wesley?”
I urge you all to look past the comparative scores re: Wesley and UMHB. Chatting with coaches postgame today, I got asked about what I saw at UMHB earlier this year, in a half against HSU. In some ways it was a blur and I don’t remember much, but in others it gave me a pretty good feel for UMHB.
Up until the Whitewater result, I thought they were as dominant a non-Mount Union team as we’d seen in a long time. They have not had many people keep it close even, but clearly the level in the WIAC (see also LaCrosse-HSU etc.) is a cut above not just the ASC, but the South Region (Oshkosh-Huntingdon), East, wherever.
The thing is Wesley’s beaten UMHB twice in a row now. So where I would have picked UMHB earlier in the year based on Wesley’s play (great in the grand scheme but a bit spotty for a national elite), after seeing their weapons today and having been tempered a bit on my UMHB feeling, I’m really going to have to think about this one. Do you just ignore the UWW result, given that Wesley hasn’t played well up there either, and say these teams match up? Do you look at the UMHB dominance, the NCWC scores, the past Wesley-UMHB results and what’s changed since then, the cold weather in Dover, who’s healthy, speed on speed, size on size … I mean, there’s a lot to this one.
Anyway, I guess with no ATN during the playoffs, you all get some bonus posts 🙂
I don’t know if Wesley got stronger, per se, but today’s game vs. seeing them Week 1 and Week 5 or 6, QB Jason Schatz was much better, still missed some throws, but few mistakes. Bryan Robinson was way more effective than in Week 1. And Aaron Jackson emerging as a weapon, my Lord, defenses already have enough to worry about in Clarke, Beavers and Lanouette. Him as a change of pace to Peniwell really makes Wesley tough to stop … and they run the ball well.
Thought Wesley’s D keeping them in the game down 7-0 and facing short field a handful of times was probably the most impressive thing they did today. They are running the ball and playing great defense, so until they have to face Whitewater again, they are doing the things that teams do to win in the playoffs.
Teams do change over the course of the season, and some just don’t match up well with their weakness vs. the others strengths. Does Central blowing out St. John’s mean they’ll blow out Bethel? Not necessarily.
NCWC I remember being not that big on the defensive front but quick. Against UMHB, I think you need some big. If you look at the teams that have been able to beat UMHB in recent years (Wesley, UWW and to a lesser extent CNU) they’ve got some big on the DL.
Can’t say b/c I wasn’t there, but it probably was just a situation where there’s a bad matchup and an eight seed on the road in less-than-ideal weather and it just snowballed for NCWC.
The cruelty of the nation’s best teams being humbled with blowout losses to end the season has definitely been noted today. That’s where the playoffs are unique, because they take the guesswork out of ‘well if we had a chance against them, we would have won’ but it also delivers a sobering reality to every team that as good as you are, there’s likely someone better.
Teams really have to step back after that last game and appreciate how well they did all season. It’s probably easier to do that having lost by a couple scores and not tracing back to those one or two plays you didn’t make that could have changed your season, if not your program’s fortunes.
So who can tell I napped earlier this evening and am now wide awake? 🙂
…Mount Union has a history of burying teams after they’ve seen them once before.” BuckeyeRaider, I couldn’t agree more. Case in point: what happened to my BC Eagles when MUC played them a second time. In the 2001 Stagg Bowl, BC gave MUC all they could handle as MUC edged BC 30-27. Flash forward to the 2003 national semis. BC went to Alliance and got obliterated 66-0. Also, major props to lg1970! When I read at work that my “Vote for Beaver and Wally, not Eddie Haskell” post got his vote for post of the day, that made my night.
D3Keith:
The first regular season game between Fisher and Mt Union is at Mt Union in 2008 and is the first game of the season.
dras – Don’t fall into that trap!! The name is TCNJ and that name won’t mean any more or any less than the name Mount Union or most of any of the other names of D3 institutions when placed onto the resumes of these student-student-athletes. I didn’t read a single post (unlike those from SJF Fisher backers) from a TCNJ backer talking smack about Mount Union so play nice!!
Great weekend of football from all of our students….some continue on, others back to the library. It’s GMAT, GRE and LSAT time!!
rachacha – “plays that will ruin morale or stop momentum”…
Aww..but that’s what the MUC D does best 🙂 HA…just havin’fun…
Should be a great game next Sat., and Im glad MUC opens the next season with SJF as well…If the MUC D brings it like they have the last two weeks, it will be hard to beat the Raiders…but I dont doubt SJF will bring their A game…Its games like these where I watch to see what Larry Kehres has up his sleeve…
duke – while that post from dras maybe wasnt the most respectful way to put it…i dont think he was saying anything about your academics at all…and as a Mount alum, I might disgaree with you quite a bit on whose name means more on a diploma..but this is a football board…no one said a word about your students…
On the upcoming East Regional Final.
MUC’s defense may be the best in the nation, and best ever from a statistical standpoint – However, SJF’s O-Line is better than it was last season and is probably one of the better units in the country this season. At minimum it’ll be the best line that MUC’s front has seen and should be a very good battle.
Looking ahead to next weekend’s West Region final…
After watching Central dismantle a very average St. John’s football team yesterday, its clear that Bethel will need a balanced offensive game plan next Saturday in Pella or it too will get blown off the football field.
Central’s coaching staff did a masterful job of identifying, and then exploiting SJU’s weak cornerbacks. St. John’s, inconsistent all year, showed little fight and uncharasteristically, even less effort, in flopping to its worst defeat since a ’93 waxing at the hands of Mount Union.
On defense, Central was much quicker to the football than expected. Bethel, which completed all of four (yes 4!) passes for 24 yards yesterday against a second tier UW – Eau Claire defense, must find a passing game or should expect Central to stack 8 men in the box and cram it down the Royals throats all afternoon.
On offense, Central will also find Bethel’s defensive team speed far superior to St. John’s and will be difficult to counter. They must continue to execute their quick strike short passing game in order to keep Vance Schuring effective between the tackles. Quarterback Tim Connell, who looked much more like a Gagliardi Finalist than his SJU QB counterpart Alex Kofoed, was nearly perfect on the day. If he’s able to deliver another efficient, mistake free game next weekend, Central should be on its way to Alliance for a national semi-final matchup with the Purple Raiders.
Early prediction: Central – 24
Bethel – 14
Congratulations to the Dutch for getting the SJU monkey off its back and to the Royals, for finally winning a couple of NCAA playoff games!
I know the poll is being talked about at length and I just wanted to say that this is the only D3 poll I look at. The other ones (the Gazette and the other one) are jokes. For example when Whitewater lost by 10 points to a D2 team they dropped down to 6th place or something like that, and I had to laugh.
By the way I was a long time reader of these boards and finally decided to create an account. If you haven’t been able to decipher from my first couple of posts I’m a diehard Warhawks fan. So thanks and good luck to the Elite 8.
MUCnash – That was my point exactly……the “what was their names” lack of respect for any opponent at the D3 level. I went to Swarthmore (considered a “little Ivy League” school) and we dropped football years ago (much to my chagrin!). I have nothing to do with TCNJ (don’t even know where it is!). I miss the student-student-athletes (even though this is a football board, the academic component should not be lost given that it is paramount at the D3 level relative to athletics) and the “that’s alright….that’s ok….you’ll be working for us someday” cheers as we were getting trounced, which happened regularly I might add!! You are correct, for the cream of the crop schools (at any level of competition), the name on a resume might matter…..but for the overwhelming majority of the rest, they are all one-in-the-same and I mean that in a positive way. I would never knock any student-athlete or academic institution at this level of competition and I have the utmost RESPECT for all of them!!
mount-SJF should be an interesting game. both teams are probably better than last year’s versions. mount’s defense certainly is. and while kmic isn’t likely to run for 371 again, mount is likely to have contributions from micheli and garcon, two guys who didn’t contribute much last year.
duke,
Sorry to keep you in suspense. it was a busy day yesterday and I needed to observe a period of mourning after the pelting in Pella. (I posted congrats to the Dutch then shut up). Actually, I can see why you took rambling as a shot at you, it was more my response about me getting into that discussion when I was worried about the SJU-Central matchup.
My “East bashing” has basically been reactive to counter a few of the over-the-top posts — we’ve all seen them. A while back I did an analysis of the final d3.com ratings over the past few years and got soundly ripped for the data — which were raw numbers. The “translation” remark was a bit of a shot but in the context of the now deleted posts by a few East zealot it was meant as an (attempted) humorous rebuttal on a fan board. It lost that context when posts were deleted.
For the record, I think the East showed it is coming on a bit with SJF’s showing last year. I have a feeling, however, MUC will win a little bigger over SJF this time around.
I don’t come here with anger, just merely to kick it around. I’m hoping if players are reading this they are sharp enough to know the constituency here and take it for what it is. This is a spot for opinion and occasional jabs. I’m not taking shots at any individual school or athlete.
As for Garcon, I’m happy for any d3 player who gets a shot and I think he will. I’ve seen him live and on TV. I just think that as a free-agent signee he has more options than be a low draft into a situation that might not have the right situation for WRs. I’ll probably see him there again live in a couple of weeks.
repete – Sorry for the thin skin. You do know your stuff and I do enjoy reading your posts (even the East jabs:). Now, I’ve got to get ready for my professional team to be the next team to be sacrificed at the hands of the Patriots. I’m jealous that such a baseball/non-football town is having this incredible type of success at the highest level of the best sport on the planet. Oh well!! Enjoy the holidays!!
Duke,
There’s little I’d like better than seeing the Birds shake it up and knock off NE. Strange things have happened today … who would have predicted the Minn-NYG score? I sure didn’t.
I’m hoping to take in the Wesley-UMHB game next week. Should be a great bunch of regional finals.
Happy holidays!
repete and Duke,
I’m a Cowboys fan. Didn’t like the Eagles under Vermeil, and REALLY didn’t like them under Buddy Ryan.
But…..I would rather see a hated rival (Eagles) beat a cheater (Patriots). Probably not going to happen, but I’m still rooting for them tonite.
lg1970 and repete……..undermanned David just missed knocking off Goliath (although drinks are on me for taking the 24 points and the over!!!). THAT Eagles team (although they won’t play like like for the balance of the year) is one that nobody in the NFC would want to see come playoff time (if they can finish 9-7 and grab a wild card). I think the Eagles did give the much more talented/healthy offensive teams (Colts, Browns, Chargers, Cowboys) and defensive teams (Steelers, Packers) the blueprint for how to hang with the Pats, now somebody has to take it and run. Time to go to bed and wonder what if……….
Keith,
Just to clarify, Bethel and Central had 4 common opponents this year. BV, SJU, UST and Simpson. Bethel beat the Storm 35-0 (Central won 28-21) and UST 19-18 @ UST (Central won big 35-10, but if I remember, the Tommies outgained them by a wide margin) and as OAS pointed out in an earlier Around the West article, freshman All-MIAC RB Flannery only had six carries against BV in the season opener.
Like you said, common opponents, especially early in the year, only takes us so far. As I see it, the keys to the game will be turnovers and redzone Offense/Defense. Central’s two MIAC victories involved them creating multiple turnovers and taking advantage of these opportunities. Bethel’s loss to BV involved a poor 2 for 7 in the redzone, a major problem for the Johnnies on Saturday as well.
Different teams match up differently, I think we’re looking at an exciting West Region final. The last two times these teams met invovled an OT win for the Dutch in Pella and a Dutch victory in Arden Hills, where Porta came up a yard short of the endzone as time expired (Bethel dominated stats 539 total yds to 239; but Central’s special teams were extraordinary-see 80 yd punt)
Should be a showdown!
duke,
What the eagles did was good for the league and better for themselves.
fbfrenzy,
I like Central in this one. Bethel doesn’t throw the ball well enough. But I think putting too much stock on the BVU game is problematic. They hadn’t identified Flannery — a freshman — as their go-to back yet. His emergence is the key to their success.
OK, thanks. I had looked for it and remember hearing the news while in Alliance last season, but could not for the life of me remember where the ’08 game was. Then Sunday I heard a rumor that both games might be in Alliance, so now I have to get on the conference call tomorrow and ask 🙂
By the way folks, if you want to quote someone else, use a less-than sign, the word blockquote and a greater than in front of their quote, and behind it, do the same thing, but with a slash in front of blockquote. No spaces.
I’d demonstrate, but then the software would read it as a tag and it wouldn’t show up.
SJFFan, you’ve been cordial lately, so don’t take this personally. I challenge people’s claims all the time, and I’m not even saying you’re wrong. We all benefit when claims are fleshed out with the thought that went into them.
Why is the line better?
What makes you think it’s the best front MUC has seen? I take it you automatically tossed out the regular season and the OAC, you saw the Ithaca game, and tossed out TCNJ?
Why is it one of the best in the country? Because they are still playing? For argument’s sake, one could say Ferrum has one of the greatest O-Line, based on rushing stats alone, and if so, playoff success doesn’t automatically mean one of your units is one of the best or vice versa. (Neither do stats, necessarily)
Just wondering if you have some insight or were just sharing your opinion on a team you’ve watched for 12 weeks straight and have grown to love.
I guess I could coach for Central then.
One could argue it started with Rowan’s 19-7 loss at Mount Union the year before, another 12-point semifinal win.
But judging the strength of an entire region based on one team’s performance in one game is probably dangerous.
Maybe it’s all we have to go one, but who’s to say the East wasn’t really strong one year and Rowan just didn’t match up well against Linfield or something?
I guess I agree that the East gets the respect it earns in the playoffs and other high-profile games against other regions, but no full region can be defined by one game. Some teams in the East are as good or better than much of other regions.
Buddy,
Good take on MUC-SJF at 1:45 Nov. 25th.
Fbfrenzy,
Four common opponents duly noted. Also, a good post all around. I’d forgotten Central and Bethel used to play.