D3East Football Rankings - November 6

What a great day of football! Saturday reminded us of why we are fans. The top ranked Delaware Valley Aggies won a rivalry game on a last second drive, Montclair rallied from 21 points down to beat its biggest rival in overtime, and previously undefeated Hobart was stunned by RPI.

Let's get down to business. Here are my Division 3 Eastern Football Rankings for 11/6/2011:

1. Delaware Valley 9-0
2. Salisbury State 8-1
3. Widener 9-1
4. Montclair 8-1
5. Kean 8-1
6. Lycoming 7-2
7. Hobart 6-1
8. St John Fisher 7-2
9. Cortland 7-2
10. Western New England 9-1

The Delaware Valley Aggies remain the only undefeated team in Division 3 Eastern Region football.  We knew their game in Lycoming would be a close call, and it sure was. The Lycoming Warriors rallied to tie the score 21-21 with 1:01 remaining to play. But Delaware Valley drove 54 yards to score the winning touchdown with just seconds to play.

Salisbury won a statement game 41-21 over St. John Fisher, clinching the Empire 8 championship and a Pool A bid to the NCAA playoffs. It is my opinion that the Aggies and the Salisbury Gulls give the East its best 1-2 punch at the top of the playoff bracket that it has had in several years.

Raise your hand if you predicted Montclair and its backup quarterback would lose on the road to the Rowan Profs. I know I did, and I felt pretty smart with Rowan ahead 21-0. But Drew Cathey played a brilliant second half of football to rally Montclair to a 37-31 overtime victory. Kean had little trouble dispatching William Paterson, setting up a showdown for the NJAC championship between Kean and Montclair next Saturday.

Western New England stopped UMass-Dartmouth 28-18 to win its ninth game of the season. Like all NEFC leaders in the past decade, the Golden Bears of Western New England sport an impressive record but are completely untested out of conference. For that reason I don't have the confidence to rank them higher than #10. And honestly I wrestled with the idea of putting Rowan in the #10 spot. Unfortunately we won't know anything about Western New England until the first round of the NCAA playoffs is over.