The playoff results from the first round of the NCAA Division 3 football tournament are in, and the scores look very good for east region.
I have long argued that east teams play in deeper, stronger conferences than do many other teams across the country. Evidence of this was provided today, as east teams won 2 out of 3 cross-regional games with only national power Wesley surviving.
For the first time in a long time, the NCAA committee looked past the highly flawed Strength of Schedule metric and evaluated at-large teams based on true merit. For that reason, St. John Fisher made the tournament as a two loss team while Endicott stayed home. The committee was clearly right. Western New England, the team which beat Endicott in the NEFC, gave up 62 points to Empire 8 Salisbury. The Empire 8 runner up, St. John Fisher, upset Johns Hopkins 23-12.
Was the Fisher win truly an upset? Hopkins ran through the weak Centennial Conference with an undefeated record, scoring 83 points against Gettysburg, and outscoring its opponents by better than 30 points per game. Meanwhile Fisher played in the rugged Empire 8, and scheduled Pool C bid Hobart out of conference. Fisher beat Johns Hopkins 23-12 in Baltimore on Saturday, providing more evidence for our argument that a one or two loss season in a tough conference should not disqualify you from the playoffs.
While Johns Hopkins was finding out about the quality of upper echelon east teams, southern power Wesley found themselves in a dog fight with Liberty League champion Hobart. Wesley's only loss on the season came to...you guessed it, an east region team...when Kean beat them in September. It nearly happened again. The Hobart Statesmen trailed Wesley 35-28 late in the fourth quarter today. Hobart drove to the Wesley 5-yard line, where Wesley finally stopped them to barely hold on to their victory.
A few hundred miles to the north, NJAC champion Kean was destroying south region Christopher Newport (CNU). Kean built a 34-7 half time lead, then coasted to a 34-10 victory. Kean picked off five passes and recovered a fumble in dominating CNU. Kean survived the rugged NJAC, and played Wesley to compile an impressive 9-1 record. CNU went undefeated in the USAC, but lost out of conference to Empire 8 champion Salisbury, and Stevenson which was 1-7 in the MAC.
The record speaks for itself. CNU went 8-0 against southern teams, and 0-3 against eastern teams. And one of those losses came to an east team which won only one game in their conference.
Meanwhile, Salisbury took care of business with a 62-24 whipping of Western New England. Delaware Valley remained undefeated, storming past ECFC champion Norwich 62-10.
The ECFC champion has been outscored the last two seasons in the NCAA playoffs 122-10, starting with Alfred's 60-0 destruction of SUNY Martitime in 2010. The ECFC champion gets an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, but it is clear they are not ready.
What was your biggest surprise from the first round of the NCAA tournament?
Showing posts with label hobart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hobart. Show all posts
Playoff Previews
Three more playoff games involving east region teams kick off this Saturday afternoon. Two of the three are intriguing matchups, while we see one as being lopsided:
WNEC, like most of its NEFC conference foes, went out of its way to avoid strong competition out of conference. The one exception was Salve Regina, which challenged Montclair State and Union. WNEC opted to play two more NEFC teams, plus Norwich. Loading up on weak foes can win you a lot of games, but the downside is your players are totally unprepared for playoff competition.
Salisbury will run the option again and again until the WNEC defense breaks. And when it breaks, the game will get ugly. We like Salisbury to win going away.
Christopher Newport (CNU) at Kean is a much closer battle. It may be the best match up involving east teams of the first round. CNU is a south region team from the USAC. There aren't many ways to overlap the schedules of Kean (9-1) and CNU (8-2).
We know that CNU lost a close game to Salisbury, and that Salisbury lost a close game to Wesley, and Wesley lost a close game to Kean. Advantage Kean, right? Well yes, unless you consider the Kean win over Wesley to be one of the season's biggest upsets.
There may be more points scored than most people are expecting. CNU is averaging 9.0 yards per pass attempt behind quarterback Aaron Edwards. Edwards took over late in the season and has only three starts under his belt. But he has completed 72 percent of his pass attempts and thrown seven touchdowns to only one interception.
I expect Kean will give Edwards a lot of different looks, and force him into a few mistakes. QB Tom D'Ambrisi is coming off a poor performance for Kean against Montclair, and we expect the senior to rebound. We like Kean to win a close game at home against CNU.
Wesley (9-1) hosts the Hobart Statesmen (7-1) in our final opening round preview. Hobart played a short eight game schedule. Due to a down year in the Liberty League, the Statesmen did not benefit from playing a playoff caliber opponent in conference.
However Hobart put a 56-20 hurting on Pool C playoff bound St. John Fisher back in September. The final score looks fluky in retrospect. How do we come to terms with Hobart losing to a mediocre RPI squad, and destroying a strong Fisher team? We believe the true Statesmen are somewhere between those two very disparate outcomes.
Wesley is beating its opponents by an average of 31 points per game. If not for the early season Kean loss, Wesley would be considered a number one seed and a serious threat to Mount Union and Wisconsin Whitewater. Askia Jahad averages 6.8 yards per rushing attempt, and quarterback Shane McSweeny completes 64% of his pass attempts.
The Wesley defense is big and fast, compiling 36 sacks and 93 tackles behind the line of scrimmage. DL Devin Hardy has 7.5 sacks, while Chris Mayes leads the team in tackles for losses with 17.5.
I would give Hobart more of a fighting chance if they had filled out their schedule with a playoff caliber team in the second half of their season. I don't think the Statesmen have seen anything remotely like Wesley in years, and they haven't seen a playoff quality opponent since September. We like Wesley to win convincingly.
- Hobart at Wesley
- Christopher Newport and Kean
- Western New England at Salisbury
WNEC, like most of its NEFC conference foes, went out of its way to avoid strong competition out of conference. The one exception was Salve Regina, which challenged Montclair State and Union. WNEC opted to play two more NEFC teams, plus Norwich. Loading up on weak foes can win you a lot of games, but the downside is your players are totally unprepared for playoff competition.
Salisbury will run the option again and again until the WNEC defense breaks. And when it breaks, the game will get ugly. We like Salisbury to win going away.
Christopher Newport (CNU) at Kean is a much closer battle. It may be the best match up involving east teams of the first round. CNU is a south region team from the USAC. There aren't many ways to overlap the schedules of Kean (9-1) and CNU (8-2).
We know that CNU lost a close game to Salisbury, and that Salisbury lost a close game to Wesley, and Wesley lost a close game to Kean. Advantage Kean, right? Well yes, unless you consider the Kean win over Wesley to be one of the season's biggest upsets.
There may be more points scored than most people are expecting. CNU is averaging 9.0 yards per pass attempt behind quarterback Aaron Edwards. Edwards took over late in the season and has only three starts under his belt. But he has completed 72 percent of his pass attempts and thrown seven touchdowns to only one interception.
I expect Kean will give Edwards a lot of different looks, and force him into a few mistakes. QB Tom D'Ambrisi is coming off a poor performance for Kean against Montclair, and we expect the senior to rebound. We like Kean to win a close game at home against CNU.
Wesley (9-1) hosts the Hobart Statesmen (7-1) in our final opening round preview. Hobart played a short eight game schedule. Due to a down year in the Liberty League, the Statesmen did not benefit from playing a playoff caliber opponent in conference.
However Hobart put a 56-20 hurting on Pool C playoff bound St. John Fisher back in September. The final score looks fluky in retrospect. How do we come to terms with Hobart losing to a mediocre RPI squad, and destroying a strong Fisher team? We believe the true Statesmen are somewhere between those two very disparate outcomes.
Wesley is beating its opponents by an average of 31 points per game. If not for the early season Kean loss, Wesley would be considered a number one seed and a serious threat to Mount Union and Wisconsin Whitewater. Askia Jahad averages 6.8 yards per rushing attempt, and quarterback Shane McSweeny completes 64% of his pass attempts.
The Wesley defense is big and fast, compiling 36 sacks and 93 tackles behind the line of scrimmage. DL Devin Hardy has 7.5 sacks, while Chris Mayes leads the team in tackles for losses with 17.5.
I would give Hobart more of a fighting chance if they had filled out their schedule with a playoff caliber team in the second half of their season. I don't think the Statesmen have seen anything remotely like Wesley in years, and they haven't seen a playoff quality opponent since September. We like Wesley to win convincingly.
RPI Rally stuns Hobart
The RPI Engineers rallied from a 21-0 deficit to stun Hobart 29-28 in Troy, NY. Junior quarterback Mike Hermann ran for a touchdown and threw for three more to lead the comeback.
The Hobart Statesmen amassed 473 yards of offense, and had 30 first downs to only 15 for RPI. But Hobart failed to finish drives in the second half, which kept the door open for RPI. The loss ensures Hobart will not get a top-2 seed in the playoffs.
Now Hobart is in a must-win situation next Saturday at Rochester. A Statesmen victory would clinch the Liberty League championship and accompanying Pool A bid to the NCAA playoffs. However a Hobart loss, combined with a Union victory, would put the Union Dutchmen in the playoffs.
The Hobart loss to RPI represents one of the biggest upsets of the season in Eastern Region. Although Hobart had been relatively untested in the Liberty League to date, they had destroyed a strong St. John Fisher team 56-20 in September. Hobart falls to 6-1. RPI is 4-4.
The Hobart Statesmen amassed 473 yards of offense, and had 30 first downs to only 15 for RPI. But Hobart failed to finish drives in the second half, which kept the door open for RPI. The loss ensures Hobart will not get a top-2 seed in the playoffs.
Now Hobart is in a must-win situation next Saturday at Rochester. A Statesmen victory would clinch the Liberty League championship and accompanying Pool A bid to the NCAA playoffs. However a Hobart loss, combined with a Union victory, would put the Union Dutchmen in the playoffs.
The Hobart loss to RPI represents one of the biggest upsets of the season in Eastern Region. Although Hobart had been relatively untested in the Liberty League to date, they had destroyed a strong St. John Fisher team 56-20 in September. Hobart falls to 6-1. RPI is 4-4.