Those Other Guys

Non-Division I for the Division I Fan

NAIA: Week One (Two) Recap.

Sep 6

Posted by Jon Morse in NAIA | Comments off

The Spreadsheet: (Excel2003, 147kb)

Quick Note: Although this is technically week two for the NAIA, as they started a week earlier, we’re treating it as week one (with last week as week zero) just for consistency’s sake with the other divisions.  If you care, you can add a “1” mentally.

Saturday’s NAIA Game of the Week:
This game looked like it was going to be an ugly morass.  Six minutes into the third quarter, Montana Tech led 7-6.  Eastern Oregon had managed only 138 yards of offense and had punted seven times.  When the Mountaineers took over after an Oredigger punt at their own 1 and then immediately gave up a safety to fall behind 9-6, one might have been forgiven for throwing one’s hands up and heading back out to the tailgate.

But then, on the third play following the free kick Nathan Rudder intercepted Nick Baker and returned the ball to the Tech 4-yard line.  Four plays later, Eastern Oregon finally had the lead back, but it was then Tech’s turn to unload.  Pat Hansen scored on runs of 3 and 27 yards in the first five minutes of the fourth quarter to put the Orediggers up 23-13.

That’s when coach Tim Camp pulled the ripcord.  He benched Tyler Pine, who’d gone 13-22 for 108 yards through the first 50 minutes, and inserted sophomore Jason Simonis.  All he did was lob two touchdown passes, the second with only forty seconds remaining in the game, to regain the lead and seal a 26-23 win.

One might fear for the Mountaineers going forward based just the score; the circumstances of the game, however, indicate that perhaps EOU can actually exceed expectations if a change at quarterback in dire straits during their opener actually sparks the team to life.

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D-III: Week One Recap.

Sep 5

Posted by Jon Morse in Division III | Comments off

The Spreadsheet: (Excel2003, 374kb)

Saturday’s D-III Game of the Week:
An odd struggle ensued in Rochester on Saturday as #11 Saint John Fisher outlasted #20 Thomas More 13-7 in overtime.  Each school managed a first-half touchdown before embarking on a scoreless second half which had two completely different narratives.  For the game, Thomas More was limited to 130 yards of offense, including being completely stuffed in overtime; the Cardinals, on the other hand, racked up 403 yards of offense but committed four turnovers which contributed to their inability to score.  Cody Miller finally cracked the end zone in overtime on a 2-yard pitchout to give the Cardinals the victory.  Saint John Fisher gained a couple of spots in the poll, but it was all attrition due to teams above them losing; Thomas More fell three spots to #23.

A Surprising Number of Upsets:

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D-II: Week One Recap.

Sep 4

Posted by Jon Morse in Division II, Division News and Notes | Comments off

The Spreadsheet: Excel2003, 292kb

The FBS Spreadsheet: included here because because. Excel2003, 266kb

Saturday’s D-II Game of the Week:
Winston-Salem State reached the D-II semifinals last season.  North Carolina-Pembroke missed out, but they were 8-3 on the year, with one of those losses being to the Rams.  Saturday, they met up at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem and immediately commenced a titanic struggle.  The Rams got on the board first, capping a long drive with an eight-yard TD run by Maurice Lewis at the end of the first quarter.  It took nine minutes, but after Winston-Salem lost a fumble at their own 10, the Braves scored three plays later on a TD pass from Luke Charles to Te’vell William.  The Rams marched back downfield to retake the lead in a 21-yard toss from Kameron Smith to Tehvyn Brantley with 1:29 to go in the half; Pembroke cut the lead to 14-10 with a 43-yard Connor Haskins field goal as time expired.

Smith ducked into the end zone from the one on the Rams’ first drive of the second half, which was set up by a 77-yard Sherman Bryce kickoff return from the goal line.  Ultimately, that special teams gaffe may have been the difference.  Rams DB Larry Hearne picked off Charles on the Braves’ ensuing drive, but the Rams were forced to punt; nine plays later, Damonte Terry scored from seven yards out to being Pembroke back within 21-16 after they missed the PAT.  The teams then slugged it out until midway through the fourth when Charles hit William for 31 yards to put the Braves on the Rams’ 30; a pass interference penalty on the next play moved Pembroke to the 15.  After Terry picked up four yards, Charles tried to find the end zone but was again intercepted by Hearne to end the threat.  Winston-Salem responded with a seven play, 80-yard drive culminating in a Lewis TD run and the Rams looked in control, up 28-16.

It took Luke Charles 101 seconds to cause a re-evaluation.  On a drive aided by a roughing the passer penalty and three William catches for 50 yards, Charles capped things off by hitting William for 28 and a touchdown to make it 28-23; the Braves then forced the Rams to go three-and-out and took over on their own 24 with 1:06 to go.  They managed to get down to the Winston-Salem 39, and had time for one more play.  Charles dropped back and had plenty of time, and William seemed to get open in the end zone… but Larry Hearne again intervened, getting a hand on the ball and batting away what would have been the game-winning touchdown pass as time expired.

As always, you never know what to really make of what a season opener really means.  Going off last year’s results, we can only presume that either Pembroke is a serious threat to crack the playoff field this year or that Winston-Salem has lost a step; we’ll know much more in the coming weeks, naturally.

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FCS: Week One Recap.

Sep 3

Posted by Jon Morse in FCS | Comments off

The Spreadsheet: Here you go. (Excel 2003, 281kb)

Saturday’s FCS Games of the Week:
I really had a hard time deciding between these three, so let’s just go all out on some HBCU action, shall we?

In Baltimore, Sacred Heart scored a touchdown on their first possession, but once Morgan State answered early in the second quarter with a field goal nobody ever led by more than four points and every score but one resulted in a lead change.  Midway through the second, Joe Rankin ran back a 72-yard pick six to put Morgan up 10-7; fifteen minutes later the Pioneers found the end zone on a one-yard Sean Bell run to make it 14-10.  The Bears responded after a pair of punts with a 70-yard Travis Davidson TD run to go up 17-14; Sacred Heart came back five minutes into the final quarter with a 24-yard TD pass from Tim Little to Rickey Moore. With 3:36 to go, Morgan State again claimed the lead with a one-yard Davidson run, but the Pioneers tied it at 24 on a Chris Rogers field goal with 49 seconds left.  Justin Sexton then picked off Seth Higgins on Morgan State’s first play after the kickoff and rambled back across midfield, but with one second left Rogers tried a 45-yarder which was short, and they went to overtime.

Neither team could get off the deck in overtime.  In the first round, Morgan State missed a field goal attempt, but saved themselves when Kenneth Ridley picked off Little at the three.  The teams traded field goals in the second overtime, neither being able to get into the end zone.  In the third round, Gordan Hill forced a Robert Council fumble at the one to keep Morgan State from scoring, but when Rogers attempted to win the game for the Pioneers his kick was blocked.  In the fourth overtime, Rogers missed wide left, and after Morgan State’s counter-drive stalled at the Sacred Heart three, Ervin Gonzalez finally ended the game with a 20-yard field goal, giving Morgan State a 27-24 win.

In Shreveport, Grambling seemed in control when they entered the fourth quarter with a 21-9 lead over Alcorn State.  Six minutes later, Alcorn cut that lead to five when QB Darius Smith scored from the three; with just 1:33 to go, Arnold Walker bulled in from the four to put Alcorn up 22-21.  They went for two and failed, but Grambling wasn’t able to get back into field goal range and Alcorn State handed new coach Jay Hopson his first victory.

Down in Houston, Texas Southern and Prairie View A&M had themselves a shootout.  After Prairie View tied the score at 41 with just 1:16 to go, Robert Hersh hit a 47-yarder on the game’s final play to give Texas Southern the win.  Prairie View had led 20-7 after the first quarter, but TSU clawed their way back into things.  It was TSU’s first win over Prairie View in five years, and the second year in a row the game was decided on a last-second field goal.

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The People vs Oklahoma State.

Sep 2

Posted by Jon Morse in FBS (aka I Couldn't Help Myself) | Comments off

In the wake of Saturday’s brutal murder of the entire Savannah State football team at the hands of notorious serial killer Ted Gundy (Mike Bundy? I don’t know), it’s time for the annual bitchfest from people who are appalled, appalled I say, at the very idea that top-level colleges should sully themselves by scheduling the poors.

Look.  I say this with all love and respect, and indeed the match that lit this post’s fuse was wielded by one of my bestest innernet bros.  There are a bunch of words I can use to describe that mindset.  “Idiotic” is one.  “Paternalistic” is another.  I might even go with “pompous”, “arrogant”, and/or “smug”.  In a certain context, even “imperialistic” works.

I realize that many people with this mindset have legitimate arguments, and aren’t necessarily making the mistake of turning their team into a blithely ignorant and uncaring Mitt Romney (whereas poor West Texas A&M is Bob the electrician, working 40 hours a week to keep a roof over his family’s head and trying to get his kids into a decent college, and Valley City State is that homeless guy on the corner, only able to survive because there’s a free clinic down the street and a soup kitchen on the next block).  They want their team to play a strong schedule, they don’t want to watch their team club baby seals to death.  Sadly, though, they mostly don’t want to find themselves undefeated and ranked #3 in the BCS poll at the end of the year.  It’s really no surprise that the most vocal proponents of this entire idea are SEC fans and fans of other schools which have been left just outside the door for the crime of having played a “soft” schedule.

However, the intersection between FBS and FCS (and between FCS and D-II, and so on) is a vitally important part of the college landscape.  There are traditions involved in many cases, and in other cases there is even the force of law (Arizona and Arizona State are required by law to alternate playing Northern Arizona, for example).  Cross-divisional play makes it possible for computer formulas to give us guidance as to just how good those lower division schools are compared to the folks above them.  And, of course, there’s the most important reason these games need to survive: the survival of football itself at those lower division schools.

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Roundup, 9/1/12

Sep 1

Posted by Jon Morse in Division II, Division III, Division News and Notes, FBS (aka I Couldn't Help Myself), FCS | Comments off

TOG Game of the Night: Upper Iowa has struggled mightily in the years since moving up to D-II. Last night, they had a shot at unranked but always lurking Bemidji State, and the game came right down to the wire. Things looked perfectly normal, albeit with Bemidji struggling to score, through three quarters; the Beavers led 19-7, and seemed in control. Then the Peacocks erupted, with two Cole Jaeschke touchdown passes sandwiching a 35-yard Steven Sandoval field goal. The last of those three scores came with 2:28 to play and gave Upper Iowa a four-point lead, and the upset watch was on.

It was not to be, however. Bemidji stormed down the field, and Lance Rongstad dropped a 5-yard TD pass to Brett Kondziolka. Matters weren’t settled, though, as the PAT failed, leaving Bemidji up 25-23 with 40 seconds left on the clock. Upper Iowa managed to get in position for a game-winning 46-yard field goal try, but a bobbled snap led to a desperate heave into the arms of Bemidji’s Dylan Valentine, and boom, game over. The question now is whether this close call will give the Peacocks the confidence to put together a reasonably decent season, which they’ve desperately needed for some time.

So Close, Yet So… Ugly: We were this close to the third FCS-over-FBS upset of the weekend. Florida Atlantic was very bad in Howard Schnellenberger’s final sally last year, and I don’t think they’re any better now under Carl Pelini. The evidence: a miserable 7-3 win — at home, no less — over Wagner, a mediocre FCS program. Wagner took a 3-0 lead in the second quarter and held it until early in the fourth when FAU finally got on the board with a 39-yard pass from Graham Wilbert to Byron Hankerson. And that only happened because after thirty whole minutes as a head coach, Pelini already made a change at quarterback.

Blowout of the Night: The D-II Northeast-10 Conference got their league action started with a visit to Bentley by the always dubious Pace Setters. It ended with the night’s most comprehensive victory, as the Falcons spread the wealth around their entire offense on the way to a 42-0 rout.

American Football in Ireland, Part the First: Right around the time I publish this, Notre Dame will be taking on Navy over in Dublin, but that will be the second college football game on the Emerald Isle this weekend. The first one? It was a blast… for John Carroll, anyway. After spotting Saint Norbert an early field goal Blue Streaks QB Mark Myers got to work, and 457 yards and five TD passes later John Carroll had wrapped up a 40-3 win over the Green Knights.

The Warhawk Death Machine Marches On: For twenty minutes, the Bears of Washington University-Saint Louis stymied the Wisconsin-Whitewater offense, and although the upset alert wasn’t blaring since Whitewater was leading 3-0, it was still enough to attract attention. Except for one small problem: for the entire first half, Washington themselves failed to pick up a first down, and in fact ended the half with exactly zero yards of offense. By that time, Whitewater had managed to piece together a 17-0 lead. Thirty clock minutes later, it was 34-0. Washington ended with four first downs and 55 yards of offense. It’s Whitewater’s 46th straight win, and they’ve got the NCAA record for consecutive wins in their sights.

Wholly Unfamiliar Territory: Last year, the Eastern Collegiate Football Conference went 2-17 in the first two weeks of the regular season, and both of those wins came courtesy of New York Maritime. Two days into the 2012 campaign, they have already matched that win total, and Maritime’s not even playing this week. Becker scored a 13-3 win over Fitchburg State and Mount Ida squeaked past Mass-Dartmouth 24-21. Only Anna Maria’s 56-10 drubbing at the hands of Worcester State went to the conference’s detriment last night. Things are looking up for a league which saw an 8-2 Maritime squad — one of whose losses was to a D-II team — miss the playoffs last year largely because their compatriots were so awful.

Top 25 scores from last night: Only three games in the lower divisions featured ranked teams last night.

FCS: at #20 Stephen F. Austin 49, Southwest Oklahoma State [D-II] 14
D-II: #25 Bloomsburg 44, at Stonehill 28
D-III: #1 Wisconsin-Whitewater 34, at Washington (MO) 0

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Roundup, 8/31/12.

Aug 31

Posted by Jon Morse in Division II, Division III, FCS, NAIA | Comments off

TOG Game of the Night: There was another big game in Division II we could have selected (#6 Colorado State-Pueblo 44, #24 West Texas A&M 34), but we’re going with the showdown in California, Pennsylvania. CalPA’s Peter Lalich threw for 275 an four scores last night, but with time running out the 17th-ranked Hillsdale Chargers found themselves with a first down at the Cal five yard line. The Vulcan defense stiffened, though, and after two incompletions and a four-yard run the Chargers were facing fourth-and-goal from the one yard line with time for one last play. Anthony Mifsud tried to lob a pass into the end zone, but Vulcan DB Rontez Miles batted it away as the gun sounded, preserving a 30-22 win for California.

More goodies after the jump:

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It’s Football Time.

Aug 30

Posted by Jon Morse in Division II, Division III, FBS (aka I Couldn't Help Myself), FCS, NAIA | Comments off

After a weekend of NAIA action, for most people the season really begins today.  Excitement abounds, the trolling has begun in earnest on Twitter and message boards, and we’re actually going to get to watch football that matters on our televisions.

Of course, we here at TOG aren’t really all about that stuff, even though we care about it deeply and will be helplessly channel-surfing.

Anyway, we’ll get into fun stuff after the weekend; for the moment, here are the spreadsheets I use — for all five divisions this time (yes, I’m including FBS here as well, because I may as well share it) rather than just the NAIA workbook.  And that has been updated with last week’s games.  Right-click and save.

FBS -247kb

FCS -277kb

D-II -289kb

D-III -369kb

NAIA -145kb

Note: there are a couple of minor errors relating to the postponed games due to Hurricane Isaac.  Specifically, I forgot to note Oregon/Nicholls State as postponed, and listed Louisiana Tech as “idle” this week.  They’ll be fixed next time around.  There may be other postponements before the weekend is over, but it mostly looks like everything that hasn’t been postponed is carrying on as scheduled.

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THERE IS REAL LIVE FOOTBALL TONIGHT.

Aug 24

Posted by Jon Morse in NAIA | Comments off

And tomorrow, as the NAIA season gets underway.  They start a week earlier than the NCAA, and yet not a single one of their schools or conferences had the foresight to sidle up to a television executive and say, “Hey, there, pal… I know you have a lot of really jittery addicts desperate for some football, how ’bout I hook you up?  I’ll even give it to you on the cheap.  Just get us some airtime this weekend, eh?”

Anyway.

Two games tonight, as Rocky Mountain meets Jamestown on a neutral field in Miles City MT at 8:00 ET and the Fighting Saints of Carroll (MT), who lost the NAIA championship game last year to Saint Xavier, visit Montana State-Northern at 8:30.

Tomorrow, there are sixteen games, highlighted by a top-25 matchup between #11t Ottawa and #18 Baker in Ottawa KS.  That game is actually available via streaming at Ottawa’s website.  Kickoff is at 7pm ET.

I’m being a mensch and making my formatting spreadsheets available for download.  (Yes, the score and standings panels I used last year were just pic grabs from Excel.)  Here’s the NAIA schedule spreadsheet.  It’s 118KB, and it’s saved in Excel 2003 format because you may not have upgraded in awhile and I am not a complete dick.  See how that works?  I’ll keep updating this as the season goes on, and I’ll be providing the same spreadsheet formats for the other divisions.

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This is the Craziest Thing Ever.

Aug 23

Posted by Jon Morse in Division II, NAIA | Comments off

So, even though I stopped the previews, I’m still throwing together all my spreadsheets that I’ll need for the season once it starts.  That involves dumping each conference’s composite schedules, among other things.

And that’s when I noticed the insanity.  I didn’t catch it at first when I did the Great American Conference preview, because Arkansas-Monticello and Southern Nazarene had the school listed under its old name of Shepherd Tech.  But when I noticed that West Alabama was playing something called “College of Faith”, I had to look them up to see who the hell they were because I’d never heard of them before.

And that’s when I discovered “College of Faith” had games scheduled against Arkansas-Monticello and Southern Nazarene.  So this must be Shepherd Tech (which two years ago had been Shepherd Film Academy).  Teams have been scheduling this school the last couple of years to make up for holes in their schedule left by the closing of Lambuth University (which is now the Jackson campus of the University of Memphis).  Last year, Harding clobbered them 70-0.

But wait!  Digging deeper to see what the deal was here, I discovered that this is an unaccredited bible college.  That’s nothing surprising; bible colleges often aren’t accredited, because all they offer is bible-related degrees.  Indeed, most states give bible colleges a waiver to operate without accreditation so long as the only degrees they offer are theological.  Not a problem.

But wait! Then I figured out that this is an online college.  An online college with a $99 annual tuition.

Now, that led me to wonder how in hell an online college, which is not accredited, can possibly field a football team.  And then I found this post on the VSN message boards (an NAIA forum), and oh lord.  Seems MidAmerica Nazarene also had a game scheduled against College of Faith, but pulled out, partially in response to uproar about even playing this school.

And then, out of the blue, here comes the college’s president, posting a rather butthurt response to the thread defending his school… and, hey, look, I get it.  You’re trying to get a school off the ground, and you’re proud of it, and… hey, maybe you shouldn’t be worrying about fielding a freakin’ football team when you don’t even have a campus!

No, I can safely say that in all my years of following college sports, I have never seen a situation as crazy as this.  It’s absolutely insane.  I mean, how do you even pull that off?  How do you get your players to practice and games when they’re not tied to a location?  I don’t even understand.  What are we going to get next, the University of Phoenix deciding to start an athletic program?  Hey, maybe they can get together with National American University and a few other online programs and save the WAC!

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