{"id":1672,"date":"2012-09-25T09:55:49","date_gmt":"2012-09-25T14:55:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/?p=1672"},"modified":"2012-09-25T01:37:12","modified_gmt":"2012-09-25T06:37:12","slug":"fcs-week-four-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/2012\/09\/25\/fcs-week-four-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"FCS: Week Four Recap."},"content":{"rendered":"

The FBS Spreadsheet<\/strong>: (Excel2003, 320kb<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The FCS Spreadsheet<\/strong>: (Excel2003, 291kb<\/a>)<\/p>\n

FCS Game of the Week<\/strong>:
\nEarly on, it looked as though #8 New Hampshire had #4 Old Dominion’s number.\u00a0 The first quarter ended with a 16-3 lead for the Wildcats, as the Monarchs’ defense wasn’t stopping them and the offense, although staging two drives deep into New Hampshire territory, only came away with a single field goal for their efforts.\u00a0 Early in the second, a 57-yard touchdown pass from Taylor Heinicke to Nick Mayers made it 16-10, but New Hampshire, aided by a fumbled punt return after their drive stalled, got the points back in just over two minutes.\u00a0 After ODU had to punt, Nico Steriti broke free on a 61-yard touchdown run for the Wildcats, who were suddenly leading 30-10.<\/p>\n

And then things went insane.
\nA long Antonio Vaughan kickoff return to midfield set up Old Dominion’s immediate answer on a 15-yard pass to Vaughan; New Hampshire responded right away with a 73-yard strike from Andy Vailas to R.J. Harris.\u00a0 But Vaughan then struck again, returning the ensuing kickoff 83 yards before being hauled down; Heinicke ran it in from the nine on the next play.\u00a0 The half finally ended when time simply ran out on the Wildcats, and they were forced to tack on a 32-yard Mike McArthur field goal to take a 40-24 lead into the locker room.\u00a0 Heinicke had exactly 250 passing yards, and this is important later.<\/p>\n

New Hampshire extended the lead to 23 points on the first possession of the third quarter, Vailas hitting Joey Orlando from 15 to cap a drive which had started with four straight rushes for 68 yards, none longer than 25.\u00a0 After that, both teams traded three-and-outs before Heinicke found Jakwail Bailey for a 32-yard score.\u00a0 The Wildcats drove right back down Old Dominion’s throat, but facing 3rd-and-1 at the Monarch 2, a fumble changed the course of the game.\u00a0 Heinicke’s first move was a 43-yard completion to Mayers to get the Monarchs out from under their goal line.\u00a0 Seven plays later, Colby Goodwyn scored on a seven-yard run to get Old Dominion back within nine.\u00a0 New Hampshire struck back immediately, though, as Vailas got out of the backfield and ran 67 yards for a score.\u00a0 As the quarter ended, Old Dominion was driving; Heinecke now had 437 yards passing.<\/p>\n

He had 499 less than two minutes later, hitting Mayers for a 12-yard score.\u00a0 After a two-point conversion, the lead was cut to eight.\u00a0 New Hampshire got to midfield before a penalty and a sack scuttled their drive; Heinicke hit Vaughan on a 62-yard gain on the first play of the drive, and two plays later found Mayers again.\u00a0 Another 2-point conversion, and somehow, unbelievably, a game New Hampshire had led by 23 points was now tied less than 17 minutes later.\u00a0 The CAA record for most combined points in a game had fallen (the previous record was 106), and clock still read 10:04.<\/p>\n

New Hampshire couldn’t respond, but pinned the Monarchs at their own 11 after burning nearly three minutes.\u00a0 Heinicke led a drive at a pace which could relatively be referred to as leisurely; it ended 2:32 later with a 2-yard Angus Harper touchdown run to finally, after over 55 minutes of insanity, give Old Dominion the lead.\u00a0 It lasted all of a minute and sixteen seconds, as the kickoff went out of bounds and three plays later Vailas found Harris for a 45-yard score to tie it up again.\u00a0 No matter.\u00a0 Heinicke merely buckled up his big-boy pants and led another drive, which finally ended on the Wildcat 8-yard line on fourth down.\u00a0 Jarod Brown split the uprights, putting Old Dominion ahead 64-61 with 37 seconds to go.\u00a0 Vailas tried heroically to at least get into field-goal range, but on 2nd and 11 from the Monarch 49 with only six seconds to go, Vailas was picked off by Andre Simmons, and that was the ball game.<\/p>\n

Heinicke had 293 yards passing… in the fourth quarter alone.\u00a0 He finished 55-79 for 730 with five TDs (and no interceptions); the yardage broke the NCAA Division I record, though came just short of the NCAA-record 736 yards Sam Durley notched for Eureka just a few weeks ago.\u00a0 Mayers had 271 yards receiving on 12 catches with three scores; Vaughan had 143 on 12 with a touchdown and 317 all-purpose yards once his 174 yards of kickoff returns was added in.\u00a0 Heinicke even led Old Dominion in rushing, carrying 11 times for 61 yards and scoring once, meaning he was responsible for 791 yards of total offense and six TDs on the day.<\/p>\n

On the other side of the ball, some mind-boggling performances went for naught.\u00a0 Vailas was 23-38 for 336 yards with five touchdowns and an interception; Steriti ran for 201 yards on 21 carries and scored twice while Harris caught 8 balls for 191 yards.<\/p>\n

In all, it was just madness.\u00a0 A game that was completely off the rails, and even better it was before a national television audience.<\/p>\n

Big South\/Patriot Showdowns<\/strong>:
\n#20 Stony Brook had to claw back from 28-20 third quarter deficit to escape scrappy Colgate 32-31.\u00a0 Miguel Maysonet had 198 yards rushing in the win, which began with Stony Brook taking a 17-0 lead before letting it all slip away due to three turnovers which all led to Colgate scores.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, another contest between the two leagues went the other way as #16 Lehigh got all it could handle from usual Big South stalwarts Liberty.\u00a0 Lehigh had taken a 14-0 lead, but Liberty tied things up just before the half when Sirchauncey Holloway scored on a 22-yard run, then tacked on a couple of field goals before Lehigh mounted its fourth-quarter comeback.\u00a0 Mike Colvin scored on a 68-yard run to retake the lead midway through the fourth, then Billy Boyko returned an interception 39 yards to the house to seal the deal.\u00a0 Liberty now finds itself 0-4, all four losses being pretty much heartbreakers, and one wonders if Turner Gill is just cursed.<\/p>\n

Oh, and This Happened Too:
\n#4 Youngstown State hosted #8 Northern Iowa, and it was a hell of a show.\u00a0 The Penguins led 21-14 at the half; by the middle of the fourth quarter Northern Iowa had turned that around to a 35-28 lead.\u00a0 But Youngstown fought back, tying the game with seven minutes to go on a one-yard run by Torrian Pace; with only 1:50 left Kurt Hess connected with Christian Bryan for a 26-yard score which put Youngstown up to stay, 42-35.\u00a0 The Panthers penetrated to the Youngstown 11-yard line on their final possession, but Ali Cheaib and Donald D’Alesio combined to break up a Sawyer Kollmorgen pass intended for Brett LeMaster on the final play of the game, securing the Penguins win.\u00a0 Northern Iowa is now ranked #14 despite their 1-3, and they have to visit #1 North Dakota State this weekend.\u00a0 They’re either going to watch their season effectively end, or they’re going to deliver one of the more stunning potential upsets of the season and find themselves suddenly back on track, losing record aside.\u00a0 (Remember, two of those losses are to FBS teams, and they came very close to winning against Wisconsin.)<\/p>\n

How to End a Losing Streak<\/strong>:
\nSchedule lesser competition.\u00a0 It worked for Nicholls State, who stopped a 12-game losing streak by beating the crap out of Evangel out of the NAIA.\u00a0 It also worked for Charleston Southern, who took down D-II Shorter 23-20 to end their 15-game skid.\u00a0 Of course, Charleston Southern had actually tried this last year only to lose to D-III Wesley… Still, both teams are now riding one-game winning streaks for the moment, and Savannah State inherits the longest losing streak in FCS, now at 11 games.<\/p>\n

The New Top 25<\/strong> (now in grid form, please tell me what you think of the format):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

And finally, other eye-catching results<\/strong><\/span>:<\/p>\n

Nail-Biters<\/strong>:
\nat Eastern Illinois 50, Murray State 49 (OT)
\nat Southeast Missouri State 41, Tennessee Tech 38 (OT)
\nGeorgetown 21, at Princeton 20 (FRI)
\nFlorida A&M 24, at Delaware State 22
\nArkansas-Pine Bluff 24, at Alabama State 21 (THU)
\nat Texas State [FBS] 41, Stephen F. Austin 37
\nJacksonville 21, at Dayton 17
\nat Drake 28, Morehead State 25<\/p>\n

Done Got Trucked<\/strong>:
\nat Cornell 45, Yale 6
\nat San Diego 51, Valparaiso 14<\/p>\n

Defense is an Optional Package<\/strong>:
\nSouthern Utah 49, at Portland State 42<\/p>\n

No Offense… But No Offense<\/strong>:
\nSouthern Illinois 14, at Missouri State 6
\nDarmouth 13, at Holy Cross 10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The FBS Spreadsheet: (Excel2003, 320kb) The FCS Spreadsheet: (Excel2003, 291kb) FCS Game of the Week: Early on, it looked as though #8 New Hampshire had #4 Old Dominion’s number.\u00a0 The first quarter ended with a 16-3 lead for the Wildcats, as the Monarchs’ defense wasn’t stopping them and the offense, although staging two drives deep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,6],"tags":[41],"class_list":["post-1672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-division-news-and-notes","category-fcs","tag-fcs"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p185sV-qY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1672"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1677,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1672\/revisions\/1677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}