There’s just no way I’m going to get to the remaining recaps for this week before tonight’s action, so I’m going to cover my own ass here and touch on the Thursday\/Friday action in the remaining divisions, which will give me until Saturday to get back on track.\u00a0 On the other hand, I suppose this means I can get more in depth on these four\u00a0 games than I would in the full recaps, so consider it bonus coverage.<\/p>\n
There are no NAIA games this week prior to Saturday; just two D-II games Thursday and two D-III games on Friday.<\/p>\n
D-II<\/strong><\/span>: (both games Thursday)<\/p>\n West Alabama (5-2) at West Georgia (4-2) (Gulf South conference game)<\/span> 7pm:<\/p>\n West Georgia narrowly escaped an upset at home against Saint Augustine’s in a non-conference game, while West Alabama, ranked #22 last week, very nearly upended then-#12 Valdosta State on the road.\u00a0 At stake here is last place in the best conference in the country relative to its peers, in any division.<\/p>\n Valdosta State’s Matt Pierce victimized West Alabama with two interception returns for touchdowns, the second one coming with five minutes to go in the game, wrecking the Tigers bid to upset the Blazers.\u00a0 Sadly, the loss leaves WAU 0-16 in games at Valdosta.<\/p>\n West Georgia needed a 35-yard field goal by Davis Brackett as time expired to get past Saint Augustine’s, who’d taken the lead on a touchdown with 2:21 to go.<\/p>\n Expect a heavily ground-oriented game from both sides.\u00a0 The two teams have historically been evenly matched, and tonight will be no exception.\u00a0 The game will be available on ESPN3.<\/p>\n #23 Ashland (5-2) at Saginaw Valley State (4-2) (GLIAC conference game)<\/span> 8pm:<\/p>\n Ashland is coming off an upset over previously-unbeaten (and previously #6) Wayne State (MI) which vaulted them into the top 25, while Saginaw Valley was upended by Indianapolis last week.<\/p>\n Ashland trailed 17-3 before surging back, tying the game at 17 then winning as the clock struck zero on Gregg Berkshire’s 43-yard field goal.\u00a0 The win ended Wayne State’s 10-game winning streak.<\/p>\n Saginaw Valley was victimized by two interception returns for touchdowns in Saturday’s loss to Indianapolis, and those scores were effectively the margin of defeat.<\/p>\n This will also be a closely-contested fight, and I’m not sure who to favor.\u00a0 Of the two, at least Ashland has shown the ability to knock down a top-flight program, so they’ve probably got the edge.<\/p>\n D-III<\/strong><\/span>: (both games Friday)<\/p>\n Albright (4-3) at FDU-Florham (0-6) (Middle Atlantic Conference game)<\/span> 6:30pm:<\/p>\n Albright’s season has now fallen off a cliff; after a 4-0 start, the Lions have had to face Lycoming, Lebanon Valley, and #13 Delaware Valley in successive weeks, and lost all three.\u00a0 FDU-Florham’s season, on the other hand, started out at the bottom of said cliff.\u00a0 Albright should have no trouble here.<\/p>\n McDaniel (1-5) at Dickinson (2-4) (Centennial Conference game)<\/span> 7pm:<\/p>\n Two teams headed the wrong direction.\u00a0 Their three combined wins are against Moravian and Franklin & Marshall, both 1-5.\u00a0 A complete and utter pillow fight, and those are always impossible to project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There’s just no way I’m going to get to the remaining recaps for this week before tonight’s action, so I’m going to cover my own ass here and touch on the Thursday\/Friday action in the remaining divisions, which will give me until Saturday to get back on track.\u00a0 On the other hand, I suppose this […]<\/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":[8,10,7],"tags":[9,11],"class_list":["post-742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-division-ii","category-division-iii","category-division-news-and-notes","tag-d2","tag-d3"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p185sV-bY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742","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=742"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":745,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/742\/revisions\/745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jonfmorse.com\/tog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}