Quote from: tigerguy on October 18, 2025, 03:39:03 PMHondo has found confidence as a dual threat quarterback and he is a capable in both respects. I would like to see Urban give him more opportunities on the ground because I think it will ultimately help with Hondo's internal clock in the pocket. He has historically had an issue holding onto the ball too long, so trusting his legs will continue to add a needed element of unpredictability to this offense.

I love when Urban and his staff review the forums and implement our suggestions. Hondo's legs were the difference today. Also hats off to the defense.

Today, Lagrange was able to rebound from a 48-0 drubbing by Berry earlier in the season and played them incredibly close. Hopefully Trinity has also learned a lot since their loss to Berry.

Hardin Simmons' game notes helped answer that. Looks like HSU has 10 senior starters (majority on offense) and Trinity has 8 (I'm including grad students). I think Trinity would have 9 if you included kickers/punters.

Quote from: Ron Boerger on November 28, 2025, 10:24:17 AMSpotted a pic of Anson Mount (aka Captain Pike in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds) wearing a pretty ratty Sewanee Tigers ball cap.  Is he an alumnus?

In other news, every member of the D3football.com panel picked HSU to win tomorrow's game, all by a TD or more.

Saw a post about Trinity having a tough matchup against a "senior-laden" Hardin Simmons team. Appears they have 21, but Trinity has 22. I am not sure how many are starters across either team, so maybe that is where the discrepancy is.

Seems like it was rainy two years ago when we played Hardin Simmons in the 1st round, too. Or maybe that was the year before. The games start running together when a team is your first playoff opponent three out of the last four years...

Quote from: Ron Boerger on November 17, 2025, 05:04:15 PMGreat research!  One thing to remember is that the number of playoff teams has changed quite a bit over the years and as the number of qualifiers has increased, so has the focus on saving travel money. 

Trinity first made the D3 playoffs in 1994 (I was there!) when they hosted Washington & Jefferson.  W&J was the higher ranked team; never knew why we hosted, but they popped us 28-0.  We also made the playoffs in 1997 with a home W against Catholic followed by an away loss at Lycoming. 

The SCAC maintains seasonal record books with results for all teams, current and former; very useful for this kind of look back.  Fall sports are at https://scacsports.com/inside_athletics/record_book_files/2025-26/2025_Fall_Record_Book.pdf .  And I do miss the extra legwork the SCAC put in on things like this, preseason media days, and postseason programs; the SAA could learn from the SCAC.

Thanks for the SCAC resource - extremely helpful. Apparently "McDaniel" was known as Western Maryland back when Trinity was matched with them in 1998-1999.

I didn't know Mohr had some very forgettable first few seasons as coach. During our freshman year camp meetings, he would always show us our amazing record at home "since 94" or something like. Cut off date makes much more sense in context now 

I got bored on Sunday so I took a dive into the historical schedules since 1998. If my review is correct, in years that Trinity has made the playoffs, they have had a non-ASC opponent in the first round only three times: 1998 (McDaniel), 1999 (McDaniel), and 2000 (Wesley). However, it does not appear that the ASC had a playoff representative in 1998.

Trinity/Hardin Simmons made the playoffs in 1999 and did not face each other until the third round. Trinity was given a first round bye whereas HSU got paired up with Washington U in the first round and then Washington and Jefferson in the 2nd. Trinity's 2nd round matchup after the bye was with McDaniel again.

Trinity/HSU both made the playoffs again in 2000. Trinity drew Wesley 1st round, HSU got McDaniel. Both won and faced each other second round, with HSU getting the W.

Something must have changed after 2000, because that is when they started matching the ASC with Trinity, assuming they made the playoffs. Trinity obviously had some lengthy playoff gaps: 2006, 2008-2010, and then 2012-2020.

I believe there have been 11 years in which two ASC teams made the playoffs, and in five of those years (5 years Trinity didn't make the playoffs) the ASC teams were rewarded with a first round matchup with each other. In only two years (2016/2017) since 2001 have two ASC teams made the playoffs and neither team was matched up with an ASC opponent or Trinity for their first playoff game. In 2016/2017 HSU got Linfield, and UMHB got Redlands and Chapman. 

In total since 2001, Trinity's first playoff opponents are UMHB (7 times), HSU (3 times), East Texas Baptist (1), and McMurry (1). Since 2001, HSU's 1st playoff opponents are UMHB (6), Trinity (3), Linfield (2), and Wittenberg.

UMHB has by far had the most diverse 1st playoff opponents of the Texas schools, but they obviously had the luxury of over 12 years without Trinity or another Texas-based SAA/SCAC school making the playoffs. I believe the only exception to this was 2014 when TLU, who (with Trinity) was in the non-auto bid SCAC but received an at-large bid and got paired with UMHB first round. UMHB's first playoff opponents since 2001 are: Trinity (7), HSU (6), Redlands (4), and then Central, Chapman, Christopher Newport, Huntington, Louisiana College, and TLU once.

I would be curious to know what the most common non-Texas playoff matchups have been since 2000. I imagine Linfield has had some common opponents, but I doubt it is as much as Trinity/UMHB. Mind you, I am using first playoff "opponents," rather than first round, to account for byes. The numbers above would be slightly skewed if I limited it solely to first round matchups, but I think the point obviously remains.

I was also surprised by Bishop getting so many plays back to back. He is a senior so it could have been Urban trying to get him as much playing time as possible in likely his last regular season game. Or they could have been testing some stuff for playoffs against what has been a generally solid Maryville defense this season.

I hope Maryville continues to have success in the SAA. Adding quality programs like them raises the competition top to bottom and will continue to give the SAA opportunities for multiple playoff teams each year under the new format.

Tavarez is a stud at this level. It is incredibly disappointing that BJ Stewart transferred to UMHB because that duo would have been deadly together on this offense. Think BJ only played like 1.5 games last year before he got hurt or whatever happened where he stopped playing.

I am used to D3 crews being homers. It's hard to have consistent announcers that are neutral when most programs use students, making the turnover routine. That being said, I also struggled watching the Berry/Trinity game and had to mute the audio several times. In fairness, however, there was a Trinity announcer a few years back that I could not stand and would routinely mute gameday audio.

It is always a treat watching a broadcast like UMHB's that has both great camera work and announcers that have been with them for some time. By the way, has Trinity used the drone camera at all this year? I don't recall seeing it - but if anything it has not been used as much as last year.

Separately - I have been ignorant of what all goes into NPI, so I was surprised to see Trinity so high in D3datacast's projections, which were spot on last year with what the NCAA released NPI rankings ended up being: https://d3datacast.com/npi/fb/

Assuming everything holds, looks likely we once again get paired first round with ASC winner, which is beyond old at this point. But we know how the playoff financing goes.

Quote from: awadelewis on November 01, 2025, 02:17:31 PMTU 13 - SEW 0 at the half.

I haven't seen a lot of consistent play from either offense. And that was one of the most egregious bad calls I've seen in a while with that PI call that led to that second score. The double pass that led to the first score was a good call.

Trinity putting up plenty of yardage but stalling again and again. Very similar to the sputtering that occurred last week.

Quote from: tigerguy on November 01, 2025, 01:04:35 PMIs sewanee video stream working for yall?

Working now.

Is sewanee video stream working for yall?

NCAA stats website only goes back to 2012, but it appears one of those games was 2023 against Southwestern when they put up 710 yards.

I would have expected that some of the prolific Tiger passing offenses of the late 90s/early 2000s would be up there statistically with these recent Urban-led teams, but it's probably an unfair comparison since games were played differently back then.

Hondo has found confidence as a dual threat quarterback and he is a capable in both respects. I would like to see Urban give him more opportunities on the ground because I think it will ultimately help with Hondo's internal clock in the pocket. He has historically had an issue holding onto the ball too long, so trusting his legs will continue to add a needed element of unpredictability to this offense. A very nice rebound this week, although against poor Rhodes.

Edit: 734 yards of offense! WOW. Will need to check where that output ranks for them all time in a single game.

Props to Berry's o-line - they are absolutely working us.

I can't tell if Trinity's receivers just aren't getting open or if Hondo is just being too conservative. Disappointing game overall.