Quote from: MRMIKESMITH on October 10, 2025, 01:03:41 PM

Quote from: CMU24 on October 07, 2025, 11:07:29 AMWe have a showdown this Sat in the conference, #17 Carnegie Mellon @ #3 Johns Hopkins

Zero chatter on this board even though the CC is one of the top conferences this year in D3 football. The winner of this game will likely be the CC champs. Any insight into this game anyone?

There was never any chatter on this board. It's unfortunate because a lot folk interact with the D3 team outside of the board.

It's like your post summoned the JV posters out of the ether to suddenly appear and pronounce their team unbeatable.  Love it.

Quote from: Bartman on Yesterday at 11:14:37 AMIthaca gets 8 votes in this week's poll. No love for RPI yet, as that Utica loss looks worse than the loss by Ithaca to JHU. No one is following the LL this year except it's fans. D3Football is not showing any love despite having one of the most active boards on this site .

I have found that D3 football in general is more enjoyable to follow if I just focus on what's happening in NY and the northeast - the things that make trying to rank D3 teams nationally an objectively silly exercise (the small number of data points, the lack of any real national crossover play, the heavy year-to-year changes at each program) are exactly the same things that make regional competition and focus so cool.  We can have a fun, thoughtful debate about who the best team in NY is, and the answer to that question is something that we would all agree does and should matters - for pride, for recruiting, etc.  But a debate as to whether Ithaca is better or worse than Linfield?  Who cares.  Impossible to tell, nothing at stake - unless and until they meet in a playoff matchup, in which case that question is actually settled on the field.

But of course, I'm a regional play guy - I have said for a while now that we'd be better off if we went to regional seedings and brackets for the tournament.

All of which reminds me - does anyone else remember when the NY SIDS has a little consortium that kept stats for the state and had a weekly poll for all of NY?  That's a poll I would find interesting and useful, if they ever resurrected it.

And a final question, while I'm at it - for fans of other LL schools, how is your local press coverage of the program? I am also impressed that Schenectady's Daily Gazette covers Union football well - a preseason story, Friday previews and Saturday evening game stories, etc.  And the local TV stations tend to cover and tape footage at Union's home games. Do other programs have that with their local paper/TV?

Quote from: Bartman on October 11, 2025, 06:16:41 PMWell, one more gut wrenching congratulations....this time to Union today...Patch Flanagan IS Union football. I knew Hobart was in a difficult position when I heard 30% of the team could not practice this week. Something must be wrong with the strength and conditioning program, that's crazy to have so many players out including last week when we had 5 starters on defense out. Today, Hobart actually outgained Union, had a running back and a receiver with over 100 yards each, but lost the game. Patch Flanagan can throw the ball now, he could always run, and the Union defense was a decent rubber band defense. They are not as good as RPI , but they will give Ithaca a good battle.

Liberty league :

1. RPI(Should get votes this week!)
2.Ithaca( Will still get votes this week)
3. Union(Might even get votes this week)
4.Hobart(The best 1-5 team in the country..haha)
5.Rochester
6.St.Lawrence
7.Buff State
8. Hilbert

Good luck ti IC, RPI and Union the rest of the way.

As great as it was to watch the Union win today, I felt for the Hobart guys - it reminds a little of Union's year last year, where it seems like the kids are working their butts off, but everything that can wrong, does. There's obviously plenty of talent on the roster - I was really impressed by the o-line and receivers, in particular.  I suspect the Statesmen will run off four wins to finish the year at .500 and turn the page to 2026.

PS:  EJ Taylor IS Statesmen football.  Gritted out 21 highly effective carries and tried to put the team on his back notwithstanding what was clearly a painful ankle after that second series.

Looking at some two deeps today, it is pretty striking how young the LL is nearly across the board.  Ithaca, Hobart and Union each have just 3-4 seniors starting on defense; the offenses are a little more senior, but not by much.  And lots of freshman and sophomores starting all over.  (I couldn't find an RPI two deep, so maybe they are an exception.) My hunch is the LL bounces back pretty hard the next few years in terms of out-of-conference performance.

Quote from: ICGrad on October 04, 2025, 03:18:51 PM

Quote from: unionpalooza on October 04, 2025, 02:31:23 PMGood god, Rochester could not have handled the last two minutes of that game any worse.  First down at the IC 15 with 2 minutes to go.  They waste 90 seconds with three runs and dink passes and then struggle to get a fourth down play off as the clock runs out. 

I didn't watch the game: Were they out of timeouts? Because burning off a bunch of time in that scenario is a pretty sound strategy, assuming you're actually executing offensively. Running 3 plays to gain 1 yard and leave yourself a 4th and 9...not so much.

They had one TO, which they burned after second down because they get couldn't the third down play in on time. Taking their time would have made sense, they just went WAY too slow for an offense that averaged 3.2 yards on the day. Should have taken four shots at the end zone and hoped for the best on D. 

Good god, Rochester could not have handled the last two minutes of that game any worse.  First down at the IC 15 with 2 minutes to go.  They waste 90 seconds with three runs and dink passes and then struggle to get a fourth down play off as the clock runs out.  Just atrocious.  Coach just can't do that to a team on the verge of a historic upset.

Based on the results so far today, seems like RPI is the clear league favorite, without much separation behind them between Hobart, Ithaca, and UofR.  We won't really know where Union stands until next week.

Quote from: Machiavelli on September 29, 2025, 02:21:17 PMI know, I know. I'm splitting hairs at this point in the season, but even RPI has 2 better wins than Brockport has on their resume. Brockport has beaten Hobart(by 4), and NOBODY else. Why are they there? If Utica is there because they beat up on RPI, but RPI's win over Brockport had zero effect on Brockport getting a few votes, I am just not tracking. The E8 is NOT better than the LL. They are about even. I think the top of the heap is pretty even, and maybe give the E8 a slight nod at the bottom of the league, mostly because now we have BOTH Buff St. and Hilbert.
 

I know that Pat works to have a geographically diverse set of votes, and bless him for doing so, but I think the non-R1/2 voters are always paying way less attention to what happens in the East than vice versa, resulting in these kinds of weirdnesses all the time.  I mean, why on earth is Cortland ranked while Grove City, who beat them 31-14, is getting only four votes?  I can see thinking that Grove City is not a Top 25 team because they lost to W&J, who in turn lost to Utica and Hampden Sydney.  But how is Cortland, who's best win is over a 2-2 Union team they led 7-6 going into the fourth quarter, getting 100 votes?  Some of these guys are paying no attention to the east whatsoever.

You know what would be a fun new D3F product?  Regional rankings each week, done by voters in the region.  Those would be a lot more reliable, I suspect.  (And as I've long argued, there's basically no rational basis anyway for comparing D3 programs on a nationwide basis anyway, with only 10 games and very little cross-over play.)

Man, kudos to the Ithaca kids for the quality of their broadcast. I think it's gotta be the best product in D3 football.

Quote from: IC798891 on September 26, 2025, 03:58:51 PMO

Quote from: unionpalooza on September 26, 2025, 11:27:22 AMI still can't believe the LL got saddled with both of these guys.  Still wish they instead had divided the LL and E8 into a super league of Union/Ithaca/RPI/Hobart/Brockport/Cortland/Utica/Alfred and relegated the other 8 to a B league. 

If your program has an 0-10 season on its D3 football.com era resume, I wouldn't be talking about which programs should be getting relegated to B leagues.

Fortunately, I have decades of pretty detailed knowledge about all 16 of those programs and where they stand relative to one another, so I don't need to base what I say on single cherry picked fact.  If you had a different perspective on which 8 of those 16 programs have had the most sustained success over relevant history, I'm all ears. 

EDIT:  I should add that "relegated to a B league" probably sounded mean spirited, and I didn't mean to be mean.  I just think it would be better for almost everyone if the leagues were separated by program strength.  I should have written with a little more tact.

Quote from: Pat Coleman on September 26, 2025, 11:34:20 AMWell, then that team's NPI would suffer, they'd get sent to a pretty good team on the road early in the playoffs, and people would use that as a data point to suggest your league was overrated.

Eh, I could care less about how people rate the league. I just want to watch — and I think most kids want to play — good, hard-nosed football and games that matter, week after week.  The luxury of beating up on Butterscotch State, whether during the season or in the first round of the playoffs, is a lame thing to prioritize.

Quote from: Machiavelli on September 25, 2025, 01:26:36 PM

Quote from: Bartman on September 25, 2025, 12:58:00 PMPrediction this Weekend Summary:

                LL Posters.      Hansen.       Massey
RPI V. U of R.    RPI 5-0        RPI by 13.    RPI by 9.5

Hobart v IC.      IC. 3-2.       IC by 9.       IC. by 12.5

SLU v. Union.     Union 4-1.     Union by 18.   Union by 22.5

Buff St.v Hilbert Buff ST. 3-2   Buff ST.by18.  Buff ST. by 17.5

The best bet is taking SLU and 22.5 against Union

If Buff State/Dilbert even score 17.5 combined, I'll be shocked.

I still can't believe the LL got saddled with both of these guys.  Still wish they instead had divided the LL and E8 into a super league of Union/Ithaca/RPI/Hobart/Brockport/Cortland/Utica/Alfred and relegated the other 8 to a B league.  I think it would be awesome to have a WIAC-like set up where 6-2 in the league is an epic accomplishment that sets you up for a deep playoff run.

Based on how different things have looked week to week, it seems like the LL will be wide open this year and an adventure every Saturday.  I've only followed Union, Ithaca, Hobart, and RPI closely, but it looks like they're all very young - a whole lot more underclassman starting and playing key roles, and less senior-heavy rosters, than we've seen lately.  I wonder whether some of this is COVID hangover - you've got juniors and seniors who lost a year of HS and then got stuck on the depth chart behind year after year of COVID super-seniors. So, a lot less experience at the top than you'd usually have, which maybe explains how uneven play has been week to week.

Quote from: RowanPhan on September 19, 2025, 12:43:47 PM

Quote from: ADL70 on September 17, 2025, 11:26:50 AMSix players from week 1's 2-deep are not on week 3's. 3 FY are now on the 2-Deep, a starter at ILB and both back-up CBs.

I must admit, the game notes your SID shares are top class. 

The death of real game notes and two-deeps in D3 is sad. 

Wow, the Utica transfer QB absolutely dismantling RPI right now.  21 of 22 for 298 yards and 5 TDs midway through the third.

Quote from: Ice Bear on September 13, 2025, 02:18:19 PMHome sick as a dog. Just woke up to see Cortland take it in for the 4th Q score with little time left in the game.

With what palooza said maybe it's best I missed this one.

Overall, how did Union look?

D played balls out.  Offense moved the ball but awful ref calls and four TOs, two into the Cortland end zone, made the difference. Union was poised to go up 13-10 at the start of the fourth when they fumbled on the Cortland 2.

Cortland pouring on garbage points now.