Playing the year-over-year score game with Ithaca. I'm excluding Hilbert because I think they're too non-competitive to be relevant (but it would increase these disparities):

Hopkins 2025: 14 points, 282 yards (4.5 YPP)
Hopkins 2026: 21 points, 395 yards (5.3 YPP)

Alfred 2025: 45 points, 494 yards (7.5 YPP)
Alfred 2026: 27 points, 407 yards (6.3 YPP)

St. Lawrence 2025: 24 points, 416 yards (5.8 YPP)
St. Lawrence 2026: 66 points, 578 yards (8.5 YPP)

Hobart 2025: 13 points, 263 yards (4.7 YPP)
Hobart 2026: 27 points, 320 yards (4.5 YPP)

Rochester 2025: 10 points, 215 yards (4.1 YPP)
Rochester 2026: 36 points, 501 yards (6.0 YPP)

Totals, averaged

2025: 21.2 points, 334 yards
2026: 35.4 points, 440 yards

There's a lot of things that can go into these numbers (Opponent quality *cough Hopkins*, short fields, penalties, etc) but overall, I think we've seen enough of the season and are seeing a big enough increase to say that Ithaca's offense is just...better than they were last year.

Quote from: IC798891 on October 10, 2026, 08:49:14 PMHey, all I was saying was, if we're saying Ithaca was getting love based on name recognition, then dismissing 2-0 in the LL Rochester because they're Rochester is kinda the other side of the same coin. And Mach and I get along just fine, mainly because we both hate Union.

LL Power Rankings-

1. RPI - The impressive win over Hobart, who beat the other LL contender and who Ithaca was, frankly, fortunate to beat, carries the weight here. I still reserve the right to be wary of a team that lost to the 2nd and 3rd best E8 teams by a combined 457 points (approximately), but they're #1 until they lose

2. Ithaca - I think the Bombers have the highest ceiling of any team in the LL. When they're clicking, the offense can look unstoppable. But, much like I was critical of Union earlier in the year, the Bombers have a tendency to sleepwalk through looooong stretches of games offensively. But they're averaging 42 points and 495 yards of offense a game, and they haven't even played Buffalo State yet. I would, however, give my kingdom for the Bombers to intercept a pass more than once a month.

3. Hobart - I guess it's recency bias, or faith in E.J. Taylor, but he's probably the best player on teams 3-5.

4. Union - The defense is keeping them in every game but their offense just is not making enough plays

5. Rochester - Hey, it's hard winning games with a backup QB. But they also allowed 29 first downs, 36 points and 500 yards of offense to Ithaca, so I'm not sure it would have mattered.

6. St. Lawrence - Take the wins where you can get them, especially the ones that let your inexperienced players get reps

7. Buffalo State - Honest question that maybe Mach knows the answer to: Was their punter hurt today, or is their new strategy just "**** it, we're going for it?" Not that it would have changed anything, but it's interesting that they were routinely going for in on 4th and really long early.

8. Hilbert - What can we say about them that wouldn't sound unnecessarily mean? Just hoping for the health of the players each week.

Hey, all I was saying was, if we're saying Ithaca was getting love based on name recognition, then dismissing 2-0 in the LL Rochester because they're Rochester is kinda the other side of the same coin. And Mach and I get along just fine, mainly because we both hate Union.

LL Power Rankings-

1. RPI - The impressive win over Hobart, who beat the other LL contender and who Ithaca was, frankly, fortunate to beat, carries the weight. I still reserve the right to be wary of a team that lost to the 2nd and 3rd best E8 teams by a combined 457 points (approximately), but they're #1 until they lose

2. Ithaca - I think the Bombers have the highest ceiling of any team in the LL. When they're clicking, the offense can look unstoppable. But, much like I was critical of Union earlier in the year, the Bombers have a tendency to sleepwalk through looooong stretches of games offensively. But they're averaging 42 points and 495 yards of offense a game, and they haven't even played Buffalo State yet. I would, however, give my kingdom for the Bombers to intercept a pass more than once a month.

3. Hobart - I guess it's recency bias, or faith in E.J. Taylor, but he's probably the best player on teams 3-5.

4. Union - The defense is keeping them in every game but their offense just is not making enough plays

5. Rochester - Hey, it's hard winning games with a backup QB. But they also allowed 29 first downs, 36 points and 500 yards of offense to Ithaca, so I'm not sure it would have mattered.

6. St. Lawrence - Take the wins where you can get them, especially the ones that let your inexperienced players get reps

7. Buffalo State - Honest question that maybe Mach knows the answer to: Was their punter hurt today, or is their new strategy just "**** it, we're going for it?" Not that it would have changed anything, but it's interesting that they were routinely going for in on 4th and really long early.

8. Hilbert - What can we say about them that wouldn't sound unnecessarily mean? Just hoping for the health of the players each week.

Quote from: Kuiper on October 09, 2026, 06:41:57 PMThe Strength and Conditioning Department stopped stocking the refrigerator in the weight room with snacks for athletes.

Take a page from Ithaca College

https://athletics.ithaca.edu/news/2026/1/23/general-ic-athletics-partners-with-wegmans-to-unveil-new-student-athlete-refueling-station.aspx

Why are we treating Rochester like they're Buff State?

Here were their results against the LL's "Big 4"

RPI: 31-3 loss
Ithaca: 10-6 loss. Led Bombers in 2nd half, had a 1st and 10 at IC 15 with less than two minutes to go
Union: 14-10 loss. Had a first and goal at Union 8 with 2:00 to go.
Hobart: 28-21 loss in OT

Yeah, RPI waxed them, but they were highly competitive in the other three games. If we're going to be literal about the LL race, including them seems more than fair

Quote from: Machiavelli on October 09, 2026, 02:51:28 PMIt's literally still a 3 team race to win the conference, but....well, Ithaca is just a sexy name I guess. I loved it in Road Trip.

It's literally still four undefeated teams in the conference but....well, it's easier to complain about other people's biases rather than admit our own I guess.

Probably fair, though I think there's a decent chance that Ithaca and Union would have had the same W-L as the other were their schedules flipped.

Yeah but we can't play the fluky loss game without pointing out that they got one of their wins on a last second TD pass, in a game that they turned it over five times and probably only won because Grove City's last drive started 4 seconds on the right side of the two-minute warning.

Fluky results giveth, and taketh, and we should take them all into account

LL Midseason Awards

Offensive Player of the Year - Michael Reed, Ithaca QB. Leads the conference in passing yards by close to 40 a game (used instead of raw totals given that Union's QB has only played in 4 games). Both he and Sheehan have done their damage against the lower parts of the conference. Reed is also T-5th in rushing yards.

Defensive Player of the year - A.J. Bicksler, Rochester, DL. Leads the conference with 6.5 sacks and is second with 7.5 TFL. He's had at least half a sack in every game and I appreciate the consistency vs what we sometimes see where 80% of the production comes in 2-3 games.

Coaching Staff of the Year - Whoever wins the conference I guess? No one is likely to overachieve, so this one probably comes down to the boring logic of "To the winner go the spoils."

Excluding kneel downs, Alfred State ran 28 offensive plays in that game. Given that, I'm amazed that they even had the ball for 12 minutes.

Here's how the LL Top 3 breaks down

Union: 3 wins over teams with a combined record of 2-13, 2 losses to teams with a combined record of 8-1
RPI: 3 wins over teams with a combined record of 6-9, 2 losses to teams with a combined record of 8-2
Ithaca: 4 wins over teams with a combined record of 5-17, 1 loss to a team that is 1-3

None of the teams have a good win unless you're buying WPI at 4-1.

WPI has beaten:
0-5 UNE
1-4 Husson
3-2 Coast Guard
1-3 Norwich

Personally, that's a no from me. So IMO, we're parsing losses.

There's no way to put RPI over Union based on losses. Cortland is objectively a better loss than Utica, and there's no way losing 45-10 to Brockport is better than a loss OT to Susquehanna.

So it's Union ahead of RPI. What to do with Ithaca? One less loss, but it is, by far, the worst loss. And, the lousy 2nd half vs. Hobart means that they narrowly escaped with a win over a team RPI easily handled.

Thus, we have:

1. Union
2. RPI
3. Ithaca
4. Hobart
5. Rochester
6. St. Lawrence
7. Buffalo State
8. Hilbert

I mean, that's a tough gig, but I probably would have led with a few of the defensive performers were I the SID, because you're at least highlighting positives.

"Kaden Beckerink led all players with nine tackles, and Anthony Theiss and Sherrod Patterson II each notched a sack..." is a stronger opener than "They totaled 48 offensive plays."

Quote from: ICGrad on October 03, 2026, 05:08:38 PM

Quote from: IC798891 on October 03, 2026, 04:49:49 PMLast year's LL title swung on a similarly inexcusable late hit penalty on Ithaca vs Union, turning a punt into an eventual TD.

It's possible the unsportsmanlike call (Which, from the vantage point of my computer, looked weaaaaakkkkk as ****) today saved the Bombers, because it's hard to underestimate how much their O-line was getting dominated right up until then

Something must have happened; something mush have been said or done for the flag to be thrown there.

Hobart had a number of late hit/after the play penalties today. Too bad, too; if they had cleaned that up they could well have won the game.

Yeah, I really thought Ithaca was dead in the water there. Both teams were really sloppy today, handing out first downs, stopping their own drives. Lots for Ithaca to clean up if they want to beat Union and RPI

Last year's LL title swung on a similarly inexcusable late hit penalty on Ithaca vs Union, turning a punt into an eventual TD.

It's possible the unsportsmanlike call (Which, from the vantage point of my computer, looked weaaaaakkkkk as ****) today saved the Bombers, because it's hard to underestimate how much their O-line was getting dominated right up until then

Yawn. Another E8 "showdown" ends in a Cortland laugher, and the Red Dragons are still undefeated in conference play this decade, and, barring a stunner of epic proportions, will be 9-0 and locked into the playoffs heading into Cortaca.

Brockport sticking it to Joe Germinerio by making the playoffs after he went to Ithaca while the Bombers dinked around in an ECAC playoff game (again) in 2019 remains one of the funnier moments in Upstate NY football in recent memory. But unless Utica's QB plans to transfer to Ithaca next year to start up the irony merry-go-round for round 2, I'm guessing Cortland will continue to run the conference.