FB: Liberty League

[Bartman]

Bartman, curious on your thoughts on Coach DeWall. Are you starting to maybe turn up the heat on his seat? Seems like a good guy and obviously a solid coach but he also has some Swanstrom in him where he tends to struggle in more meaningful games. Obviously they beat Ithaca and won the league last year but if you look at the body of work it is overall disappointing in conference. I had to come to terms with this during the Swanstrom era and eventually found myself looking for change to try and get over the in league hump, he did get us over the hump with Cortland which was felt great the first two years.. but I digress. Not throwing any shade or anything like that just very curious on what you think!

All this talk of gray jerseys....how boring...give me the pumpkin all orange for Hobart this Saturday against RPI...pants, jerseys and helmets....and in some cases cleats as well.
On another topic, I just read about the Hope Flying Dutchmen's game and it made pine for the old Dutchmen of Union. Now when I recharge my phone , I think of Union  

Coach DeWall is a very good coach that is disciplined, process oriented and loves Hobart. He played lacrosse and football(under the best coach we had, Mike Cragg). He had a hard time as head coach at Endicott as the alums were impatient and he was fired. Accepting the job in 2018 at Hobart when Cragg unexpectedly stepped down , he has gone 48-20, 23-10 in the LL , 2-2 in Bowl games , 0-1 in the NCAA tourney and last year won his first LL Championship.If Ithaca never entered the LL he would have had more success with RPI, SLU and Union as the major rivals.
    Coach DeWall and his staff do a good job recruiting despite Hobart only having 900 men on campus and 10% of them are on the football team. Hobart does not have a business(we have Entrepreneurship)or a sports management major which limits recruiting for some recruits, although the placement for jobs into Wall Street, Real Estate and General Business with the tight-nit alumni network is quite effective.
  That all said DeWall was preceded by our morst successful Football Head Coach, Mike Cragg. Under Mike we had the 2012-2014 dominant teams with Ali Marpet and some of the best players Hobart ever had.Mike Cragg was a river boat gambler and a passionate motivator that got the most out of his talent and Hobart was lucky to have him. Coach DeWall is more like a competent football scientist that has a more level personality but firmly communicates his expectations.
  The bottom line is, Hobart is consistently a top 50 D3 program that competes every year for the LL Championship , and while we would love to win more LL titles, DeWall has kept us in the mix every season with solid recruits that will become good men after graduation( BTW, if a recruit is a surprising behavior problem DeWall will let them know early, even if they are very talented...there are rare examples of some who are not with the team anymore).
  I think Hobart can still go 7-3 this season , have an outside chance for the LL title with some luck or grab an ECAC bowl. Kevin is not a Knute Rockne inspirational style coach but he is a competent process oriented coach that will give his team a chance to win and the rest is up to them.

[IC798891]

Letting Hilbert hop into the LL as a football-only school all but killed the possibility of the LL being a two bid league.

Nah, just don't suck in OOC play.

Hobart and Union lost two OOC games already, while RPI and IC have dropped one — and the Bombers still have Cortland to go. There's almost no chance the LL runner up has fewer than three losses, unless RPI runs the table except for losing to IC or IC upsets Cortland.

[IC798891]

So I rewatched the end of the Hobart-IC game, because i was only half watching on Saturday with the kids.

On Hobart's infamous final drive, I have three thoughts:

1. That drop on the sure touchdown pass was so symbolic of how Hobart feels snakebitten at IC. I feel like these sorts of things just always happen to them at Butterfield

2. I would not have picked up the flag on the PI call. Unless there's an angle I didn't see showing the Hobart WR fell on his own, I thought IC's DB turned around way too late to get that picked up.

3. Hobart's final pass play was just so frustrating for the fan in me. Hobart's WR sat down a full yard short of the sticks. Either that route was designed too shallow or the WR cut in too early, but ugh.

Sometimes game feel like both teams executed, but one executed slightly better. This one felt a lot like neither team executed well, Ithaca just did so slightly less worse.

[Bartman]

IC,

"2. I would not have picked up the flag on the PI call. Unless there's an angle I didn't see showing the Hobart WR fell on his own, I thought IC's DB turned around way too late to get that picked up."

   I was pretty close to seeing this play live, and it was a fair PI call against Ithaca and crazy to have the officials pick the flag up.That IC DB saved the game for the Bombers by committing the PI. It certainly contributes to the "curse" at Butterfield and the evidence for poor officiating in D3  Football. This was also highlighted on the D3FB "In the Huddle' this week as one of the bad calls this weekend. What a critical moment where Hobart's third string QB almost broke the curse.

[IC798891]

This was also highlighted on the D3FB "In the Huddle' this week as one of the bad calls this weekend. What a critical moment where Hobart's third string QB almost broke the curse.

Well, they would have picked up 15 yards on the flag, and they picked up 11 on the next play anyway. Like, I don't know how the mental aspect of it impacted anything, but in terms of where the ball ended up, it was minimally impactful

The 4th down call though, that's what we call the old Day 1 install. You simply can't do what they did there.

[Bartman]

Bartman Week #5 LL Picks( 22-6 Record YTD)

Pumpkins.  24.      Enginerds.  17.       Simply,  STATESMEN DO NOT LOSE AT THE BOZ

Bombers.   31.        Yellowjackets  10.    The Yellowjackets got no stingers

Dutchmen Forever  45.      Bengals.  10.      Dutchies stay undefeated in the LL

SLU MEN.          55.      Hawks.    10.          Hawks get double digits                           

[Machiavelli]

Holy cow, it's Thursday already. Guess it's that time to get in on predictions(thanks Bartman for the reminder post...LOL).

Mach's Worthless and Weak Week 5 Predictions:
Ithaca - 31
Rochester - 14
Not impressed with Rochester last week. Ithaca should win this one without too much trouble.

RPI - 24
Hobart - 21
This feels like a coin flip kinda game given the location. Utica blasted RPI and Hobart beat them, but I'm chalking it up as a bad day and bad matchup, and RPI wins out.

Dilbert - 0
St. Lawrence - 40
Gross. Just gross.

Union - 45
Buff St - 6
Union is showing they could be a contender. Buff St scores a TD with 3 seconds left and misses the extra point.

There ya have it. Down with the pumpkins!

[IC798891]

Random thought:

Pat and the crew should do a non-podcast recap of the weekend on Mondays highlighting some things they saw, in a similar fashion to Fridays "Quick Hits".

[Bartman]

Holy cow, it's Thursday already. Guess it's that time to get in on predictions(thanks Bartman for the reminder post...LOL).

Mach's Worthless and Weak Week 5 Predictions:
Ithaca - 31
Rochester - 14
Not impressed with Rochester last week. Ithaca should win this one without too much trouble.

RPI - 24
Hobart - 21
This feels like a coin flip kinda game given the location. Utica blasted RPI and Hobart beat them, but I'm chalking it up as a bad day and bad matchup, and RPI wins out.

Dilbert - 0
St. Lawrence - 40
Gross. Just gross.

Union - 45
Buff St - 6
Union is showing they could be a contender. Buff St scores a TD with 3 seconds left and misses the extra point.

There ya have it. Down with the pumpkins!

Mach, you and I are in total agreement that your picks are worthless and weak. I cannot even fathom the possibility of an RPI win on Family/Homecoming weekend at the BOZ and ruining my future trip to Troy to root for your team to beat Ithaca and a glorious 3 way LL title tie.

[Machiavelli]

[Pat Coleman]

Random thought:

Pat and the crew should do a non-podcast recap of the weekend on Mondays highlighting some things they saw, in a similar fashion to Fridays "Quick Hits".

We used to accomplish that with a second Around the Nation column that dropped Sunday afternoon when Adam Turer was the columnist, called at various times "Snap Judgments" or "Read & React." When Keith McMillan retired and I needed to press Greg Thomas into service as the co-host of the podcast, we no longer had the ability to publish a new column on Sundays.

It was good but it was also repetitive -- it was a challenge to decide what went in there, what went in the podcast and what went in the Saturday wrapup without being too duplicative. Yes, the second ATN column died before Greg joined the pod in 2020, but the thought of going back is really difficult now. I do read those types of "what we saw on Saturday" pieces in The Athletic and elsewhere and I wish we could too, but ...

https://d3football.com/columns/around-the-nation/2017/snap-judgments-week-3

[IC798891]

Yeah, I sorta remember those, though everything pre-2020 feels like a blur.

I get it, there's a lot of stuff, and limited bandwidth for everyone. Admittedly, I'm biased and just don't do podcasts, and much prefer the quick bites of text.

[tony/troy]

Holy cow, it's Thursday already. Guess it's that time to get in on predictions(thanks Bartman for the reminder post...LOL).

Mach's Worthless and Weak Week 5 Predictions:
Ithaca - 31
Rochester - 14
Not impressed with Rochester last week. Ithaca should win this one without too much trouble.

RPI - 24
Hobart - 21
This feels like a coin flip kinda game given the location. Utica blasted RPI and Hobart beat them, but I'm chalking it up as a bad day and bad matchup, and RPI wins out.

Dilbert - 0
St. Lawrence - 40
Gross. Just gross.

Union - 45
Buff St - 6
Union is showing they could be a contender. Buff St scores a TD with 3 seconds left and misses the extra point.

There ya have it. Down with the pumpkins!

Mach, you and I are in total agreement that your picks are worthless and weak. I cannot even fathom the possibility of an RPI win on Family/Homecoming weekend at the BOZ and ruining my future trip to Troy to root for your team to beat Ithaca and a glorious 3 way LL title tie.

Someone is actually planning a leisure trip to within the city limits of Troy, my original childhood hometown back when it was still nice and safe? Stop the presses!!!!

Even those of us that are now fortunate enough to live in the much nicer and safer immediate surrounding towns, villages and hamlets don't often do that anymore unless there are absolutely, positively no other preferred choices for things such as appointments with medical practitioners. However, among the few remaining voluntary leisure activity reasons there are for entering Troy are RPI games but not that many people do that anymore either.     

[ICGrad]

Letting Hilbert hop into the LL as a football-only school all but killed the possibility of the LL being a two bid league.

Nah, just don't suck in OOC play.

Hobart and Union lost two OOC games already, while RPI and IC have dropped one — and the Bombers still have Cortland to go. There's almost no chance the LL runner up has fewer than three losses, unless RPI runs the table except for losing to IC or IC upsets Cortland.

This season's not the best example, as I feel the league as a whole is a bit down this year.

Still, if Ithaca runs the table, but loses to RPI and doesn't get the AQ, I'm not sure an 8-2 Ithaca gets in with their weaker SoS.

I see no value in adding Hilbert, and personally get no enjoyment in watching us beat up on a team like that. Give us Brockport and let the E8 have Hilbert back.

[Bartman]

I say we trade Hilbert and Buffalo State for Alfred and St.John Fisher. The E8 is mostly a NYS Public University League, while the LL is essentially a Private College/University league. Also Alfred and SJF have had some rich football history and success on the D3 level which would really add to the depth of the LL . That would be my preference and I would think Alfred and SJF would enjoy that realignment as well.