Archive For The “Richmond” Category
It’s the spring, and what that means is that the weather (hopefully) is getting better, the flowers are blooming, and – most importantly – we’re in the middle of spring football season.Soon I am planning on posting an update on what has gone on i…
Still bummed that Lehigh’s Patriot League Championship season is over? Yeah, me too.
That doesn’t mean that I’ve totally tuned out the college football landscape, though.
Starting tonight, there’s some terrific games on TV and online streaming that I’ll be watching, both at the FCS and the FBS level. Happily, the FCS Round of 16 games are not all going up against each other like last week, so the opportunity is there to catch one or more of those games – and you can bet that I will be.
Below the flip, starting with the MAC championship game tonight, are my picks for games to watch, and – why not? – some picks as to who I think will win.
(Yes, it includes Penn State. Stop asking.)
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You didn’t ask for them, but here’s my pick for this week’s FCS Top 25.
I’m pretty proud of myself for not falling into the trap of South Dakota State.
Many people, after the Jackrabbits’ huge win over North Dakota State, vaulted them to the Top 5 of their polls, but I know better. The craziness of the Missouri Valley I thought would eventually catch up with them, so I had only reluctantly put them at No. 10.
Their loss to 3-5 Illinois State, taken in isolation, was a shocker – but perhaps not completely shocking, though, considering the Missouri Valley has not one but two teams that have beaten Power Five Teams and also have five losses.
In fact, there are three Missouri Valley teams – Illinois State, South Dakota and Northern Iowa – that can plausibly say, if they get to 6-5, they have a legitimate shot at making the playoffs as an at-large team, thanks to perceived quality wins.
You didn’t ask for them, but here’s my pick for this week’s FCS Top 25.
I love picking games correctly involving teams 1-13 because it makes picking the Top 25 very easy – simply cut, and paste.
Most of that comes from not overrating teams like Northern Iowa, who dropped out of my top 25 after a bad loss to South Dakota, and properly rating Villanova, who keeps winning and has been a regular in my Top 10 for several weeks now.
One of the teams I had been considering for the Top 25 is Dartmouth, but after a stunning 21-13 loss to Yale, I’ve had to re-evaluate that assessment.
Many a transitive property that puts Lehigh in the playoffs or maybe even the FBS National Championship game could start with “Lehigh beat Yale, and Yale beat Dartmouth, and Dartmouth beat New Hampshire…”
You didn’t ask for them, but here’s my pick for this week’s FCS Top 25.
(Photo Credit: Elon Athletics)
Let’s see, are there any other teams I can curse into losses this week?
Last time I was here, I was extolling the virtues of William and Mary and Stony Brook in this space. This week? Um, not so much.
You didn’t ask for them – nobody is – but here’s my pick for this week’s FCS Top 25.
(Photo Credit: The Oregonian)Even though Lehigh isn’t taking on any FBS teams this season, it’s not too early to take a look at the 2016 college football schedule and look at some of the games that pit FCS teams vs. FBS teams and look for potential ups…
If you’d like, you can check out my FCS Top 25 vote below.
Pity Dartmouth.
The Big Green and Harvard, whom I’ve had in my Top 25 all season, played a game last Friday that was as great as a game between Top 25 teams can be.
For 3 1/2 quarters, Dartmouth controlled the game, up 13-0 and the Big Green’s defense, somewhat surprisingly, completely smothering Harvard’s potent offense.
Then, in the span of about six and a half, Harvard, amazingly, pulled out the win.
One touchdown pass to WR Seitu Smith, one Dartmouth fumble and another touchdown throw from QB Scott Hosch to RB Justice Shelton-Mosley, and Harvard took their first lead of the game with 36 seconds left in the game.
It was a great game to watch, and amply showed that both teams were worthy of Top 25 status, but it is impossible, as a neutral fan, to not feel for the Big Green, who had them right there.
If you’d like, you can check out my FCS Top 25 vote below.
The story of the week in James Madison after their loss to Richmond wasn’t the fact that College Football Gameday was there, nor was it about their big CAA conference loss, which took them out of the drivers’ seat for the CAA title and conference autobid.
It was the fact that their superstar quarterback, QB Vad Lee, sustained an injury that would require surgery and take him out for the remained of the season.
The play didn’t look like much. The Dukes, who were already down by two touchdowns, saw Lee simply try to make something happen on a routine 2 yard run left. A shoestring tackle by Richmond’s linebacker wasn’t particularly dirty, though in retrospect it looked like his foot was tackled awkwardly.
A play afterwards, Lee remained in, and collapsed after hucking a deep pass, and his incredible career at JMU was done.
If you’d like, you can check out my FCS Top 25 vote below.
I don’t ordinarily do do two things with my poll that I actually did this week:
1. I usually don’t demote a team completely out of the Top 25 if they’re a Top 5 team and they lose.
2. I usually don’t demote a team from the No. 1 slot if they win their game.
But that’s exactly what I did, after I looked at my poll with a fresh new set of eyes after some of the more interesting outcomes from the weekend.
I’d been meaning to demote Villanova for some time, not only due to their sort-of lackluster performance over the beginning of the season, but for their seemingly lackluster play going back to last season when Sam Houston upset them in the FCS Round of 8 last season. I was looking for a dominant performance against the worst team on their schedule, Penn, and instead the Quakers upset the Wildcats 24-13.
You could argue that they were getting things done with defense. You could have said that with the loss of their Walter Payton Award-nominated quaterback, QB John Robertson, they’d suffer. But the team that lost this past Thursday, simply, wasn’t a Top 25 team in my opinion. The confluence of all these factors had me dip them out of the Top 25 entirely.
