Last Sunday night on “In The HuddLLe” Hobart Head Coach Mike Cragg reminded us that the Statesmen have lost their last two Liberty League openers to that season's eventual conference champions (you check out the archive at http://www.inthehuddlle.com/). Last season it was a 24-21 decision to the Saint Lawrence University Saints (2-2, 1-0) that upended Hobart in Canton, NY. The win was Saint Lawrence’s first victory over the Statesmen since 1991 and propelled the Saints to an eventual 5-1 league record and their first ever (“modern”) NCAA tournament berth.
This year the Saint Lawrence game will also serve as Hobart’s (2-0, 0-0) home opener, being one of only three games this season to be played at Boswell Field. The Statesmen are riding high after winning their first two contests by an 89-29 margin.
That said Hobart will be looking for some payback but will have to contend with one somewhat unfamiliar face to earn a victory on Saturday.
The new face of the Saints is their quarterback of the future, SO Nik Busharis. The Mansfield, MA native enjoyed his second three passing touchdown performance against the United States Merchant Marine Academy (1-3, 0-1) in route to helping the Saints retain the Hoffman Cup for the third consecutive season. Busharis has completed over 60% (good for 2nd in the LL in pass efficiency, just behind Hobart’s Nick Strang) of his passes for 633 yards and 10 touchdowns, the latter which leads the league. His favorite target is SR WR and Co-Captain Ethan Sutton who’s hauled in 26 catches for 331 yards and seven TDs.
In spite of these impressive numbers in the passing game, Saint Lawrence’s game changer on offense is really SR RB and Co-Captain Marcus Washington. The Pahokee, FL native leads the league with 583 yards rushing (145.8 yards per game average) on 108 carries (an impressive 5.4 YPR average).
Defensively the Saints are lead by SR LB and Co-Captain Trevor Saunders with 41 total tackles, including three and a half tackles for loss and one forced fumble. Overall Saint Lawrence has performed better against the pass (137.2 YPG) than the run (211.5 YPG) but struggled against the prolific Utica and Alfred passing games, allowing 262 yards and three TDs and 175 yards passing and two touchdowns, respectively.
Keys to the game:
1. (Re)Establish Home Field Advantage – After an impressive scoreless and win streak on the grass and mud of the old “Boz”, Hobart went 3-2 on the new field turf surface in 2010. So far the Statesmen have been effective starting off games quickly, having outscored their opposition 49-7 in the first half and should look to do the same to the Saints on Saturday.
2. The Buck Stops with Washington – Alfred was very effective in limiting RB Marcus Washington to 70 yards on 18 carries, jumping out to a big lead and forcing the Saints into passing / playing from behind.
3. Pressure Busharis – Busharis is not very mobile and lost 40 yards rushing on six sacks against Alfred as well. Overall the SO QB has been sacked nine times. Hobart’s FY DE Tyre Coleman collected the first two sacks of the year for the Statesmen defense and should look to collect a few more Saturday.
Prediction:
I like Hobart to exact some revenge for last year’s loss by a comfortable 38-21 margin (with two of the Saints’ scores coming late in the fourth quarter when the game is pretty much in hand).
Kickoff is slated for 12 PM ET and will be broadcast on WHWS (http://www.whws.com/) radio.
Go ‘Bart!
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