Last week the Hobart College Statesmen landed the seventh position in the preseason D3football.com poll. Hobart had been tabbed as twelfth and thirteenth by the Sporting News and Lindy’s Sports Awards College Football polls, respectively, earlier in the summer. To be fair I thought the SN and LSAC rankings were perfect in the sense that they recognized Hobart’s 12 win season (a feat only four other teams in the 240+ team Division accomplished), who the Statesmen had graduated (two year, playoff experienced, starting QB and backup, not to mention a 19 TD scoring RB), and how a new QB would be taking over the offense.
I am guessing what the D3football.com pollsters focused on was the fact that Hobart has a proven formula – depth and size on the OL, a 1,000+ yard four year starting RB Steven Webb in in an I-back / run first type of offense and a defense with two All-American players (Worthington and Coleman) that ranked fifth in the nation (total defense) that didn’t lose a lot of pieces from 2012. Still, the relatively low number of points for the seventh position (381, which divided by 25 averages out to 15.24 points per vote, so there were probably some pollsters who had the Statesmen in the high teens), shows that there was some disagreement on where Hobart belonged in the polls. To be fair, the poll overall shows a relatively “wide open” results (e.g. three teams getting a good portion of first place votes) this year, so that's something to consider as well.
Not that I am complaining about the national profile Hobart is getting coming in at #7, but there are some pitfalls to starting off so high in a preseason poll. Namely, just being ranked in the Top 10 implies that you should cruise through your regular season schedule without much difficulty. Until last year, the Statesmen hadn’t run the table in the Liberty League (LL) since 2004, and it had been 57 years since a prior undefeated regular season. The pollsters will not only expect wins but also lopsided ones and the team could start to feel pressure from not winning “by enough” depending on how the season unfolds.
Both Springfield and Union College bring back very strong teams and I guarantee have their games with Hobart (10/12 for the Pride and 11/2 for the Dutchmen) circled on their calendars. Both games are away games for the Statesmen and barring a few surprises, its likely both teams will be undefeated when they face off against Hobart in these match ups.
In spite of the above, I am fairly certain the focus will be on playing Dickinson on September 7th. Head Coach Mike Cragg did a masterful job keeping the team in check week in and out, and although in conversations the players admitted to wanting to go undefeated, they also fully subscribed to the one game at a time philosophy espoused by the coaching staff.
Needless to say, it won’t be for a few weeks until we really know whether or not the preseason ranking(s) bear any merit. It’s definitely an exciting time for the program. I know I am already counting down to kickoff!
Go ‘Bart!
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