The Hobart College Statesmen Football team has had many memorable offensive generals over the past 20 seasons including greats like Greg Helmer '97, Dan Birdsall '01, Craig Swanson '04, Shawn Mizro '07, Nick Strang '13 and most recently Patrick Conlan '15, who finished his career with a 22-2 record as starting QB.
This fall a handful of Statesmen will look to etch their names in the record books by competing for arguably the most difficult position on the field. Thanks to the coaching and recruiting prowess of HC Mike Cragg and OC Jon Drach the open starting QB job for Hobart will be one of the most talked about competitions of camp, if not the East Region.
SR Co-Captain Parker Thelander has patiently waited for this opportunity while being one of the best special teams players in the Liberty League (LL). He knows the playbook and his experience, leadership and understanding of the offense certainly puts him in prime position going into preseason camp.
Most D3FB programs would be happy (and lucky) to have three young men like these coming back. What makes Hobart, now a consistent Top 10-15 program in the nation an exception, is it's ability to attract other top student athletes from upper division programs. In this case a couple of interesting developments in the off-season have added intrigue to the Statesmen "Arms Race" namely:
SO QB Thomas Sydeski decided to return to Upstate NY and transferred to Hobart after attending Stonehill College (D2) outside of Boston, MA the last two years. A Brockport, NY native, Tom reminds me of Nick Strang '13 based on his build (6'5" 215 lbs) and ability to make plays.
Sydeski led Brockport HS to a 16-2 record over his JR and SR seasons, setting school records for passing yards (4,018) and TDs (48) over that time period. He earned All County and Player of the Year honors for his accomplishments. You can check out his HS highlights here.
Sydeski appeared in five games for Stonehill at QB in 2014 after effectively red-shirting his FY. You can see from the Sky Hawks highlights Sydeski has a strong arm which helped him average 233.2 YPG which speaks for itself. The one area Tom will need to work to improve upon is lowering his turnover ratio. He had a couple of rough outings at Stonehill where he threw for three and four interceptions, respectively, against the University of New Haven and So. CT State.
The other big news coming out of the Finger Lakes happened last week when former SUNY-Albany and now SO QB Shane Sweeney decided to "come home" and transfer to Hobart. A Geneva, NY native, Sweeney was heavily recruited by Hobart but took a football scholarship opportunity with the Great Danes program after graduating from GHS in 2013. He lit up the scoreboard for the Panthers his SR season passing for 2,005 yards and leading the team to several Section V accolades.
Apparently after a coaching change at Albany left Sweeney caught in transition he contacted Coach Cragg. A link to the Finger Lakes Times report and Coach's comments on the story can be found here. A few highlights of Sweeney's work at Albany can be seen here.
All in all it's a very exciting time to be a Hobart Football fan.
While certainly a running team "at heart," this amount of QB power combined with a talented receiver corp that includes players like SR WR Cooper Merrill, JR WR Jack Pfohl, JR WR Sean Cunningham (who played with Sweeney at GHS) and SO WR Brandon Shed, to name just a few, makes Hobart a legitimate threat to call a few "air strikes" on opposing defensive secondaries this fall.
Thanks for reading and go 'Bart!
Great assessment!
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