Attending your 20th college reunion gives you a great opportunity to look back and reflect on what's happened since you graduated. I did plenty waxing nostalgic over that reunion weekend as a LOT happens over 20 years! I obviously had many happy moments (and some sad ones too) over that time, but this blog is about Hobart College Football so given that, I decided to try and come up with my Top 20 games of the last 20 seasons.
There have been over 200 games played since 1996 so I had to really think hard about how to categorize and ultimately rank them. To be fair, my "methodology" isn't really all that "scientific" by any stretch of the imagination - I just hope it causes some discussion in the comments below or online.
A couple of the things you'll probably notice is that I placed an emphasis on Championship games, either conference or NCAA playoffs. There was also a "premium" placed on how close the final score was and whether games ended on the final play. Also, and this may go without saying, but pretty much all the games on the list were victories. Yes, I did include some losses, three to be precise, but they showed that the Statesmen program was gaining on the top D3FB colleges in the country.
You'll probably also notice I listed some non-competitive games. These were sort of "statements" made and had weight given when and how they happened.
Overall I had a lot of fun compiling this list. I'll be curious to see what you think.
Here goes:
#20
Hobart 31 Dickinson 28 (9/9/06) - QB Shawn Mizro capped an 80 yard drive in only 1:39 when he found WR Ryan LiDrazzah from 12 yards out for what would be the game winning TD with 1:06 remaining. A truly back and forth affair there were eight lead changes in this season opening thriller. Unfortunately Hobart doesn't officially recognize the victory any more because of a self imposed NCAA issue. If you forgot about that I wrote about it in this blog post back at the start of 2011.
#19
Hobart 36 RPI 35 (11/16/96) - I remember seeing this game in person and it was a lot of fun. WR Glenn Choi scored his first career TD in his final game and FS Tony Aguilar had a 68 yard INT return for a TD. Hobart kind of let RPI back into this one, but it had a happy ending. Coach Cragg elected to go for two and TE Nico Karagosian hauled in a pass from QB Greg Helmer to give Hobart the "W" and finish the season at .500.
#18
Hobart 13 Union 12 (9/23/00) - Before he was DC of one of the arguably all-time best defense the Statesmen ever had, Scott Yoder played WR for Hobart. In this game, Coach Yoder caught a four yard pass from QB Dan Birdsall to give Hobart the lead with 2:43 left in the game. The Statesmen had been shutout by Union since 7:58 in the first quarter. This was a rare win over Union, who were a much more powerful program than the one we've seen in recent years. The victory began a winning streak that took Hobart all the way to their first ever NCAA playoff appearance.
#17
Hobart 56 Saint John Fisher 20 (9/24/11) - This was just an old fashioned, butt whipping of a highly regarded Cardinals team. Hobart was considered a huge underdog and I didn't even pick them to win in my pregame write up. OL Jarrid Blades mentioned this to me when I had him on "In The HuddLLe" later that season. Needless to say QB Nick Strang's five TD pass day (three of which were caught by WR Garth Muratori) put the nation on notice that even though Hobart struggled in 2010, this year would be completely different.
#16
Hobart 19 Ithaca 0 (10/28/00) - This was a huge win for the Statesmen back then in that it was first victory over the Bombers in a couple of decades. LB Matt Daley punctuated the Hobart defense's dominant performance with a 24 yard fumble return for a TD.
That's the first five with the next set coming next week.
Thanks for reading and Go 'Bart!
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