Hobart has had a bit of a playout draught of late after going to the NCAA post-season 12 times in 16 seasons (2000-2016) over the past two decades. Many thought after the (9-2) very successful 2019 season that 2020 would be the year that absence would finally end.
Obviously COVID happened and the 2020 season was cancelled. The Statesmen lost a fair number of talented seniors in the Class of 2020 to graduation and successful job placements (definitely no shame in that, quite the opposite, actually). While a handful of key players did come back, especially on defense, we knew going into the 2021 season this would be a more inexperienced Hobart squad.
That inexperience benefitted in what, in retrospect, was not a challenging September OOC schedule. Hobart rolled up four easy wins by a combined 176-38 margin, leading the nation with 19 rushing TDs with a lethal two-headed rushing attack.
Unfortunately the downside to this easy start could have been a false sense of security that we saw #17 Ithaca (4-0, 1-0) attack with success in Week 4. The Statesmen (4-1, 0-1) offense struggled at the beginning and the end of the game and the defense gave up 28 points to an efficient and determined Bombers squad.
Hobart didn't help themselves however, committing 9 penalties for -70 yards, 1 INT (which led to a short field and later a TD for Ithaca) and a 2-4 (.500) red zone scoring mark. JR QB David Krewson was under constant pressure, hitting just over 50% of his passes (he was 15-29 or 51.35%) and getting sacked twice. The OL struggled early, but eventually got things going just before halftime. I'll admit, after SO RB Rayshawn Boswell broke off that 70-yd TD run to give Hobart a 21-14 lead in the 3rd quarter, I thought the Butterfield curse was finally over.
Honestly if you told me last Friday that Hobart would rush for 191 yards, and ultimately out-gain Ithaca by a 414-346 margin, I would have assumed the Statesmen would have won. However, if you break the rushing statistics down and cut out the Boswell TD, as well as SO RB Tim Denham, Jr's longest rush of 19 yards and Krewson's 12-yard long, you get the real picture. The Statesmen only averaged about 2.36 YPR on 38 other run calls, which is similar to the mark they had in the 2019 loss. Basically Hobart hit on a couple of long runs, but their vaunted rush game was otherwise shut down by the Ithaca defense, forcing the Statesmen to have to win it via the pass as my Week 5 game preview kind of predicted.
I don't view this as a loss on the offense though, because in spite of herculean efforts by SR OLB Emmett Forde and SO LB Bryan Aguilar who came back from injury to have a 10 tackle (7 solo) and 2 TFL and 8 tackle games, respectively, the once ball-hawking defense didn't get the job done in the clutch.
The previously INT-prone Wingfield sliced up the Hobart secondary with a nearly perfect 17-21 (81%) completions for 221 yards and 1 TD day. He would catch the Statesmen in coverage assignments and make a run for it to score to give Ithaca their first lead of the game, 7-0, early in the 2nd quarter.
Ironically the Hobart offense hit on more, long pass plays in the game, and the Statesmen defense successfully held the Bombers offense to only 2 third down conversions on 9 tries. Unfortunately, Ithaca just hit on the big plays at more opportune times than the Statesmen did.
So where do we go from here?
The Statesmen will basically have to run the table between Weeks 7-11 to get back into the postseason. While another NYS bowl game could be eventually be available as a "consolation prize" of sorts, that's not the goal. Unfortunately the rest of the way is a much more difficult journey than the first half of the season.
As of today, the win-loss records of Hobart's next three LL opponents are a combined 13-1, and the Statesmen will definitely be underdogs in two of those three games. The last two weeks (10 & 11) are similar to Weeks 1-4, as Buffalo State and Rochester are a combined 1-7. That said, Rochester is much improved team over past years, even if their only win to date is a 28-27 close call over Alfred State (who's 1-3, 0-0 in the ECFC).
These records won't change much due to Week 6, as RPI hosts Buff State (basically making the Engineers 6-0, 2-0 and the Bengals 0-5, 0-2) and Ithaca is at Rochester (basically making the Bombers 5-0, 2-0 and the Jackets 1-4, 0-2, barring a crazy upset). The game to watch will be Union (5-0, 1-0) hosting Saint Lawrence (3-1, 0-0). The Dutchmen have been living dangerously of late and the Saints could play spoiler with an extra week of preparation. The Statesmen need to remain steady, focused and hope for at least a little chaos goes on elsewhere.
Meanwhile, back in Geneva, the Statesmen will need to work on doing a better job at the LOS on the OL and developing a better pass game on offense. Defensively, the younger DBs and LBs will need to work on pass coverage, especially with a such an experienced and talented set of QBs like George Marinopoulos (RPI), Tyler Grochot (SLU) and Will Bellamy (Union) coming up. These three have passed for 3,000 yards and 41 TDs in 14 games combined.
The season is far from over. The playoffs are just starting about 5 weeks early.
Thanks for reading and go 'Bart!
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