On Monday the Statesmen cracked the D3Football.com Top 25 once again after another 40+ point offensive performance. A link to the poll can be found here. While I'm happy for the Statesmen, I feel like this recognition is a bit premature. I'm guessing it certainly has been noticed in Canton where the Saints have scored 80 unanswered points over the last two games.
More on that later, in the meantime, back to the game at hand!
While Ithaca (1-0) has a commanding 25-4 lead in the overall series against Hobart, since the 2000 season the Statesmen-Bombers games have become a true rivalry and the teams are tied at 3-3. Hobart last defeated Ithaca in the 2014 NCAA playoffs, a game that was second on my "Best Games of the Last 20 Years" ranking I posted over the summer. You can read that post here.
There's not a lot of tape of the 2016 Ithaca team as they beat Union College in Week 1 but were idle last weekend. Some may say this extra week of preparation will help the Bombers, but we'll have to see how things pan out on Saturday. The highlights from the Bombers 14-9 win over Union College (1-1) can be seen here. The Bombers return seven starters on both sides of the ball (offense and defense), so they have a good amount of experience. Whether or not they'll resemble the team that started 4-1 last season or the team that went 0-5 down the stretch, remains to be seen.
What's noticeable about the statistics from the Week 1 / Union game is how the Ithaca offense really struggled against a Dutchmen defense that ranked last in pretty much every category in 2015. Really the only TD the Bombers scored offensively came after Ithaca started a drive from their 47 yard line after pinning Union deep. A 40 yard pass from #12 SR QB Wolf Shafer to #7 JR WR J.R. Zazzara gave Ithaca a first down at the Dutchmen one yard line but it took the Bombers three downs (including a five yard penalty) to get into the end zone. The Ithaca defense also really had to dig in to save the day against Union who had their chances to win the game on more than one occasion late in the second half. Give the new Dutchmen coaching staff credit though, this year's Union team seems much better than last year, at least on defense.
#55 JR LB Kenny Bradley led the Bombers "D" against Union with 13 tackles. Classmate #40 JR LB Dan Loizos wasn't far behind adding 11 stops of his own. #48 SO LB Pat Minogue earned a D3Football.com Player of the Week award for his nine tackle, including three TFL and one sack game vs. Union. He also forced the fumble that was returned for the game-winning TD to open the fourth quarter, not to mention he ended the game with an interception (and he kicked nine punts for an average of 33.33 yards, so yeah, he's a pretty good athlete).
Keys to the Game:
1. Sheep in Wolves' Clothing?: Shafer (son of former Syracuse HC Scott Shafer) will look to improve upon last season's 13 for 24, 163 yard passing and one TD performance against Hobart. Shafer also struggled against Union, going 10 for 23 for 124 yards, a TD and two INTs. He was only sacked once by the Dutchmen, but really it's about pressure and that's something I wonder whether or not the current inexperienced Hobart DL and LB corps can generate on a regular basis? The 4-4 scheme is set to have the ILBs and OLBs make the majority of the tackles but so far that hasn't been the case for the Statesmen and blitzes don't seem to be part of DC Kory David's strategy, at least for now. While JR LB Almamy Conde does lead the team with 17 (as he should), the next few tacklers are edge and secondary guys which means the Statesmen are allowing too many post-LOS rushing yards. Credit SO DL AJ MacFarlane on his award winning Week 2 performance. Hobart needs some interior lineman to step up so that not so many plays end up going outside to the edge (or past it). I will also give props to FY LB Jedh Downey - to come in and be able to start as a FY at Hobart (whose track record of great LBs is amazing) is impressive. Period. His 12 tackles so far show he's up to the task and could end up being in the running for LL ROTY.
2. Stop the Run: Continuing on that theme, the Hobart preview written by the SID would lead you to believe that the Statesmen offense is one of the best in the country, and to be fair, the yardage and point totals are impressive. What I'm focused on however is the Hobart rush defense, which led the LL in 2015 with only 116.3 YPG allowed has started this season allowing over 180 YPG. Yes, it's still early and opening up against Dan Andrews obviously skews the data, but it's something worth keeping an eye on (for now). The Statesmen did allow over 100+ yards rushing to the Endicott RB too. In the Union game, the Bombers offense proved to one dimensional against a (much) tough(er) Dutchmen run defense, so if the Statesmen can do better, it will help Hobart tremendously. Besides if the Dutchmen can hold Ithaca to 55 rushing yards.....I know, I know - just saying.
3. If It Ain't Broke: While I'd love to see SR RB Brad Burns and SO RB Ty Barfield get 10+ carries each, you have to expect JR QB Shane Sweeney to stretch the field on Saturday night. I could see a match up advantage to Hobart in using these RBs as receivers or leverage JR TE Zach Withers and SO TE Matt Woods in short to intermediate routes after guys like JR WR Brandon Shed or SR WR Jack Pfohl take the secondary deep. The strength of the Ithaca defense are their LBs, so look for these kind of match up and for some occasional big plays like SR WR Sean Cunningham and the rest of the corps had in Week 2.
SO RB Tynard Barfield Breaks A Tackle
I was a little wary in last Sunday's In The HuddLLe podcast, predicting a close 24-21 game where Hobart prevailed. After getting a closer look, I do think the Statesmen should win by more, but that'll depend on a better, faster start than the Statesmen had last weekend.
(Not so proud) Alumni Soapbox Rant:
I'm very disappointed that HWS and its Communications department (which does the athletics coverage, not the HWS Athletics dept themselves) has made such a bad deal with Sidearm Sports (who's based in Syracuse). I would love to watch the game live online, but the (lack of production) quality and intermittent coverage of what SS provides isn't worth the subscription fee they charge. Why is it that other (including rival LL) schools who also use SS for live stats, web hosting, etc still manage to provide free video feeds of superior quality than what HWS makes you pay almost $100 / year?
While HWS has graded as an "A" institution is so many categories, the poor athletic and social media coverage provided to far away friends, fans and family gets a solid "F". No live tweets from games (a student could easily do this job, especially for a school that has added a "Media" major) or other platforms such as Periscope is just.... perplexing.
At least Ithaca will live stream the game (our homecoming) - for free.
Sorry to vent but I imagine more than a few of you were shaking your heads in agreement while reading the rant above. Feel free to comment below (or not).
In the meantime, be on the lookout for this guy:
If you see (and hear) this guy (a lot) on Saturday night, it's a very, very good thing.
Thanks as always for reading and go 'Bart!
No comments:
Post a Comment