A Quarter Million Thanks

I've always enjoyed writing as a way to relax, and after bugging friends and fellow alums with my Hobart Football related emails and "analysis" in the early 2000s, taking it to a blog seemed like a logical next step (my classmate Michael Mills '96 made the suggestion, if memory serves).

To be fair I had some (a lot? of) practice blogging / opining on the Statesmen on the D3football.com "Post Patterns" fan boards but it wasn't until August of 2009 I finally decided to try out this "blogging" thing thru the medium you're reading now.

Here we are, less than 10 years later and this little site has eclipsed 250,000 views!

While I don't know if that's a lot or a big deal in the scheme of websites, it feels like a milestone enough to step back and reflect a little.

I am so grateful to all the Hobart coaches, players, families and others that this extra-curricular activity has put me in contact with over the past (almost) decade. Based on my math, this site has previewed and covered:

- 629 posts
- 104 games
- 80 wins
- 48 National Football Foundation (NFF) recipients
- 10 winning seasons
- 9 Recruiting and graduating classes
- 8 Straight Centennial Cup wins (we've beaten SLU 8 straight too ;) 
- 7 Conference player of the year recipients 
- 6 League Championships
- 5 NCAA tournament berths & wins 
- 4 First team All-American players
- 3 Undefeated regular seasons
- 2 Elite 8 / National Quarterfinals appearances
- 1 Brand new dome practice facility 

Over this same time period I've also covered coaching and conference makeup changes, provided opinions, promoted ITH appearances of multiple HFB players and coaches, told a few jokes, enjoyed post-season celebrations, ranked all-time great games, even saw one of our own get drafted into the NFL. About eight years ago I came up with the 2000's All-Decade team and will likely have to do so again after the 2020 season. In April of 2011 you can find several commits to the Class of 2015 that went on to have historic Statesmen careers. This was a definite bright spot in what was an up and down, eight game regular season, but one that produced some of Hobart's most impressive all-time wins like the 56-20 crushing of SJFC.

Some other random trivia:

2016 was the most popular year for this blog as most of the Top 10 most viewed posts, including the current and reigning #1, came from that year. The peak was in November/December when the site had over 9,100 visits.

The long standing most viewed post a few of these jumped was on Andrew Klindera 13's pro football career in Germany That reminds me I'm overdue for another "email interview" post sometime in the near future.

The high point from last season was over 4,400 views in the month of October. Google is how this site is usually found, with Facebook and D3boards.com the other two providing the most "referrals."

Otherwise, while I don't plan on stopping anytime soon, I may look into other more modern blog websites or other / better ways to keep delivering this type of content (like did you know In the D3FB Huddle has it's own YouTube channel now? The 2017 and 2018 episodes are still downloading over to it, but it should be done in the next couple of weeks. Pre-2017 audio episodes and interviews can be found on Podbean).

Thank you, the readers, for your continued support.

We're onto 500K. Go 'Bart!

Best regards,

JB H96

Prospect Day A Big Success For Statesmen

Last Sunday nearly a full squad of future Statesmen descended upon Geneva to participate in the 2019 HFB Prospect Day events. The coaching staff and the campus have been getting kudos this week from a number of different student athletes such as Peter Graham from Darien, CT; Adam Mendes from Tabor Academy (MA); and other prospects from New England to PA, NY and elsewhere (even FL!).

Given these players could join the team in the fall of 2020, the coaching staff has deftly marketed to these students the concept of being part of "H20", which is very clever in my opinion. I really am enjoying the tie into Seneca Lake with the new coaching regime.

For you alums, friends and family - here's a good shot of HC Kevin DeWall '00 talking to the group in the brand new dome facility (I heard there was wet weather - no matter anymore thanks to the generous donations from you all):

Courtesy of Thomas McCoy, Jr. P' 22 @ThomasM74748924

Speaking of alumni, friends and family - please reach out to Asst Coach Art Garvey '13 (who was recently married - congratulations!) if you'd like to participate in the upcoming golf tournament / team fundraiser. You'll see an ad for this blog out there if you do.

That's all the news I have for now. Thanks as always for reading and go 'Bart!

More All-American Honors for Hobart's Kyle Hackett

Last week I mentioned Hobart got some preseason Top 25 recognition from Lindy's CFB Magazine. Well part of the reason apparently is the sure foot of JR PK Kyle Hackett, who's mentioned in the article as going 19-19 on FGs and 80-82 on PATs in the first two years of his incredible career.

Those stats apparently have earned Hackett a spot on the Lindy's Preseason Division III All-American second team. This is now the third time Hackett has been recognized in the All-American category, having earned two honors at the end of the 2018 season.



Congratulations to Kyle on this achievement (and more to come)!

Thanks for reading and go 'Bart!

Lindy's Preseason Top 25 Poll Hyping Hobart (?!?)

This is the time of year when CFB publications offer (way too early) preseason polls to generate magazine and/or subscription sales at the supermarket and online. At least one of these magazines, Street & Smith, managed to get D3football.com's Keith McMillan to do their preseason preview and poll.

He actually reached out to me to get my two cents on East Region teams, but he ended up leaving at least one team I would have had on my list - Brockport - out his preseason rankings. That could be because the Golden Eagles graduated a lot of the talented defensive players that helped them go 24-2 over the past couple of seasons. There was also the well publicized departure of SR QB Joe Germiniero (which we covered in our off-season "In The D3FB Huddle" show back in April) which could have affected his decision too. In the end, "K-Mac" opted to go with Wesley at 11, Ithaca at 15, Alfred at 17, RPI at 19, DelVal at 20 and Trinity College (of the NESCAC) at 23 in his Top 25.

Lindy's CFB Magazine followed his lead for the top five teams in their preseason Top 25 poll, listing defending National Champions UMHB at 1, Mount Union at 2, St. John's at 3, UW-Whitewater at 4 and Johns Hopkins at 5. After that, there wasn't much similarity between the two.

Interestingly enough, Lindy's put Hobart in at 16 which I found pretty surprising, especially after the Statesmen came off their worst regular season record since 2010 (and most of these preseason polls are based on how things finished up the year prior). While there's a lot to be optimistic about in Geneva, I believe this preseason recognition isn't warranted at this time. By point of comparison, back in 2008 Hobart finished 10-2, losing to Mount Union in the second round of the playoffs and came into the 2009 season as the 15th ranked team in D3. I know HC Kevin DeWall '00 doesn't put much stock in these polls, but I suppose some people could look at this as a positive.

The Statesmen do return a large number of offensive players that led the Liberty League in most key statistical categories. The WR corps is SR-laden with a lot of game experience. The OL is young, but has a year of work under it's belt. The RB group is solid and two QBs who know the offense are coming back also.

The defense improved by leaps and bounds over the second half of the 2018 season and returns a number of players across the board and have some talented players coming off of injuries to go with an impressive recruiting class.

I don't want to downplay these polls too much, but I am more inclined to see where the D3football.com Top 25 preseason poll (which I expect to come out in July) has teams ranked. I think this will be a better guess as to which teams will be expected as front-runners, at least early on, in the 2019 season.

For now I'm fine with Hobart being viewed as "behind" Ithaca and RPI in the the rankings. The Statesmen played both very tough and lost closely contested games to them last season. That said, if Hobart can start off in impressive fashion, the national pollsters will have a legitimate reason to recognize them then.

First things first however. It's 92 days until the 2019 home and season opener vs. Brockport, which is the only game that matters at the moment.

Thanks for reading and go 'Bart!