Around this time, each year, Lindy's Sports Annuals releases their preseason CFB preview. Not surprisingly it focuses primarily on the FBS schools, but they do take a couple of pages out of their 200+ tome to give a little attention to the other divisions.
This year they once again attempted to rank a D3FB Top 25 (more on this in a bit) and named several student athletes to their preseason All-American team. While some of their picks are certainly random to say the least, it is nice to see at least some credit being doled out by a national publication.
This year SO RB Rayshawn Boswell and SR CB Jared Leake were recognized as a first-team All-American return specialist and second-team All-American at corner, respectively, as you will see in the picture below (thanks to fellow D3FB fan and friend of ITH, Juan Sanchez, for providing the shot below):
The obvious question after the 2019 season is "where's Emmett Forde?!?" but I'm not really surprised by this oversight, to be honest. Lindy's understanding of D3 is mediocre at best, but I give them some credit for trying to get it right, even if they ultimately always end up off the mark.
After creating and publishing a Top 25 for the spring on our In the D3FB Huddle show, I can tell you it's not easy from first hand experience. That said, Lindy's preseason poll is a little circumspect to say the least.
Lindy's 2021 preseason Top 25, as published on page 258, is as follows:
While many of the teams belong, I found it interesting they only ranked two East Region teams - Delaware Valley (who will be in "Region 1") and Salisbury (Region 2, come the fall) - on the entire list and seems to have been based on a mix of this spring season's results, plus some hold overs from the 2019 season (e.g., Chapman). Trinity, for example, finished 8-2 in 2019 and 3-1 in the spring of 2021, losing 13-3 to Hendrix, the SAA spring runner up. Them being placed above Berry and Hendrix, especially based on head-to-head results, is a head-scratcher to say the least.
That being neither here nor there, you can be assured that the Hobart Statesmen will have an opportunity to vault themselves back into the national conversation if this team has the potential we think it may possess based on who's coming back, especially on defense.
While the offense, especially QB, remains a concern, we can be assured the coaching staff is hard at work preparing for preseason practice to determine these important roles.
I hope everyone's summer is off to a nice start - it's a bit wet here in Central FL of late - I'll provide any and more news as it pops up over the coming months. Only 80 days until we kick off against Alfred!
Thanks for reading and go 'Bart!
