Statesmen Ranked 23rd in Preseason National Poll

With a strong core of returning players from a 9-2 season in 2021, the national pollsters at D3Football.com have high hopes for Hobart this season. The Statesmen came in at #23 on the preseason Top 25, just behind Liberty League foes Ithaca (17) and RPI (20).

It's shaping up to be another hyper-competitive year for the LL, which had the second most representatives in the preseason poll (3) of any top conference. The WIAC led the way with 4.

You can read / access the poll here.

I'll have my annual preseason preview up in the coming weeks. Thanks for reading and go 'Bart! 

4 Statesmen Football Players Highlight the Hobart Hall of Fame Class of 2023

The Statesmen Athletic Association announced the Hobart College Athletics Hall of Fame yesterday and it featured four Statesmen football greats, including DE Tyre Coleman '15, OL Ali Marpet '15, QB Shawn Mizro '07 and QB Jeffrey Thon '77. You can read about them, and the other honorees, here.

Both Marpet and Coleman were named to this site's Hobart All-Decade (2010-19) team. Mizro was named to this site's Hobart All Decade team (2000-10) as well.

As of today, we are officially 50 days from the start of the D3FB season (51 until Hobart hosts Alfred on Friday night, September 2nd). I plan to check in with the coaching staff in the next couple of weeks and will have a preseason preview up near the middle / end of August.

Football season and the debut of Team 128 is coming up quickly. 

Really looking forward to the season. Thanks for reading and go 'Bart!

 

Only 11 Weeks Away from Week 1!

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer.

It's the "dog days" down here in FL with temps hitting 95-100. While it still feels like a long time off, we're only 11 weeks / 77 days from Hobart's 2022 season opener against the Alfred University Saxons.

Friday night, September 2nd these old rivals will square off on the "Boz" at 7 PM, the Statesmen's only night game of the regular season. This will be the 79th meeting of the two programs, in a series that dates back to 1902!

ICYMI, the 2022 schedule has been updated with kickoff times, mostly at 1 PM ET, and can be seen here.

While jobs and life have been keeping Frank and I busy, we do plan on reuniting to kick off Season 15 of "In the (D3FB) Huddle" with a preseason show(s) starting in August.

In the meantime, enjoy the next couple months of "peace and quiet". I will have plenty of Hobart and D3FB updates ready soon.

Thanks as always for reading and go 'Bart! 

Leake '21 Participates in NY Giants Rookie Mini-Camp, Empire 8 Pairs Up with Landmark

Hobart SR DB and Co-Captain Jared Leake '21 had an opportunity of a lifetime with an invitation to participate in the recent New York Giants Rookie Mini-Camp. He competed with some of the best in football, and even had a run in with WWE HOFer Ric "The Nature Boy" Flair (woo!).

This is rarified air for Leake, as only about 10 D3FB grads have received opportunities and/or signed as UDFAs by NFL teams. D3football.com has been keeping track of these limited offers and Jared is included on the list, which is being updated as needed. 

In other news, and I had posted this on the Parents and Fans of Hobart Football Facebook page (which has nearly 940 members! Hopefully we can get to 1K by the fall) last week, but the Statesmen's future scheduling got more complicated with the news that the Empire 8 and Landmark Conferences were pairing up. 

Right now, it really looks like LL teams will be the odd men out with this E8-LC pairing, plus the fact that the PAC and MAC are full, and the CC has a OOC scheduling agreement with the NJAC. I suppose this could mean some matchups with New England schools (WNE and Framingham State have shown a willingness to schedule NYS teams), but perhaps it means Hobart will need to explore teams to the west (e.g., Ohio, Michigan) and/or South (maybe ODAC, USAC or SAA types of programs), which would be interesting, but also expensive from a travel perspective.

Scheduling has been a challenge for top D3FB schools for a while, so it's nothing new here. Even opposing coaches have said it's a constant issue. One E8 coach I know didn't have much sympathy for the LL however, basically stating that the LL is "notorious for breaking contracts with scheduling", alleging programs like UofR, Hobart and Ithaca of cutting long standing contracts by half or otherwise. To each their own on that topic.

Regardless, I know HC Kevin DeWall '00 will be working the phones hard. For now, however, the 22 slate is set. While I am a little disappointed the Homecoming game won't be at night, the rest of the schedule is consistent, with most games kicking off at 1 PM.

That's it for now. I'll come back again soon with any updates I may have.

Thanks for reading and go 'Bart!

Class of 2026 - Recruiting Roundup

Over the past week (plus) we got to see the newly announced members of the Hobart College Statesmen football Class of 2026. Coming in at 36 students, this is one of the bigger classes HC Kevin DeWall '00 and his staff have brought in.

Not surprisingly, a position breakdown shows areas of need / focus (e.g., OL and DE/DL) were certainly addressed, with the usual skill positions factored in as well. While the majority of the class hails from NYS (not unusual, and in this case 13 of the 36 are staying in-state), this year there was a much higher concentration of players from NJ - 10 - one of the highest numbers we've seen from there in quite some time. The rest of the distribution is pretty modest and even: 4 from PA and CT, 3 from MA (which is pretty low by "historical" standards) and 1 from NC and DE. 

Let's a take a closer look:

By my count, close to half of this class will end up on the OL/DL. I view players like Broggy, Urbina, Suh, Shahdanian, Mejias, Geneus, Goodell and Ruppert as solid adds to the OL. AT DE/DL is see Henry, Muse, McKean, Randle, Tobin, Provenzano and Silver. 

On the offensive side of the ball, two players - Engle and Smalley - will compete to be the future Hobart QB. At RB we have a solid trio in Cotter, Maddox, Jr. and Jackson. At TE we have a potential add in Ruby, who we saw played a fair amount of "h-back" in HS. Tafari Johnson is another potential TE (or OLB) candidate. 

WR/DB is another big and talented group including Peterson, Scott, Sklar and Ruscetta (likely at WR). I can see Caprara, Rodgers, Galella, Candelora and Smith at DB. 

LB/OLB we will probably see McGhee, Johnson (see above), Chachere, Trovato and Figueroa (who could potentially be an RB, but I view him as more a LB recruit). 

Last but not least is a PK - Vicente Lyon - who will likely compete for time with SO PK Tobias Wefering, the only other PK on the roster. 

Of course, all the above is subject to change based on what the coaching staff elects to do going into preseason camp. We are only 16 weeks away from the start of the fall season. 

Thanks as always for checking in. I'll probably lay low barring any updates during the offseason. Mayor Frank and I are planning ahead for another season (our 15th) of "In the (D3FB) Huddle". 

Go Bart!

Class of 2026 - Part IX (the last one)

It's been a good run of daily updates on the Class of 2026, but this is the final one.

I will do more of a "deep dive" into this group, potential positional breakdowns and preseason camp competitions that could arise given these additions, next week.

All told, the Class of 2026 has 36 (my favorite Hobart number) new Statesmen players. Here's the final 33-36 players:

We only have to go back about a month to when we first met Syosset HS (NY) OL Quinn Broggy. He's another solid addition to what's been a very strong, if not banner, OL recruiting class this offseason.

Same for Cardinal Hayes HS (NY) OLB/TE Tafari Johnson. I wrote back him back in April also. He's the second of two CHS recruits (the other being Denzel Silver, who we introduced back in Part IV). I find it interesting that Hobart was able to get multiple commits from the same high schools, showing the strength and ability of the Statesmen program to attract great student athletes.

Up next is yet another recruit from the Garden State, a place the coaches clearly made a focused effort to mine talent from this recruiting season. Cranford HS (NJ) Lukas Ruby is an interesting athlete, and apparently, he also stars on the hardwood because you have to scroll all the way down to the bottom of his Hudl account to get to his football highlights. He helped CHS to an undefeated 9-0 season as a H-back, DE/OLB. I could see him being utilized as a blocking TE for Hobart. Time will tell. 

Last but certainly not least, is Noah Chachere an OLB from Salisbury School (CT). Hobart and Salisbury have a long history given both Bobby Wynne '94 and Bill Warder '96 work and coach there. Salisbury Football HC Chris Phelps is no stranger to D3FB, having previously coached at Saint Lawrence. Interestingly enough, Chachere is actually from New Orleans, LA, having attended Brother Martin HS before taking a PG year at Salisbury. You can check out his highlight reel here. At 6' 0" and 210 lbs., Noah looks like a big and fast (4.6 40-yard dash) addition to the Hobart LB corps. 

There you have it! A solid 36 new Hobart College Statesmen as part of the Class of 2026. I hope you've enjoyed "meeting" these incoming players as much as I have. I am looking forward to following their careers as they progress.

I'll have more on this excellent recruiting class next week. 

Thanks as always for reading the blog and go 'Bart!

Class of 2026 - Part VIII

We are nearing the end of what's shaping up to one the biggest and best recruiting classes we've seen in some time. Credit to the coaches who've worked hard and identified some future Statesmen stars in the making.

For 28-32 we have a group that should be relatively familiar to you if you've been following the recruiting trail on this blog over the past couple of months.

Starting us off is OLB/DE Dorian Henry of Nottingham HS (NJ), the second player coming to Hobart from that program (see yesterday's update). We got to meet Dorian back in March.

Up next is another NJ DL prospect, Montclair HS DL Wyatt Tobin. Tobin also starred on the OL for MHS, so it's possible he gets a look there, but based on what we saw of highlights when I posted about him back in March, that his height / length (6' 6") made him a strong DE candidate.

You'd only have to go back a couple of weeks to see my post on Pleasantville HS (NY) RB Kieran Cotter. Kieran looks like a nice add to the Hobart rushing attack, running for over 1,300 yards and scoring 12 rushing TDs in his SR campaign. 

Last, but certainly not least, is a big pickup for the OL in Myers Park HS (NC) Luis Urbina. Standing 6' 4" and weighing in at 320 lbs., Urbina has the prototypical size you don't see often. I wrote about Luis back in March also. 

We will wrap up the Class of 2026 tomorrow with one final group of newly minted Statesmen.

Thanks for following along and go 'Bart!