The conflict between professors, non-athlete students and student athletes is what I object to.  Eighteen year old kids have enough stress in their lives without having to deal with this crap.  D3 student athletes have to pass the same courses as everyone else.  Professor or student objections should be the result of poor academic performance AFTER the student was already accepted.  Sounds like the objections raised in the article are more social than academic.

AA:  when I read the same article, I thought I wouldn't send any of my kids there under any circumstances - athlete or not.

Good game and atmosphere yesterday by the Thiel team and fans.  Wish we gave you a better game, but our inability to generate offense caught up with us.  Chambers was actually covered on two of his three TD's, but he is so athletic he took the ball away and scored anyway - very impressive.  He's got some set of wheels - fastest D3 player I have seen.  I thought Theils rushing yardage was more the result of Hess finishing his runs than the Theil O line play.  Their defense, although very small, is also very quick and got the job done against JHU.  BC will present more a challenge in that respect.  This may be the first game the BC will struggle with the team speed of their opponent (Thiel may be faster).   

Good luck against the Eagles.     

Forgot to add special teams play.

Probably better to ask Thiels fans on the PAC board.  My opinion is that the outcome of this game will be decided on turnovers, big plays and how well each team runs the ball. 

Thiel is small and quick up front on defense, so hopefully JHU will run right at them. 

Some of the comments on the PAC board indicate that Thiel sometimes starts a little slow on defense, but picks it up as the game goes on.  Even more of a reason to take the ball if we win the toss.

wsx27yrs -  history lessons only relate to past performance.  Why play games in the regular season if you already know who should be the top seeds in the playoffs?  

If HSU deserved the 5th seed this year, they wouldn't have gotten crushed by UMHB 38-7 and they wouldn't have lost to TLU (who was 4-5 at the time) when their playoff bid was on the line.  As both Pat Coleman and Keith said in ATR - they played themselves out of the playoffs in week 11.

mandfense -  I think you are right about getting a quick start.  I hope that JHU doesn't defer if they win the coin toss.  An extra possession in the 1st half may end up being important. 

Against and average team, go ahead and defer.  Against a playoff team, take the ball.  The Jays need to show some confidence in their offense.  Maybe the ATN caption will motivate them.

spilskin - hey, no fair taking the underdog role against JHU.  Remember, if we win it an upset.  If you win the 14th ranked team in the country just beat a team that doesn't have a single vote in the D3 top 25!

No sarcasm intended, WE are the underdogs.

GO HOP!

Read around the nation today. 

Bad news - Thiel seems to be generally expected to win.  They also said Hopkins isn't in the top 32 in the same article.

Good news - Mark Simon predicts a Hopkins upset and Pat Coleman predicts a close game.  This was somewhat of a surprise to me since Thiel is the 14th ranked team in the current D3football.com poll.

Best news - it really dosen't matter what anyone says since the game will be decided on the field. 

They may be concerned about a rematch with W&J since the game went into OT despite 5 turnovers by W&J.  My take was that all but one picked Thiel over JHU in the opener.  Hopkins gets even less respect than Thiel since they were not in the top 32 teams named in the same article.  Whoever wins the game on Saturday needs to win the bracket! 

AA:  a dips win would go a long way towards partial redemption and respect for the program and the CC.  Likewise, a JHU win against highly regarded and 16th ranked Thiel would go a long way towards gaining respect for the CC.

GO HOP.

A troll, probably, take a look at his history (all one day of it) and his grand total of two posts.   Doesn't sound like a real fan to me.  Don't get me wrong, JHU can win this game if we play to our ability, but our fans don't talk trash.   We also know we can lose if we don't perform.

OP - thanks for the invite and I'll definately be there on Saturday.  This sounds like an interesting match-up between two new playoff teams.  That may add to the overall excitement and atmosphere.  I think Pat and Keith from D3football.com will be there too.

BTW, both of our losses were to unranked opponents.  We would have loved to have an OT win against each of them.

OP - JHU plays a very clean game, I hope Thiel does the same.