Ithaca wins the "get right" game with Curry in pretty dominating fashion. The better news is that Colin Schumm returned and looked solid.

Ugh, RPI. The Liberty League has had so many opportunities to pick up a marquee out of conference win, and they have just not finished. RPI had a 20-14 lead and the ball in the Red Zone with less than 9 minutes to go. But a 6-yard loss on 3rd pushed them out of FG range, and they failed the convert the 4th. Then everything fell apart.

The season starts now for the Liberty League, because this has been a suboptimal OOC result

Congrats to IC on the convincing win. Also, glad to hear Schumm is back and had a nice game.

From what I watched RPI played well. That was a tough turn of events there. I was watching was really hoping RPI could pull it out. I think RPI is a strong team and will contend for the LL title. Granted Endicott made a couple big plays when needed but for most of the game I think RPI was just as good if not better.

To put the "dominating" into perspective, Ithaca had 35 first downs, which tied the school record. Not explosive necessarily, but just picking up a chunk of yards on every play it seemed. Kind of what you get when you have a physically overmatched team going against one that wants to get back to basics of what they do well

From the what the hell were they thinking category...OK so RPI has Endicott on their heels up 20-14 with 8:46 left and driving. It's 3rd and 4 on the Gulls 19 and instead of handing off to the RB they try to get tricky and toss the ball to a WR coming back around. There's defensive penetration (of course there is, it's a short yardage situation) and the play loses 5 yards. Now instead of trying about a 40 yard FG they throw an incomplete pass on 4th down. A run on 3rd down may well have picked up the first down or if it was close they may have gone for it on 4th down...or a FG attempt would have been much shorter. Mind you a FG would have given them a two score lead...IMO a horrible play call. You can't take a loss there. At worst preserve that FG attempt...One play later Endicott has the lead       

Agreed. Did not like the play call there. It seemed like everything just disintegrated from there

Jackets win 42-21 over UNE.  The game got extremely interesting in the third when U of R Sr. Tre Johnson had a 95 yard KO for a TD and then UNE immediately countered with their own KO TD by speedster Damien Johnson.  First time I have seen that in person.
Although overall Rochester was in control for a majority of the game.

Offensively,  starting for the Jackets at QB was freshmen Creighton Wise in place of injured Sr. Ryan Rose. Wise was solid and finished 9-20 with 2 TD's with 1 interception. Daniel Papantonis with 124 yards and 2 TD's and brother Aidan caught 2 TD's.

Joe Debonis led the defense with two sacks.  Jordy Tawa added another interception and continues to lead the league.

Big game next week as the YellowJackets host RPI. Unclear if Rose will be available.

Congrats to Ithaca and Hobart.

It's still up for grabs...Montclair St 10 - Union 8 at the half...I don't know what's harder to stomach. The very questionable play of the Union offense or the insufferable play call of The Montclair announcing team. The Garnet have no offensive identity. Even with two quality running backs they are unable to sustain any ground game. Partly due to the play calls but mostly because the O-Line has not made any progress in their quest to get better. QB Patch Flanigan has shown me very little through 3 1/2 games. He has receivers open but seems to constantly overthrow them. His best moments are when he pulls the ball down and scrambles. Once again he's outgaining both Fiore and Anderson on the ground. I think Union needs to shut out the Hawks in the second half to pull out this game.   

Union offense just cant get anything going. The Oline is just not there, just not there. I in agreement with Bill that Patch continues to struggle as well. Man he took a HUGE hit at the end of the third. Union D keeping the game close against an average at best Red Hawk O.

This is just Union this season. Honestly, at this point it's just about development and a growth mindset for the Garnet. I do appreciate the effort though and hope that they can develop an identity and show some progress as the year continues. It'd be great to see Union come back tonight.

Nice play call by Drach packed in and then out to the TE to bring the score 17-15 Montclair. Proud of Union's fight but penalties are KILLING the Red Hawks.

Union turns over in 4 downs. Everything through the air. Defense trying to give the O another chance.

Union getting the ball back as I'm typing with 2 minutes left around the 20. Enjoying the end of this one.

Union turns it over on downs and this one is in the books. Offensive line actually had some decent pass protection here at the end but the Garnet couldn't make it work. Patch just showing his inexperience with his inconsistency. Loss is CERTAINLY not all on him as he competed hard with everything on his shoulders. Union fought until the end here and hopefully learned some valuable lessons. Congrats to Montclair on the win.

Tough loss for Union. They've really regressed offensively, especially on the ground.

They absolutely destroyed both Springfield and Montclair last year, and this year they just look pedestrian. Nothing explosive on the ground, struggling with accuracy from the QB. But in fairness, pretty much every LL offense has been "meh" all season.

I feel like the front runner is Hobart right now, as they've displayed the most consistency, especially on defense. It really comes down to how much you care about close losses to good teams vs. wins over mediocre ones.

This is a one-bid conference, I think, and I'm not expecting a playoff run from whoever comes out of the pile at 7-3 to claim the Pool A

Very winnable game goes bad. The Garnet need much, much better play from the O-Line and the QB. Would have been nice to see just one of the WRs make a play. Very disappointing. Union on a collision course with a 3-7 season.

Hobart defense continues to play at a high level against an improved Keystone team 52-9. Colombi finds his receivers for 4 passing TDs. The Statesmen are ready to defend the Boz against the Bombers next week. Can't wait.

Quote from: UfanBill on September 28, 2024, 08:25:05 PMVery winnable game goes bad. The Garnet need much, much better play from the O-Line and the QB. Would have been nice to see just one of the WRs make a play. Very disappointing. Union on a collision course with a 3-7 season.

I think this about hits it on the head.  Union was without its best O-lineman yesterday (freshman Owen Fernandez) and while another freshman played hard in his place, the line is just a disaster this year, to the point of being completely disabling to the offense.  The first three quarters of last night's game was about as inept as I've seen Union look since the 0-10 season.  Very painful to watch.

The o-line play has made it hard to tell how much of the QB struggles are the QB v. the line.  But I've seen enough of Patch to know I want to see how Cole Brisson or freshman Max Cho would do; I'm not sure how much worse they could be, really.  Patch is just not accurate or consistent - he's at 44% completion percentage for the year, and while Union's played good competition, they've not exactly been playing defensive powerhouses.

Defense last night was a totally different story.  They played great all night, and looked the physical, run-to-the ball defense we've been used to.  I think part of that is the new defensive scheme finally clicking, and the fact that they've moved some younger guys up to starting roles.  They will keep Union in games all year.

The silver lining here is that the future is bright.  What we're seeing on the field is a major drop-off in recruiting talent at the end of the Behrman years and the transition to Poppe, which I don't think many of us fully appreciated.  There is just not a ton of talent at the junior and senior level of the roster, which is where 10-2 seasons are made.  (I also think that this team's upperclassman probably came into the year thinking they were a lot better than they are, which is it's own problem.) But there are a lot of very talented young guys who are getting tons of playing time.  We started two freshman and two sophomores on the front seven, all who played great, and started a sophomore at corner.  On offense, it wouldn't surprise me if we end the year starting three freshman on o-line (I certainly hope so - if the o-line is going to struggle anyway, I'd rather see the young guys get experience).  And with any luck, we'll see a freshman or sophomore QB get a real look soon.