FB: Centennial Conference

[wesleydad]

will be taking my traveling road show to the cc this week.  i will be heading to gettysburg to see the game between the bullets and the blue jays.  I hope it is a good game but i think that the blue jays d wil be too much for gettysburg.

[jknezek]

will be taking my traveling road show to the cc this week.  i will be heading to gettysburg to see the game between the bullets and the blue jays.  I hope it is a good game but i think that the blue jays d wil be too much for gettysburg.

Any thoughts on how bad this got? It looks like maybe the JHU starters were in a drive longer than necessary and then the Bullets gave up 2 tds to the second string offense and the final td was on a fumble recovery. While the score looks like it really was ran up on the Bullets, I'm thinking that only that last offensive sequence in the third that led to a score early in the 4th was pushing it for the Blue Jay's first team.

I hate seeing scores like this, but it doesn't really look like JHU was being cruel. I'm not sure I'd have pulled the starters early in the 3rd on the road versus the #2 team in the conference at 49-14, but I probably would have at 56-14 midway through the 3rd. At 62-14, and finally pulling your starters early in the 4th, I think they were in 1 sequence too long. Looks like the backup qb only threw 4 passes in the 3 series he played. While it is questionable that he threw at all, I can sympathize with wanting to give him at least a few attempts.

[wesleydad]

jk, gettysburg has the worst pass defense i have seen since i have been watching d3 football the past 7 years.  they could not cover anyone.  that being said, the game was over at the half, that is when i left and now that i see the final i am glad that i did.  there is no reason for jhu to still be throwing the ball up 49 - 14, let alone for 2 more scores - one by the starting qb.  comparison to the wesley-husson game where i have heard that wesley did not throw a pass in the second half after building a big lead.  i would be ok with the second string qb throwing the second half td's for the reason you said.  jhu has a nice football team, but i think they may run into trouble after the first round of the playoffs because i dont think they can run the ball that well and the playoff teams they face will be much better than gettysburg who is the worst team i have seen this year.  will be interesting to see where they get seeded.

[jknezek]

Thanks. I figured anyone who was at the game was long gone before the point where it got really ugly. I had to dig through the stats to find what I posted. Appreciated the comments.

As for the playoffs, I think winning a game or two in the playoffs would make a fantastic year for a team like JHU. I don't think there are many schools that can realistically believe they have a shot at going much further. D3 is way too top heavy with a few programs that stand out and a team having a great year just isn't going to compete often with a powerhouse program.

[jumpshot]

In my opinion, there are no excuses for running up a score as Hopkins did at Gettysburg yesterday. Someday Hopkins will be in Gettysburg's shoes --in football or another sport --- and will then get to experience how wrong it is! Quite surprising that John Hopkins with such sound standards would let the situation get out of control.

[GoHop]

I wasn't at the game, but in years past Hopkins has been on the other side of one-sided games too. Also, you can't stop throwing the ball early in the second half sinply because you have a big lead. Gettysburg might have made some adjustments at the half which could have changed things. It turns out they didn't, but how would the JHU coaches know that in advance. I think they pulled the starting QB after the first series. Additionall, you have to play the entire second half, so, if you have a third down and 5 or a second and 8, you need to consider all options for getting the first down. You can't blame Hopkins if they throw a short pass and the opponent's defense lets it turn into a long gain or a TD. The score does look ugly but that doesn't mean it was intentionally run-up.

[jknezek]

I think they pulled the starting QB after the first series.

I actually looked at the play by play stats. If you look at my post you'll see the starting qb was still in the game until last drive of the 3rd quarter which finished with a td in the 4th quarter. When Gettysburg scored early in the third to go to 49-14 I wouldn't have had a problem sending out the starter for one more series. JHU did that and went up 56-14 midway through the third. Gettysburg then punted and JHU sent out the STARTING QB again for that final series. That's where I have a small problem. 56-14 midway through the 3rd and the other team just punted you don't send the starters out again.

Now, once it went to 62-14 and the starters were pulled, I put the next 3 TDs squarely on Gettysburg. They let JHU's second string offense score two touchdowns in two series and then gave up a fumble return for a TD to finish the game. Should the kid that recovered the fumble have just fallen down and not scored? Eh, sportsmanship says yes but it could be the only TD that second string defensive player ever scores in college. Should the second string qb have thrown 4 passes in 2 series? I don't have a problem with that either since you want that kid to get some real reps.

As I said in my original post, I think JHU left the starters in for one inexcusable series. Other than that, the score looks much crueler than what the JHU coaches were trying to allow.

[GoHop]

I stand corrected, they should have pulled him earlier.

[ExTartanPlayer]

In my opinion, there are no excuses for running up a score as Hopkins did at Gettysburg yesterday. Someday Hopkins will be in Gettysburg's shoes --in football or another sport --- and will then get to experience how wrong it is! Quite surprising that John Hopkins with such sound standards would let the situation get out of control.

I posted something about this on the SCAC board - you can't judge "running up the score" just by the numbers on the board.  We were debating two games (a 72-0 win by UMHB in 2005 and McMurry's 60-16 win over Texas Lutheran this year) and it's pretty obvious that the game with the "closer" score actually had a much more egregious offense (backup QB throwing a touchdown pass with a 53-16 lead and 32 seconds remaining, after the starting QB threw a touchdown with just five minutes to go) than the 72-0 game (where the starters were pulled after 1 series in the third quarter and the entire fourth quarter was a series of running plays by UMHB's third and fourth-teamers).

I read a story about a high-school game this year with a final score of 84-0, which seems like running up the score at first blush.  Then you find out that the winning coach pulled the starters mid-first-quarter, agreed to kick off to start both halves, and didn't pass the ball once in the second half.  Not as bad as it sounds.

I know of another high school game that ended 70-7, in which the winning team scored touchdowns on their first four offensive snaps and promptly removed the starters.  The JV's played out the game, and you can't exactly tell those kids "Sorry, we know that this is one of the only varsity games you'll get into this year, but we're going to take a knee for the rest of the game."  Getting the chance to play in that game might be the reason that those kids come back out for the team the next year.

I've also made this point before: if you're on the losing end, do you really feel any better if the other team just stops playing the game?  Would you really prefer that they start punting on first down or intentionally fumbling the ball to you?  Doesn't that level of "charity" start to offend you even more than losing by 50?

At the college level, I think it's perfectly reasonable to let the starters play the entire first half and most of the third quarter unless you're approaching triple digits on the scoreboard.  Once the starters are removed, I find it perfectly kosher to let the backups play "normal" football for most of the third and fourth quarter as long as you're not running a hurry-up offense and obviously just trying to rack up points.  Once you're under two minutes to go, probably oughta just take a knee or run fullback dives into the middle.

Specifically referring to the JHU-Gettysburg game: I agree with jknezek that the only "egregious" offense was JHU's starting QB throwing a touchdown pass early in the fourth quarter.  Even if you want to let the starters play the first three quarters, that's fine with me, but with a 56-14 lead as the third quarter ended, the coach probably could have used the quarter break to organize the second-string offense and get them out there.

Beyond that, everything else seems pretty reasonable.  So Hopkins' second-string offense came in and scored two TD's on mostly running plays, and it's not like the few pass plays they ran were deep post patterns or anything.  The last touchdown was a fumble return by a freshman defensive lineman (who's presumably a second- or third-string player, given that he has a total of three tackles for the season).  As knezek says: are you supposed to tell your kids not to play the game?

[old ends]

Picks for Oct 29th

McDaniel over Juniata
Muhlenberg over Dickinson
F & M over Susquehanna
Ursinus over Johns Hopkins ( they have had there number for the last few years)
Gettysburg over Moravian


Cortland


enjoy







enjoy

[TheGrove]

McDaniel
Muhlenberg
Susquehanna
Hopkins
Gettysburg
Bonus TBD

[Reserved Seat]

McDaniel
Muhlenberg
F & M
Johns Hopkins
Gettysburg

[muledaddy]

GAMES FOR 10/29

Juniata v McDaniel
Dickinson v Mules
Susquehanna v F and M
Ursinus v Hopkins
Gettysburg v Moravian      BONUS PICK..........CORTLAND VS THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY

[muledaddy]

MULEDADDY'S  10/29 picks.......Hopkins
                                           McDaniel
                                           F and M
                                           Gettysburg
                                           Mules

                          Bonus-Cortland

[muledaddy]

RECAP....RESULTS FROM 10/22 PICK'EMS..........

                                                                  OLD ENDS.....3-2
                                                                   RESERVED SEAT 6-0
                                                                   THE GROVE        6-0
                                                                    GO HOP            6-0
                                                                     69MULE            5-1
                                                                      MULEDADDY      5-1