FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[Yarsan]

Speaking of injuries, anyone know why fifth year senior QB Jordan Eck didn't play for Hamilton? If he's gone before the season even starts, ouch, some long bus rides ahead.

I believe Eck started the game (a nice gesture for the Senior) but then they went with Hopsicker, a sophomore transfer from Trinity. He's has a decent arm, and is perhaps more comfortable with the option style offense Hamilton went with. It could also be that they wanted to give him some seasoning against a tough opponent. I'd say Hamilton has two quarterbacks of roughly equal quality - a real luxury in NESCAC.

I thought Hamilton played well against a better team. Amherst was a bit flat in the first half, and Hamilton in the second. Plenty of sloppy play on both sides, so it's tough to draw a lot of conclusions but the Hamilton squad seems to be responding well to the new head coach/defensive coordinator. The offense has gotten away from last year's habit of throwing 30 one yard passes every game, and seems more balanced.  The O-line, while definitely on the small side, did a reasonable job against a good Amherst D-line.

All in all, I came away reasonably optimistic about Hamilton's prospects this year. The most serious injury problem might be Coach Cohen's voice - he is very, er, energetic.

[lumbercat]

Yarsan-Thanks for the info--
Im surpised on Eck- really thought he was one of the best in conference- can throw and run. Didnt know Hopsicker was a Trinity transfer, thats interesting.
Unusual situation, Eck comes back as 5th year senior having been a 3 year starter.... there is a coaching change and he doesnt play.

[amh63]

Several comments based on the review of the game by the SID, looking at the stats, etc.
Amherst o-line opened the holes as Amherst's "replacement" RBs ran for 376 yards vs. 60 yds for Hamilton.  Three RBs ran well with Silva ( had a 8.5 yd average), running for 170 yds.  Jacobs had a 8.1 yd. average, running for 97 yds.
Big back Jellison even ran for a 29 yd. plus touchdown.
Lippe had a nice day and threw for two touchdowns and his replacement played well.  The WRs had a good day with one FY from Florida playing.
Special teams need some work as Hamilton scored on a 94 yard return.  The Trinity transfer QB had a good day and passed for a TD....to a wide open WR.  Number of young players getting game experiences by the game's end.

[FourMoreYears]

Question about starting line-ups by year.

For the Middlebury - Bowdoin game I noted the following:

Middlebury Offense/Defense/Total
Freshmen:   0 - 0 - 0
Sophomore: 1 - 3 - 4
Junior:         3 - 3 - 6
Senior:         7 - 5 - 12

Bowdoin Offense/Defense/Total
Freshmen:   1 - 1 - 2
Sophomore: 4 - 4 - 8
Junior:         3 - 3 - 6
Senior:         3 - 3 - 6

Realizing that once the game starts, players get shuffled in and out based on injuries, performance and game situation:

Do others have the breakdown for other teams on Saturday?
Is the NESCAC normally an upperclassmen league (Jr/Sr)?
Are there programs that historically lean one way (young) or the other (old)?

Just curious ...

[oldhamfan]

...the Hamilton squad seems to be responding well to the head coach/defensive coordinator.All in all, I came away reasonably optimistic about Hamilton's prospects this year. The most serious injury problem might be Coach Cohen's voice - he is very, er, energetic.

Ahh, in the Steve Frank mold. (Hopefully without Frank's constant F bombs, which were a bit much)

[lumbercat]

Four More Years-
Your breakdown of the composition of this years Football squads was interesting. Here is my breakdown of the starting lineups of the CBB teams:

COLBY-
Offense--- 1 Frosh---4 Sophs---3 Juniors---3 Seniors
Defense-- 0 Frosh---5 Sophs---1 Junior----5 Seniors

BATES-
Offense--- 1 frosh---3 Sophs--- 4 Juniors---3 Seniors
Defense-- 0 Frosh---5 Sophs--- 3 Juniors---3 Seniors

BOWDOIN-
Offense--- 0 Frosh---5 sophs---3 Juniors---3 Seniors
Defense---0 Frosh---4 Sophs---2 Juniors---4 Seniors

[lumbercat]

Correction-
Bowdoin D
5 Sophs---2 Juniors---4 Seniors

All the CBB teams are young but Bates seems to have the edge in terms of talent though the White Mules will battle to the end.

[nescac1]

A few more notes from the first weekend.

First, the Williams class breakdown:

Offense: 6 seniors, 1 junior, 3 sophomores, 1 frosh (one injured junior starter replaced by a senior, one injured senior starter replaced by a frosh)
Defense: 5 seniors, 3 juniors, 3 sophomores

In addition, at least one junior (McKenna), one sophomore (Tom Cabarle) and one frosh (Jack Ryan) played a ton on defense, and four juniors (Brewington, Beaton, Flynn, Hernandez) saw meaningful time on offense. 

I noticed that after two years of Bunker brothers showdowns, Trinity and Amherst once again appear to have brothers in prominent roles -- two Ragones from Florida at WR (sophomore and first year, respectively) both had catches for the Bants and Jeffs.  This time, the roles are reversed, with Trinity having the more seasoned brother.  The two teams can only hope that brother pair ends up as such a productive duo. 

Brutal luck for Bowdoin with those injuries.  With Amherst on deck next week for the Polar Bears, it will likely get worse before it gets better ... Amherst is just going to plow right over the small and inexperienced Bowdoin front, especially with injuries not helping the situation. 

As for Colby, they did have a nice core of three skillful players to build around, at least.  In addition to Dunklee, who is already an all-NESCAC level player (but hopefully the apparent ankle injury he suffered is not too severe), Ciero does look like a guy who could emerge as a starting QB sooner rather than later, and soph Jason Buco is an impressive athlete who was asked to do a little too much vs. the Ephs, as he played offense, defense, and special teams.  Colby really needs a bigger threat at RB and help on the OL though, they couldn't run at all on an Ephs defensive line which featured four new starters, and also the secondary had no prayer vs. the much faster Eph receivers (granted, the Ephs do have the best WR core in NESCAC). 

Williams-Trinity should be awesome.  I was impressed by the play of the Williams front seven but again it's really hard to tell how good they are from the Colby game, Trinity will be an enormous test.  Trinity completely shut down Bates' passing game, but the Bobcats don't have remotely close to the WR talent that Williams does, so the same story holds there.  I think Williams will need to turn this into a wide open game to have a chance, as Trinity is likely the more physical team but Williams has more skill at both QB and WR.  Williams played things close to the vest vs. Colby and I expect a bit more trickery to be employed vs. the Bants.   

[FourMoreYears]

Lumbercat ... you are right on the Frosh for Bowdoin. 
I thought RB #32 Trey Brown started he did not. 
Also, it only felt like DB #20 Jibrail Coy started!

Both players are going to be very good.

[madzillagd]

I was able to catch most of the Williams-Colby game online this weekend.  Feed quality was OK - bit rough at times but definitely nice to get 'real' announcers, replays etc.

NESCAC1 - Definitely would agree with you on the Williams running game.  While it may look adequate on paper, it really didn't seem very effective watching that game.  Luckily they really didn't need to rely on it much because whenever they needed a first down they got it via the pass.  Will definitely be something to watch against a tougher opponent in Trinity this week whether they move the ball on the ground otherwise we may be looking at a 400 yd game by Marske to get a win.

[frank uible]

Last Saturday Williams rushed against Colby for 115 net yards (3.0 yards per rush) - not enough to defeat Trinity this coming Saturday (irrespective of passing performance).

[nescac1]

Frank, if you told me Williams would get 115 yards rushing vs. Trinity, I'd take it, given how tough Trinity is vs. the run and the strength of the Williams strong passing attack, where the Ephs will need to have a huge day to win.  The problem is, 115 yards on the ground vs. Trinity will require much better by play by blockers and backs alike, plus perhaps some more creative play calling, than earning that same total vs. Colby.  On the other side of the ball, if I'm Williams, I put 8 guys in the box vs. Trinity on most plays, and dare it to throw deep with single coverage at times ... a risky strategy, but I'm not sure the Ephs have much choice, and the strength of Trinity's roster is clearly at RB and OL. 

Speaking of RBs, high praise in the Tufts paper from Jay Civetti for Ladarius Drew: "LaDarius Drew might be one of the best backs I've seen in this league in a long time," Civetti said. "Maybe since Ray Jones, who played at Trinity when I was there [in the mid-'90s]. The kid's fantastic."  If memory serves, Jones is the guy who ran for over 300 yards in one game once for a Trinity team that could barely pass.  Drew was hurt in the second half and did not return, hopefully nothing too serious.  Looks like Amherst will not miss a beat going from Eric Bunker to Ryan Silva .... but the Jeffs almost always seem to unearth a good TB.  NESCAC doesn't seem, outside of maybe 2-3 guys, particularly strong at QB this year, but certainly an impressive bunch of RBs in the conference. 

[frank uible]

Statistics are no substitute for eyesight, but against Tufts a Wes RB named Gibson rushed for more yards than Drew on both an absolue and also a yards per carry basis.

[amh63]

Nescac1.....Thanks for pointing out the WR brothers playing on the Trinity and Amherst teams.  I love that sort of info.  They are almost identical in height and size....twins?  4-5 years ago there were twin sisters from VA....in the Charlottesville area that were tall (6'2") slight  WBB players..one playing for Williams and one playing for Amherst.  Saw them together, with their family on senior night at an Amherst-Williams game in Amherst.
More trivial...but football related.  As posted earlier, I spent Sat. in a bit of rain watching a dreadful blowout of a game in Ithaca.  Cornell trounced a Yale team, starting a FY QB that should not have started.  New HFC and new staff.  Anyway, ended up chatting with an elder couple in the Yale crowd.  The man turned out to be an Amherst grad!....captain of his college BB team. He and his wife were watching their grandson in his first real job.  The grandson was the LB coach for Yale.....a football player at Midd.!  Chatted a bit with the grandson's wife, also a Midd. grad.  She was aware that Midd. had won the Director's Cup last year.  Broke Williams monopoly.
Hope to see the couple at Amherst in May....reunion years for both of us.

[iamhuge]

Statistics are no substitute for eyesight, but against Tufts a Wes RB named Gibson rushed for more yards than Drew on both an absolue and also a yards per carry basis.

I was at the game...Drew tweaked his leg and was replaced by Gibson.  Gibson is more of a hard runner, but I'd take him on my team too.  The Tufts defense actually played pretty well.  They had to defend a number of short fields and fell behind 21-0 in the first quarter due to some turnovers and special teams errors.  Tufts also lost their starting QB in the first quarter but the backup came in and played with a lot of poise.  Should be a great game next week vs. Bates.