FB: New England Small College Athletic Conference

[jmcozenlaw]

Even if only for one long weekend............I am a "Nesccacian" as I sit here in my suite in the Exeter Inn, mere feet away from the prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy (I can't bring myself to pay that tuition...............as I slummed for my undergrad degree at Swarthmore Community College............and somehow, have done quite well.

We took the tour yesterday and must admit it was spectacular. After this afternoon's wedding and checking out tomorrow (after Mass via Facebook of course), we are headed to Wolfeboro and Lake Winnipesaukee.

My Suburban Philly buddies (Main Line, Doylestown, New Hope) told me that they will disown me if I come back after this trip wearing lobster shorts (I guess there is such a thing as shorts with pictures of lobsters?), wearing my golf shirt collars up and calling hoagies........subs!!

Enjoy the day NESCAC brothers and please tell the idiots up here that I-84, I-90, I-290, I-495 and I-93 (along with the God awful 101E we took to get to Exeter) are roadways, not speedways. I've never seen so many clowns go from the passing lane, two or three lanes to the right..............to literally cut back across to the far left. Brutal!!

P.S. How Felger and Mazz are the top rated sports talk show in this area is mind numbing. Felger is the white Steven A. Smith..........just a bigger blowhard!!

[D3FLETCH]

Let's go Polar Bears!

[xPolarDadx]

Let's go Polar Bears!

PBs are looking pretty good.  While I see freshman DB Price back in at safety, it appears that corner Aidan MacNeil is out this week, and about 75% of the completed throws have been at his replacement.  Hopefully that can get tightened up for the second half, as this has otherwise been another much-improved game for Bowdoin. 

[nescac1]

Exciting game it seems like in Middletown!  Bowdoin is really improving week by week.  Colby on the other hand has completely fallen apart.  Brutal.  That was certainly the most dominating performance of the Raymond era.  For the Ephs, the highlights were two spectacular Maimaron to Stola deep throws and the play of the offensive line.  The line, with star Pat Watson finally playing, utterly dominated for whoever was running the ball.  Especially impressive was Mario Fischetti, who is really fun to watch - very shifty and explosive and runs with surprising power for his size.  He has to be a top candidate for Nescac ROY as he gets more and more opportunities.  The entire Eph defense played great.  Ed Manzella was the defensive star of the game.  He stepped up with two starting LBs out. 

He's only thrown three passes on the year, but I can confidently say that Eph back-up QB Jack Dickinson has a howitzer of an arm.  He looks very promising (and no guarantee he ultimately wins the job as Colin Schofield is splitting back-up duties and was also very highly touted). Maimaron is irreplaceable, of course, but nice to have two young talented QBs on the roster behind him. 

[SpringSt7]

Wesleyan holds on to retain its share of the top spot in the NESCACMAN Power Rankings. You know what they say---it's hard to win at home against Bowdoin.

[xPolarDadx]

Bowdoin misses a 37 yd FG as time expires that would have sent it to overtime.   QB Boel definitely appears to be a huge upgrade.
Though he did throw an INT in the end zone that was costly, his vision was pretty good for the most part, and can really throw lasers.  QB Stalcup got some reps at WR.  Note that RB Eden did not play in the 2nd half for the Polar Bears.  Hopefully he is ok, as I'm pretty sure they win that game if he is in.

[D3FLETCH]

Bowdoin defense looked unprepared.

[polbear73]

They were prepared. They just couldn't physically stop them when it mattered.

[amh63]

Amherst wins at Midd...in a game that the Panthers saw as a must win game.  Both head coaches showing why they are two of the top coaches in Nescac...and friends.

[polbear73]

Andrew Boel: 21-30; 5 Tds, 410 yards passing in first start for Bowdoin.

[nescac1]

Boel definitely looked legit.  Seems like Bowdoin found its answer at QB.  Wesleyan's pass D, on the other hand, has looked pretty suspect for two weeks running.  The plus side for Wesleyan is there are not many great passing offenses in NESCAC this year.  The downside is that they've yet to play Trinity.  Wesleyan has been either incredibly clutch, quite lucky (certainly over the past two games it benefited from some good fortune late), or most likely, a combination dating back to 2019.  Over its current seven game winning streak, four of those games effectively went down to the last possession, including two OT games, and Wesleyan won all four. 

A few other notes from around the league:

Williams and Trinity have been as even as two teams can be over the first four games of the year:

Williams: 35.8 ppg, giving up 11.3 ppg, 420.5 ypg, 6.3 ypp, giving up 291.5 ypg
Trinity: 35.5 ppg, giving up 12.3 ppg, 454.8 mpg, 6.3 ypp, giving up 277.5 ypg

Both are 1st and 2nd in the conference in all of those categories.  Trinity's run defense has been very stodgy, and same with Williams' pass defense, so both ways, it will be strength against strength when that titanic match-up finally occurs (lots of football to play before then, however). 

There has been a huge amount of QB turnover in the league.  Hamilton and Bowdoin are on their second QBs, and Midd, Tufts and Amherst are all on their third starting QBs.  For Tufts its been entirely injury related, very bad luck to lose your top two QBs (as well as their starting TB) so early in the season, just a tough-luck year for the Jumbos.  For Amherst, it's pretty clearly performance related.  Amherst has managed to squeak its way to 3-1 on the strength of stellar defense, but clearly (along with Midd) they are still searching for a starting QB as all three have been fairly awful statistically.  At this point, everyone in this league seems mostly settled at QB, including Wesleyan, which as WE, the Nescac1 consortium, predicted, went to Estevez most of the game, including when it counted.  As with Maimaron and Fetter, no one really seems to have an answer to Estevez under center.  Those three plus Costa are all having ridiculously good years under center, all with quite different styles. 

ROY watch: Mario Fischetti jumps to one of the two leading candidates (along with Joe Cairns) after his big game vs. Colby, 198 carries on a whopping 8.6 ypg so far this year, plus us also returns kicks for Williams (few opportunities to actually run any back, however).  I think we will keep seeing more from him because after defenses get pounded by the physical between-the-tackles running of Vaughn (who looked the best he's looked all year vs. Colby) and Nicholas, his lightning-quick cuts in tight spaces come as a shock to the system for defenses.

Speaking of TBs I hope Andre Eden is healthy because he's pretty clearly the best TB in the league right now and it would be fun to see what Bowdoin can do the rest of the year with him and, now, a QB capable of keeping defenses honest.  Eden would be the runaway ROY leader but for the fact that sophomores are apparently not being considered despite last year being a total loss. 

Tim Swope is having a ridiculous year on defense for Amherst, averaging 12.3 tackles per game, and has also added 2.5 sacks.  Looks like the next in a long line of great Amherst players on the edge.  He and Joe Kelly form a formidable duo in that regard.  Swope is one of a long list of guys in the early DPOY conversation along with Brian Casagrande, TJ Rothmann, Tony Hooks, Noah Glantz, and I'm sure some others. 

Finally, check out the two Maimaron-to-Stola long completions from yesterday.  The first was as perfect a pass as you will ever see in NESCAC (and a great catch), the second another spectacular throw and a really spectacular catch (the throw again would have been dead-on perfect had the DB not been hanging on for dear life to Stola's jersey, yet he still hauled it in, just a higher degree of difficulty).  One of the greatest QB-to-WR pairings in NESCAC history, for sure ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChhgtZaoc_E

(:25 and 2:50).  The Williams highlight reels (while much appreciated!) are always so random -- they will be half really great plays and half plays that are entirely ordinary and which seem almost randomly selected.  There are a few fun Fischetti highlights too, though. 

[lumbercat]

Brendan Costa did it all for Bates in the win at Tufts yesterday. Phenomenal performance. Passed for 254 yds and 3 touchdowns. Ran for 113 yds and a rushing TD.
He should be offensive POW hands down.

[SpringSt7]

Amherst quietly 3-1 with a pretty good chance to get to 5-1 in the next two weeks @ Bowdoin and home vs. Hamilton. The demise of EJ Mills appears to have been greatly exaggerated, at least for now.

[polbear73]

It's hard to count Coach Mills out especially when you have to trust that Bowdoin's improvement is real. A lot will depend on therunning back's return for Bowdoin. Should be more interesting than usual!

[polbear73]

Brendan Costa did it all for Bates in the win at Tufts yesterday. Phenomenal performance. Passed for 254 yds and 3 touchdowns. Ran for 113 yds and a rushing TD.
He should be offensive POW hands down.

Nope, it went to Andrew Boel.