FB: USA South Athletic Conference

[Wild Horse Rider]

Week one picks:
NCWC over Emory and Henry.  Go USAC
Brevard over Shorter.
Methodist over Shenandoah.  Go USAC
UW-Oshkosh over Huntingdon.  I will be pulling for the Hawks and would love an upset but the Titans appear better on paper.
SVU over Wilmington.  This is kind of a guess
Berry over Maryville.
Averett over Ferrum.  Go USAC
BSU over Lagrange.
Guilford over Greensboro in the Soup Bowl. 

USAC 3 and ODAC 1
SAAC 2 and ODAC 0

[Hawks88]

Heck of a fight today by the Hawks in a 28-24 loss to UW-OShkosh. Our defense was outstanding today and the offense played pretty well. It was two long kick-off returns, one to give them a short field and another for a TD that was pretty much the difference.
Very proud of the effort. Learn from the mistakes and get ready for BSC next week.

Go Hawks!

[Wild Horse Rider]

Bad week for the conference with only SVU picking up a win.  I know there are no moral victories but both Huntingdon and Maryville playing one score games against top 25 teams isn't a bad thing.  The Methodist game couldn't have started out any better for the Monarchs.  SU had the ball first and MU forced a three and out.  Methodist then went 15 plays in 7:25 for the TD.  The next SU drive the Monarchs recovered a fumble and went 11 plays in 5:23 for the second TD of the afternoon.  The first first 15:42 of game clock Methodist had the ball for 12:48 seconds of it with 14 points to show for it.  This was followed by 4 punts (2 by each team) then Shenandoah showed signs of life on the next drive completing 2 4th down fake punts for 1st downs.  They were stopped on a 4th and 3 at their own 19.  Methodist punted the ball back to Shenandoah who threw a 52 yard pass to a wide open receiver who was tackled at the 2.  SU scored right before half.  The Hornet's second drive of the second half was a 86 yard TD pass.  The Monarch's had a tough time covering SU's Bigbee all afternoon.  The back breaker was the three fourth down stops the Hornet's had in the second half.  All the credit in the world to Shenandoah but I believe the Monarchs let that one slip away.  The sign of a good team is the improvement between week one and week two.  Hopefully the Monarchs can clean up the mistakes and get a big win under the lights against the Quakers.

[Wild Horse Rider]

Week 2 and the every conference team has a home OOC game.  Here's what I see:

Shenandoah goes to Rock Mount and beats the Battling Bishops.  Week one did not look very good against E&H.  It may be a long season for NCWC.

Brevard rights the ship against Apprentice.  I would expect a large margin of victory here.

Maryville looks like they may be stout on defense.  Hanover put up a ton of points in week one.  Big win for the conference here I'll take the Scotts in a close one.

SVU gets their "old" ODAC foe Bridgewater in Buena Vista.  The last time these two teams played the score was lopsided.  I think this game will be closer but the visiting Eagles go away a victor.

Berry handles LaGrange going 2-0 against the USAC.

Averett gets a true old conference foe in CNU in Danville.  CNU had what I think will turn out to be a good win against W&L.  The Cougars lost a close one to Ferrum.  Averett has over 30 SRs on the roster so I'll take them in a bit of an upset at home.

Huntingdon finds a way to slow down BSUs RB and beats the Panthers in a high scoring affair.

My Game of the Week in Fayetteville, NC.  This will be my first time back on campus since 2019.  This will also be my first chance to experience a game under the lights (they were installed in the spring/summer of 2020 and used in the spring of 2021).  The Monarchs let one slip away in Shenandoah, VA last week.  The Quakers played a closer than normal game against the crosstown Pride of Greensboro last week (7-7 tie mid way through the third).  Now either Greensboro has dramatically improved on defense since the spring season (holding the Quakers to 241 total yards) until now or Guilford might be having a down year on offense.  I tend to believe the latter.  Methodist wins and wins big if and only if there are not the blown assignments in coverage that there were last weekend.

[D-BAT]

The Methodist game couldn't have started out any better for the Monarchs.  SU had the ball first and MU forced a three and out.  Methodist then went 15 plays in 7:25 for the TD. 

The next SU drive the Monarchs recovered a fumble and went 11 plays in 5:23 for the second TD of the afternoon. 

The first first 15:42 of game clock Methodist had the ball for 12:48 seconds of it with 14 points to show for it. 

This was followed by 4 punts (2 by each team) then Shenandoah showed signs of life on the next drive completing 2 4th down fake punts for 1st downs. 

They were stopped on a 4th and 3 at their own 19. 

Methodist punted the ball back to Shenandoah who threw a 52 yard pass to a wide open receiver who was tackled at the 2. 

SU scored right before half. 

The Hornet's second drive of the second half was a 86 yard TD pass. 

The Monarch's had a tough time covering SU's Bigbee all afternoon. 

The back breaker was the three fourth down stops the Hornet's had in the second half.

All the credit in the world to Shenandoah but I believe the Monarchs let that one slip away. 

The sign of a good team is the improvement between week one and week two.  Hopefully the Monarchs can clean up the mistakes and get a big win under the lights against the Quakers.

It was stated that MU was probably 21 pts better but aborted the "wildcat formation" especially at the end of the game inside the 10 yard line to win the game and went all pass.  Why did they do that?

[Wild Horse Rider]

I wish I knew D-BAT.  The only thing I can think is that the 4&1 stop at the SU3 (which led to the safety) made them gun shy.  They had the ball at 3&3 at the SU3 with 48 seconds left on the clock and SU had just taken a time out to stop the clock.  They could have had in their wildcat personnel grouping and ran 2 plays in the amount of time left.  In their defense I still believe that their QB is the best player they have on offense so I understand putting the ball in his hands for the 3rd and 4th down plays.  I'm sure that is a decision that could be "Monday Morning QBed" to death.

[Hawks88]

Tough opening two weeks for the conference. 2-14 over all.
For the Hawks that second half was a nightmare with 5 turnovers. When things started going the wrong it's like guys started pressing to make up for them and the mistakes started multiplying and things just spiraled from there. Thankfully we have the open date so hopefully we can forget about that one and get healthy and get ready for conference play starting with the trip to Brevard.

Go Hawks!

[Wild Horse Rider]

Well COVID took out the Methodist/Guilford game on Saturday night.  Good win by Averett.  Sounds like things snowballed in Alabama.  The one that truly shocked me was the Brevard-v-Apprentice game.  Based on the box score Brevard had to come from 10 down just to get the game to overtime and typically the only D3 team that Apprentice beats is Greensboro.  Conference play starts this weekend.  I'll take:

Brevard on the road to beat NCWC but based on the first two weeks I would not be surprised if the home team wins.  It will be about 10 degrees warmer in Rocky Mount than Brevard.
Averett beats the Pride in Greensboro.
SVU gets their first conference win when LaGrange comes to town
Maryville comes off of two tough non-conference opponents.  They held Berry in check on defense but Hannover put up some yards/points.  Methodist should be rested and hopefully ready to go for the trip to TN.  I will pick the Monarchs to get a road win.

[jknezek]

Well COVID took out the Methodist/Guilford game on Saturday night.  Good win by Averett.  Sounds like things snowballed in Alabama.  The one that truly shocked me was the Brevard-v-Apprentice game.  Based on the box score Brevard had to come from 10 down just to get the game to overtime and typically the only D3 team that Apprentice beats is Greensboro.  Conference play starts this weekend.  I'll take:

Brevard on the road to beat NCWC but based on the first two weeks I would not be surprised if the home team wins.  It will be about 10 degrees warmer in Rocky Mount than Brevard.
Averett beats the Pride in Greensboro.
SVU gets their first conference win when LaGrange comes to town
Maryville comes off of two tough non-conference opponents.  They held Berry in check on defense but Hannover put up some yards/points.  Methodist should be rested and hopefully ready to go for the trip to TN.  I will pick the Monarchs to get a road win.

Apprentice have occasionally had some ok teams by local DIII standards. They have also had some truly miserable teams. But we hardly ever know until they hit the field since there is large turnover year to year. We used to have their SID on the boards, I think that was his position, probably more than a few years back until budget cuts took over. He generally had good insight and knew the years the team would be competitive and the years it wouldn't. Unfortunately without him, the team's site has gone pretty barebones and the history hasn't been filled in much since 2015. But I remember a few teams recently that surprised a few DIII teams along the way and this season may as well. Especially with a pretty full slate of ODAC games.

That being said, I think it's more likely Brevard just isn't that good or had a bad game. 197 yards of offense averaging 3.3 per play and a miserable 3rd down percentage is not going to be good for your chances to win. 14-144 on penalties is going to put you in a lot of bad spots as well.

[jknezek]

Tough opening two weeks for the conference. 2-14 over all.
For the Hawks that second half was a nightmare with 5 turnovers. When things started going the wrong it's like guys started pressing to make up for them and the mistakes started multiplying and things just spiraled from there. Thankfully we have the open date so hopefully we can forget about that one and get healthy and get ready for conference play starting with the trip to Brevard.

Go Hawks!

I wonder how beat up the Hawks were coming out of facing UWO. Those big boys in Wisconsin can do a lot of damage, and if you are nicked up and facing one of the best running backs in DIII... come the second half it can start getting ugly when your defense isn't getting any rest because the offense keeps coughing up the ball quickly. Huntingdon's only possession for more than 3 minutes in the second half was their last possession. Otherwise, they had 6 possessions that didn't last 90 seconds and one that lasted just under 3 minutes. Going 4-4 in fumbles lost, versus BSC going 1-4 in fumbles lost, is a just a huge anomaly as well.

[jknezek]

Alright Region III fans, I'm willing to run the Regional Weekly Top 10 if I can get a balanced panel. If you are interested, you can either PM me or reply to this message and if I get enough responses maybe we can start next week. Looking for 1 or 2 people from each conference, but if I can get 5 voters total spread through at least 3 of our conferences I'll take it.

We'll run it mostly the same way Ralph has been doing it for years. Ranked 1-10 votes are due to me by PM by Tuesday at midnight, so if you can't commit to that, please don't offer. It's just not going to be worth it for me if I have to track people down every week. Votes will be anonymous in the published poll, but voters are free to discuss or post their own submissions.

It's a lot of fun, you learn about a lot of teams, and sometimes generates some good discussion. I always like being challenged on why I did things, but if you don't want to engage, that's fine also.

[Wild Horse Rider]

Brevard took care of business.  Averett did what they should do against Greensboro.  Mild shock with LaGrange winning on the road.  I was proud of the Monarchs effort in TN.  The weather delay could have killed them as they headed into the locker room for a little over an hour and a half down.  The second half was all Methodist with the Scotts managing under 100 yards on offense and 4 turnovers.  For this weekend here's how it shakes out:

Greensboro hosts Gallaudet for homecoming.  This is the only realistic shot the Pride have left to get a W and I say they do.
NCWC goes to GA to play LaGrange who gets a second conference win in a row.
Huntingdon travels to Brevard in a game that has lost some of it's luster based on preseason expectations.  The Hawks had a bye week to prepare and get the road win.
Maryville travels to VA to play Averett.  Averett keeps rolling and gets their third win in a row.
SVA goes to Fayetteville to play Methodist.  The Monarchs first home game of the season equals a big win.

[Hawks88]

Huge road win for the Hawks today. When we fumbled it away on the first play of the game and led to a quick score by Brevard I couldn't help but start to panic after last game but our defense absolutely shut them down for the rest of the game. 30 yds rushing, 6 sacks, 2 interceptions, and a defensive TD. If we can get that defense the rest of the year and the offense can keep away from turning the ball over then we could be okay.
Now to get ready for Methodist which I'm expecting to be tough game.

Go Hawks!

[DGPugh]

Amen Hawks 88
Go Hawks
  Keep the faith

[Wild Horse Rider]

It did not work out for Greensboro this weekend.  The Bishops got a nice road win.  Good hard win by the Hawks.  Averett looks to have found a very nice QB based on the stats.  The Monarchs took care of business at home.  This week:

Southern Virginia goes to Maryville.  I think that Maryville should have an advantage at home and gets their first win of the season.
Brevard goes to Greensboro and handles the Pride easily.
Averett keeps up the fireworks and beats NCWC.
Methodist travels to Alabama to take on the Hawks.  The spring championship got out of hand in Fayetteville just about 6 months ago.  I have the exact same concern this time around as I did in the spring and that is the legs of Huntingdon's QB Cotney.  On the other side of the ball I think Methodist has the ability to move the ball but the red zone will be the area of the field where I am keeping a close eye on.  If they can convert red zone opportunities into points and limit the QB run I predict a Methodist win.