FB: Empire 8

[D3viewer]

Saturday, October 29
11:15 AM
Hartwick @ Buffalo State
1:00 PM
Morrisville State @ SUNY Cortland
1:00 PM
Ithaca @ St. John Fisher
1:00 PM
Brockport State (NY) @ Alfred

Bye : Utica

[fisheralum91]

Fun weekend in store that is for sure!

[D3viewer]

The Fisher Ithaca game will be broadcast live on Time Warner Sports Network if you have cable.

[sjfcards]

Is that just in the Rochester area, or state wide?

[fisheralum91]

Utica metro is broadcasting it!!!!

[D3viewer]

Interesting that this week, the games pair up just about in order of the standings.

Game of the week. Brockport (5-2, 4-1)) at Alfred (7-0, 5-0).  Alfred plays the first of the 1 loss teams (SJF later).  Alfred has won 2 of the last 3 meetings. last year by a good margin. Despite Alfred's excellent senior QB and running game, I think Brockport has the most balanced offense in the league now (224 yards rushing per game and 217 passing/game). Alfred runs the ball a bit better but doesn't even average 200 yards a game passing. So, if any offense can challenge Alfred's D, it could be Brockport's. They have a 2 headed running game, FR. QB Germanerio and SR RB Andrews, plus, 2 tall 6-2 receivers that can get downfield.
Alfred's D continues to be stifling, with JR LB AJ Licata at LB and have the conf #1 sack leader SR Charles Branwell. And they have a 3 headed running game. Expect the difference to be Alfred's defense. Alfred's is excellent, Brockport's is average. Alfred to win at home.

Ithaca (4-3, 3-2) at SJF (6-1, 4-1).  Completes the battle of top 4 conf teams this Sat. I expect Fisher's offense against IC's D to be a real battle. The question is...can Ithaca's improving offense put in on SJF's maligned defense ? I'll take SJF to win at home, but I don't think by much.

Hartwick at Buff st..weird 11 15 am start. Even though BS has dropped below .500 in conf, they are still a dangerous team. Look for Buff St's offense to rebound against Hartwick's awful defense. Buff st to win at home, possibly by a lot.

Toilet Bowl 2. Smelly Central NY SUNY's.  Not a lot to like in this game. So I'll pick Morrisville to get a win, just because they have a veteran QB.

[pg04]

Man this board couldnt be quieter---
Bombers I understand with a newbie at home and lack of sleep - but holy moly
Pep or Kaz vs pg04?

Any of the Bomber faithful v Boob cards or me?

This is crazy!


crickets!

Hey, any given Saterday...Pep is looking forward to a great game in The Pit with Brockport. Will be there with the bass drum, a kazoo and a band of merry musicians supporting the Saxons.

On Saxon Warriors!

Sorry, have not been around to rouse up any discussion, have some stuff going on, but Alfred looking good early.

[pg04]

Congrats to Pep and all the Saxon fans. 3 quarters of the game was good. Brockport couldn't do anything in the 4th and kept shooting themselves in the foot in various ways. Alfred has some very talented players for sure. Interested to see if they can make it to the end of the season undefeated!

[AUPepBand]

Congrats to Pep and all the Saxon fans. 3 quarters of the game was good. Brockport couldn't do anything in the 4th and kept shooting themselves in the foot in various ways. Alfred has some very talented players for sure. Interested to see if they can make it to the end of the season undefeated!

Great game! Brockport is a super talented team. That QB is the real deal. Andrews, too. Somehow, the Saxons pulled it out....the crowd was crazy. Pep has got to rate today's game right up there with the Saxon win at 'Port three years ago...and the crazy OT game with Buffalo State in 2013.

[Saxon73]

Very happy for the Saxons    They really came through when the going got tough !!

I would like to see less penalties.  Utica will not be easy.

[AUPepBand]

Very happy for the Saxons    They really came through when the going got tough !!

I would like to see less penalties.  Utica will not be easy.

You got that right. Way too many ridiculous penalties. And Utica is always tough up there.

On Saxon Warriors!

[Upstate]

Thoughts from yesterday.

Great way to respond after the clunker vs Utica. The timing was much improved with the passing game, Naton was seeing the field much better and made a couple of great runs on 3rd down to keep drives alive. For a big guy he moves quite well!

The run game was very bad, they were not able to get any movement on the IC defensive front. Credit to IC for making plays but if Fisher wants to beat Alfred they need to get better guard play. Too many missed blocks and blown assignments to get the run game going. For example Fisher called a play where they stack two WRs on each side of the formation outside of the numbers and have Naton/Fusco in the backfield. IC spreads the defense out to cover the 4 WRs and leaves 5 guys in the box. They run a zone read run play so it is essentially 6 vs 5 in favor of Fisher. The IC DL blows up the Fisher line and the play goes nowhere.

Defensively they were put in a bad spot by the offense with the screen pass that was tipped and INT. Starting a defensive drive inside your own 20 is tough for just about everyone but the purple powers at this level. Other than that they only gave up a few plays but got lucky on the illegal touching penalty that called back a long TD, however it looked like the CB rode the WR out of bounds on purpose and let him go.

Smith was finally able to get back on track on Defense and made a couple of great plays with the sack/safety and a great TFL on the 3rd and 1 play.

Hopefully they can get back on track with the run game vs Hartwick and keep Pine/Reed/Garcia on the bench. This game does kind of give me a weird feeling as Hartwick will be looking for some redemption for their coach.

Coach Keyes, please send pressure up the middle and keep the safeties deep vs Reed/Garcia!

[boobyhasgameyo]

New polls are out.  Alfred remains at #15 and Fisher is up a spot to #23.  Random thoughts and hypotheticals ahead:

If all goes as expected after this weekend (don't F this up for us Hartwick) then it should be a battle of ranked opponents to close out the E8 season. 

If Alfred wins against Utica they will likely remain at #15
Fisher will probably jump up a spot assuming East Texas Baptist loses...which they very likely will. 

If Alfred loses to Utica they will drop but not out of the top 25.  I'd wager Fisher would be ranked 21st in that scenario and Alfred would be 23rd. 

If Fisher loses against Hartwick then they had better pray Utica beats Alfred and that Brockport wins out to create a scenario where 4 teams have 2 E8 losses at the end of the season (if Fisher in turn beats Alfred).  Because if it's a 3 team tie with 2 losses - Utica, Alfred and Fisher, then it seems like Utica would earn the auto bid in that scenario. 

Personally I pray Fisher does what they should and beats down Hartwick.  If they don't win that game they don't deserve to be in the playoffs anyway.  I also hope that Alfred is undefeated going into the final game.  If Fisher loses to Alfred in a close game then that's their strongest chance as a 2 loss Pool C at this point. 

[Bengalsrule]

Congrats to Pep and all the Saxon fans. 3 quarters of the game was good. Brockport couldn't do anything in the 4th and kept shooting themselves in the foot in various ways. Alfred has some very talented players for sure. Interested to see if they can make it to the end of the season undefeated!

Count me in on cheering for the Saxons to go undefeated also!

[AUPepBand]

Congrats to Pep and all the Saxon fans. 3 quarters of the game was good. Brockport couldn't do anything in the 4th and kept shooting themselves in the foot in various ways. Alfred has some very talented players for sure. Interested to see if they can make it to the end of the season undefeated!

Count me in on cheering for the Saxons to go undefeated also!

Pep is thinking back to opening day when the Saxons had their hands full with Husson (now 7-1) in a 35-28 win. That game was preceded by probably the most incredible experience Pep has had at a football game....and that was seeing Julio Fuentes walk off the same field that ten years prior required the utmost of care in removing him from the field and to the hospital (the longest fifteen minutes of Pep's life as a football fan).

Pep doesn't know whether the Saxons going undefeated this season could top Julio's Walk, but Pep would be okay if somehow that happened so he could know for sure.