FB: Empire 8

[AUPepBand]

Pep is back from the Green Mountains, having survived a skirmish with a 50-piece military band at Sabine Field. While AU Pep Band was outnumbered 50-4, the Norwich band retreated after their halftime show as the Cadets were awed and intimidated by the dreadful disheartening onerous noise produced by two trumpets, a trombone and a bass drum across the way. Pep's little band of Saxon Warriors overcame a deafening Cadet artillery in boosting the Saxon forces.

Winning the battle in the trenches, AU built a 42-7 lead, with the Cadets scoring a couple of late TDs against AU's second defense. Chris Reynolds hit a 47-yard field goal in the fourth quarter to account for the 45-21 final score. Norwich has a new QB who is decent but no match for Keeley who was 23-of-28 for 290 yards and 3 TD passes; Vinson Hendrix gained 108 yards rushing as AU balanced its air assault with its ground attack.

Pep was impressed with the atmosphere at Sabine Field for Parents Weekend with the pre-game military drills and the halftime drill team and marching band performances.

Pep is looking forward to AU's Homecoming and its E8 encounter with upstart Hartwick this Saterday.

GO SAXONS!

[sjfcclimbing]

By the way, am I just really drunk or does it really say Hartwick won? 

I really don't understand...

WOW.  I thought MIYH was JK when I got the text message that Wick downed SJF. 

What the hell is going on out there?

PG - Did you watch the game?   

Wow. 

Jim Mora voice ahead...

Hartwick?  Are you kidding me?  Hartwick? 

No I didn't!  I was gone all day and missed everything!  I wish I had been here though.  D-1 had an interesting day too.

After five hours of driving home after that finish, couple of comments:

Fisher played uninspired football in the first half.

Kramer has second off night game? Lights?

Fisher came back twice to tie it in second half and with better clock management would have been in position to win it. Ran out of time and lost a down to spiking the ball to stop the clock then had to pass from the three so an incompletion stops the clock. - great character

Fisher Defense bent and broke several times.

Hartwick is pretty good at home.

Fisher is not done yet, they lost last year and it inspired them. Hope that inspiration kicks in now.

[boobyhasgameyo]

Hello Hartwick at the top of the E8 standings...


One good thing to come out of this, maybe Hartwick posters will come out of the woodworks and we can have a bigger base to our E8PP with a touch more diversity.  I really hope Fisher can recover from this and finish off the year strong.  Maybe this was the kick in the butt they needed to show no game is a given and a #5 national ranking and $3.50 will  get you a caffe latte

[Jonny Utah]

The philosophy is to go for the win on the road.  The ball is in a location on the field at which you can score in the endzone 38% of the time.  A 20-yd field goal success rate/extra point success rate is about 75% in Division 3, with the chances of winning in OT on the road not more than 50%.  Thus, the chances of kicking a field goal and winning in OT in that situation are only about 37.5% maximum. 

Thus, this idea that going for the FG and OT as being automatic in such a situation is not true.  On the road, I think SJF may have made a decent choice -- try to win and end the game while the opposition has not chance to respond.  That's my two cents.

Well it appears they made the wrong choice doesnt it? 

Besides, SJF might have more of a 75% chance of hitting a 23 Yard field goal.  And even then isn't it only .5% by your numbers?

But I would agree with you Frank that sometimes teams have a 2 point play that they will have a 50+% rate rather than the 38%.  In that case, SJF did make the right choice if they did in fact attempt the 2 pt play.

And where are you getting that 38% number anyway?  Beacause normal redzone TD numbers wouldnt really apply here since they were in a different situation (go for the win or tie, instead of the safe FG that teams might run 75% of the time at any other point of the game)

[theoriginalupstate]

Big question is when will SJF get a real kicker?

Since Will Bean left its been HORRID.....

2005, 8 kicks missed inside 40yds and 8 EP misses.  Including a 24yd vs IC in a game that went to OT

2006, 3 kicks missed inside 40ys and 11 EP misses.

[pg04]

Yeah, that seems to be the real issue.  It doesn't look like there is any confidence in the kicker at all... even for a 20 yarder! 

[Senor RedTackle]

It certainly has been a weird day. I should have known what was coming as I witnessed Tulane leading the most dominant team in college football thus far (LSU, not USC), with two mins left in the first half.

Re: Fisher play-calling: I know you all are (very) emotional and upset right now, but give Vosburgh a break. God, I almost want him to come in here and go on a profanity-laced tirade at some of you people, ending with something powerful like "YOU WERE NOTHING WHEN I GOT HERE...WITHOUT ME, YOU ARE NOTHING." Sorry, I was daydreaming. Anyways, as I said, cut the guy some slack. It's not like he just thought "you know what would be cool, I'm going to do something we've never tried before and bring in the backup QB and try to run it in that way." He obviously thought it would work. Why did he think that? Because it probably HAS worked many times in practice against his first-team defense which he was justified in thinking was better than Hartwick's defense. None of you guys are at practice. Also, I'd venture to say that the QB keeper has easily been the most successful play in college football for teams inside the 5 yd line over the last two years. I'm not just talking about Tim Tebow or Ryan Perrilloux. EVERYONE is running it and running it successfully.

All I'm saying is don't blame the coach. Players win and lose games. You guys are forever glorifying how great your offensive line is. They should have manhandled those 'Wick guys down there. But they didn't. Tip your hat to Hartwick and move on. You have a hell of a coach and you should not be Monday (Sunday?) Morning Quarterbacking him when a) you don't know his reasons for calling the play, and b) your amazing O-Line couldn't get it done in the clutch. Plus, what about the other 3.99 quarters where you let an inferior team hang in the game. C'mon people, get serious.

+K...great post

['gro]

Overheard in Oneonta bars last night:

'Nuff people say, you know they can't believe
Hartwick, we have a football team.

that loss to WNEC is now uber bizarre.  D1 and D3 top 25 upsets galore.

[Tags]

It certainly has been a weird day. I should have known what was coming as I witnessed Tulane leading the most dominant team in college football thus far (LSU, not USC), with two mins left in the first half.

Re: Fisher play-calling: I know you all are (very) emotional and upset right now, but give Vosburgh a break. God, I almost want him to come in here and go on a profanity-laced tirade at some of you people, ending with something powerful like "YOU WERE NOTHING WHEN I GOT HERE...WITHOUT ME, YOU ARE NOTHING." Sorry, I was daydreaming. Anyways, as I said, cut the guy some slack. It's not like he just thought "you know what would be cool, I'm going to do something we've never tried before and bring in the backup QB and try to run it in that way." He obviously thought it would work. Why did he think that? Because it probably HAS worked many times in practice against his first-team defense which he was justified in thinking was better than Hartwick's defense. None of you guys are at practice. Also, I'd venture to say that the QB keeper has easily been the most successful play in college football for teams inside the 5 yd line over the last two years. I'm not just talking about Tim Tebow or Ryan Perrilloux. EVERYONE is running it and running it successfully.

All I'm saying is don't blame the coach. Players win and lose games. You guys are forever glorifying how great your offensive line is. They should have manhandled those 'Wick guys down there. But they didn't. Tip your hat to Hartwick and move on. You have a hell of a coach and you should not be Monday (Sunday?) Morning Quarterbacking him when a) you don't know his reasons for calling the play, and b) your amazing O-Line couldn't get it done in the clutch. Plus, what about the other 3.99 quarters where you let an inferior team hang in the game. C'mon people, get serious.

+K...great post

If he didn't think it'd be cool then why let it happen? It's ultimately his decision. That's not bagging the coach, that's the truth. He's a good coach, and made a wrong decision in my opinion.

RE: offensive line --- big doesn't always translate into good. For some reason they must not have had the confidence in getting 3 yards.

[fisheralum91]

sjfclimbing-- you were there?
should have hooked up at the tailgate!!
Im still in disbelief about the outcome, and hope Fisher can run the table and brush off this loss.  To all the "fisher family" thank you again for the great time as usual!
The loss stings still but maybe this is a wakeup call.
Oh- and for those of you who didnt make the game ----Hartwick is without a doubt the craziest laid out campus i have ever set foot on.  Cut a chunck out of a side of a mountatin and put a college campus there.  Mountain goats--no kidding.
One way roads- wierd turns and cant get there from here sidewalks.
Im not going to harp on playcalling, Fisher got beat.  Rebound boys---put this one behind you and focus on Bport next week!  Ill see the fisher faithful again at the Alfred game and ill bring some extra tomato pie and UC.

[AUPepBand]

Big question is when will SJF get a real kicker?

Since Will Bean left its been HORRID.....

2005, 8 kicks missed inside 40yds and 8 EP misses.  Including a 24yd vs IC in a game that went to OT

2006, 3 kicks missed inside 40ys and 11 EP misses.

AU has truly been blessed to have Chris Reynolds as its placekicker from 2004 to present. Pep and Saxon fans everywhere realize a kicker of his calibre at the Division III level is not to be taken for granted. Pep has seen Reynolds hit a 50-yarder in practice with ease. Yesterday, at Sabine Field, Reynolds hit a 47-yarder that he snuck in to the left corner that as it fell over the crossbar, struck the referee on the head!

A sign seen at Merrill Field reads: "It's up, it's good, it's...Reynolds!" Pep and KaZ00, after each successful PAT/field goal now chant, "It's up! It's good! It's Reynolds!"

[SJFF82]

It's OK to Monday(Sunday) morning QB the final plays of last night's game...that is what we are here for.  So after tearing off several 10+ yard rushing gains in the drive and several more (even a couple times on 3rd and long) during the game, we can only wonder and question why the best option was a QB sneak with a QB who had not broke a sweat since pre-game warm-ups.

Nonetheless, I do agree that none of us are in any position to know why the call was made, but bottom line is, had we won the game by a couple points after having been dominated in the trenches for the better part of the game we would still be left with a 5-0 team that was just waiting for the wheels to fall off.  So now the wheels are off and somebody better get the spare.  Problem is I think the spare is flat too...our defense just isnt that good.  It is obviously solid enough to win us some games, but it just doesn't dominate and it will not carry this team much farther than being a very competetive team.

[SJFF82]

BTW, I dont think there are any 'Wick 'guys' on here, but if you are...Congrats, you just knocked off the number 1 team in the East. 

[fisheralum91]

im glad that i went home last night because downtown Oneonta must have been bedlum.
that damn chant from the wick faithful is still making my blood boil-----i need to calm down--

[AUPepBand]

Pep is curious....what was Hartwick's chant?