FB: Empire 8

[rams1102]

I listened to the game today and Fisher seemed to play great.  Especially in the second half.  I think a 9-1 finish is very possible.  Before DewCrew can post his updated East Region top 10, here is mine:

1.  SJF
2.  Cortland
3.  Delaware Valley
4.  RPI
5.  Ithaca
6.  Hobart
7.  Albright
8.  Rowan
9.  Kean
10. Hartwick

You forgot Montclair.

[sjfcards]

After all the worry about SJF's offense, did they finally show up today, or was the Bomber D that bad?  Or a combo?

It was a matter of them finally performing today.  The Bomber defense was better than Buffalo States and U of R but we were able to put up more points today so that is just an indication to me anyway that the offense was in sync for that game at least.  Hopefully they turned a corner and will remain that sharp for the rest of the season. 

I also think a big deal was the fact that Fisher only had two penalties on offense yesterday. No stupid mental errors in the red zone, and the QB protected the ball. They controlled the line of scrimmage and the down field blocking was good as well. I think IC is the best team Fisher has played (outside of MUC of course), and they pretty much handled em. It seems to me they are growing into the spread offense a little bit. Looked great yesterday.

[SJFF82]

There was a play, either on their second FG drive at the end of the 2nd or their 3rd FG drive in the beginning of the 3rd, where Bailey rolled out , had nobody open in the end zone and threw it away.  That is the exact opposite of what he did in the UR game in the red zone...where he rolled out, saw everyone was covered and threw the pick anyway.  It only becomes 3 points, but the bigger picture is that it prevents a momentum shift, plus it gives the offense confidence, when it moves AND scores points, instead of move, move, move, Int.   That play to me told me as much about his progression as the TD passes.  As many saw, he actually hit the wide-open deep ball this week.

Week one was a firestorm at MUC.  Week 2 was like week 1 all over again as far as working out the kinks.  Week 3 was UR-SJF as usual and as expected.  Week 4 was a big test to see where this team is at, and I think they answered alot of questions.

FISHER

[sjfcards]

400+ miles later, supes has several things on his mind...

A) the away bleachers REALLY suck... Pep you are right... they are down right awful...

b) the fisher student's need to organize... and I loved the two 4LC shirts I saw which stood for Ithaca's fourth and long club... creative... we need more stuff like that..

http://bp3.blogger.com/_XQMmf1K0Hu8/RziQA5Ga14I/AAAAAAAAAMY/BdeYAEPqBow/s400/lewisclarkvslinfield.bmp[/img]

It was not long ago that the students all sat in the same section of the stands and appeared to be a little organized. What happened?

[SJFF82]

AU fans...how did the Pride look or sound yesterday.  Obviously it was a close game.  Is AU getting on track?  I know it is several weeks away, but week 10 could be the big one

[theoriginalupstate]

Alot of the solution yesterday was that Bailey was hitting his throws downfield.  He had trouble hitting the long ball the first 3 weeks of the year.  Yesterday he was alot more accurate down the field.  There are still some things that need tweeking, like the play action boot, with the offense but for the most part they got things going in the right direction.

Another thing, when you're running shotgun zone reads all game and you line up under center in short yardage your pretty much screaming: RUN.  Line up under center more often but and run the bootleg out of that.  Ask Harmon if he thought the boot was successful with the old formation.

[fisheralum91]

As was pointed out to me by fellow"doctors" the fdc or the rest of the IC contingent was as quiet as i have ever seen.
it was a first and i for one was suprised----even mioh seemed quiter than usual.

And ya know what-- I LOVED IT!

[Jonny Utah]

Ok so SJF happened to get lucky for the 3rd year in a row.

IC wins it out and SJF loses the rest of their games.

Go Pats.

[Tags]

Ok so SJF happened to get lucky for the 3rd year in a row.

IC wins it out and SJF loses the rest of their games.

Go Pats.

Lucky

IC Wins Out

Go Pats -- Check!

1 out of 3 isn't bad JU 8)

[theoriginalupstate]

Ok so SJF happened to get lucky for the 3rd year in a row.

IC wins it out and SJF loses the rest of their games.

Go Pats.

Coach Vos owns coach Welch after halftime....

1st Half points for Ithaca and SJF 2006-2008

Fisher 20
Ithaca 20

2nd Half points for Ithaca and SJF from 2006-2008

Fisher 88
Ithaca 12

IC probably goes 8-2..

Pats suck w/o Brady, just waiting on Moss to blow the season up with some of his antics...

[boobyhasgameyo]

You forgot to cross out the SJF losing out part Tags.

I am also curious about Springfield.  It feels like the E8 is just having a down year in general though, I feel like if we get out to a good start against Hartwick and are able to put them away then I think Fisher has a legit shot of running through the E8 unscathed.  But if it turns into a shootout I think it's a toss up and either team could win.  

However if a team such as Ithaca puts up 6 points against us but puts up 69 against Hartwick, does that mean we will put up 793.5 points against Hartwick?

[superman57]

back to Juvan for a second... I was think last night about what his record in big games...

against Cortland he is 1-1
against Fisher he is 0-3
I am only going to give him one of the wins against Springfield so he is 1-0
he is 1-1 against alfred
and 1-1 against Wick...
and 0-1 against mount union
so in 11 big games in his career he is 4-7 that sucks

[Ithaca84]

I watched the past 2 Fisher Games UofR and IC and the one thing that stands out clear as a bell is that Fisher makes huge adjustments as the game goes on.  Both IC and UofR Didnt or they just did not make the right ones. I was impressed with Fishers D..IC ran on them the 1st and part of the 2nd Quarter then they adjusted and shut down the run. They also then attacked the pass...With Blitzes comming from everywhere..
Fishers offense...Had 2 huge plays that was the difference in the ball game..Which sometimes is all you need..Set up the soft corners be going short all game then Bam....Go long..

Nice job Fisher...Well desrved..

[superman57]

Fisher did what an offense is supposed to do... in the first half they took body shots with the running game... and then in the second half they took the knock out blow with the HUGE pass to Smith

[gobombers15]

Just sat down to give my thoughts on the most horrific 18 minutes of Bombers football that I've seen since I showed up on South Hill. I never thought I'd see the day where an Ithaca team would be trailing 9-6 with 3 minutes left in the 3rd quarter and end up losing by 31. I'm going to do this in two parts: one dedicated to Ithaca, one dedicated to Fisher. To some (Ithaca fans), these posts will seem overly fatalistic. To others (Fisher fans), you will surely be disappointed that I'm not fawning over your team as much as you are. It's one man's opinion and I calls 'em as I sees 'em. Here are my thoughts:

1) I hope someone woke up Mike Welch in time for the bus ride home. Wow, was Mike Welch ever exposed on Saturday. Simply put, Vosburgh and his coaching staff are far better than Welch and his. The most confounding and glaring error by Welch took place with 12 minutes left in the 4th quarter and Ithaca trailing 23-6. Ithaca has the ball on Fisher's 13 yd line, faced with 4th-and-6. Oh, and our backup QB is in the game. I didn't even think there was a decision to be made here. You kick the FG 100% of the time. You're down 3 scores. You're going to need the FG at some point. Kick it, make it 23-9 and at least give your team an opportunity. I couldn't believe my eyes when Welch left the offense on the field to go for it. Of course, Ithaca failed to convert and, for all intents and purposes, they were Dead Team Walking for the last 12 minutes. There's a fine line between aggressive and stupid. This was the latter. The second absurd sequence took place on IC's second drive: 3rd-and-9 from Fisher's 31. Clearly four-down territory; too close to punt, to far to kick the FG. You know you have two downs to work with. Run something to get the first down or make it a manageable 4th down (screen pass would have been the PERFECT call). Instead, they throw it incomplete downfield on 3rd down and then, inexplicably, take a delay of game without Juvan even getting under center to try and draw an offsides. Who is coaching these guys? Then, predictably, we punt out of the end zone: net 16 yards. Nice job, Welchie.

The stat that Bombers798891 gave says it all: Fisher has outscored Ithaca 88-12 in the 2nd half over the last three years. Welch is getting worked by Vosburgh and his coaching staff.

2) If our offense was an ice cream flavor, it would be Vanilla. Make that reduced fat, sugar-free vanilla. In a dish, not a cone. I liked the end-around on the first drive, but after that IC did absolutely NOTHING to keep Fisher's defense off-balance. It looks like we have three running plays: off-guard left, off-guard right, dive. No counters, no stretches, no tosses. How about a draw or inside handoff out of the shotgun to keep the defense honest? How about a screen on a 2nd-and-long when Fisher brought the blitz so frequently? Has the coaching staff ever heard of WR screens or bubble screens. You would think they have considering how often we've been gashed by those plays in the last 4 years.

Look, I'm not asking for Ithaca to start running the spread option or an offense like Hartwick's. But, at any level of football, if you can't keep the defense off-balance in big games, you're not going to win. This may get the job done against Hartwick and King's, but you're going to find yourselves on the short end of the stick more times than not when you play a team as talented or more talented than you. That's been the case for the last few years and it will continue to be for as long Ithaca continues calling plays like this.

3) Does Seth Molisani have any eligibility left? I say this because there hasn't been a real playmaker in that secondary since he graduated after the 2003 season. I know those guys are giving effort out there, and I commend that, but they are just getting gashed to death. Jimmy Smith ran by Conti like Conti was running in quicksand. A lot of times the safety would bite on the run and be left out of position. And if this was a Madden video game, I think all of their Awareness ratings would be about "3." When a right-handed QB rolls left, especially at this level, he's throwing to the sideline. He's not going to throw across his body and, if he does, Happy Birthday. Each time Bailey rolled left, he had an option of throwing to two guys whose heels were against the sidelines. Yet the secondary didn't cheat towards those players once. They were wide open. It was unbelievable. Also, I must comment on how flat-footed the secondary looks when they are playing in the zone. It looks like they're completely unaware of the guys running through their zones. I'm going to throw up if I keep talking about this.

4) The Ithaca name far exceeds on-field performance. This dawned on me as I was watching the Tennessee-Auburn game: Ithaca is the D3 version of Tennessee. A team who rarely beats its biggest rivals anymore (Georgia/Florida, Fisher/Cortland)? Check. A team whose fanbase has unrealistically high expectations heading into each season? Check. A coach who seems like the game has passed him by? Check. A coach who gets worked by coaches who have stayed abreast of the modern game (Richt/Urban Meyer/Les Miles, Vosburgh/Hartwick)? Check. A team, who despite the prestige associated with its name, is perpetually battling for the bottom of the top 25 poll? Check. A team who is being closed in on by what's viewed as the lesser teams in the conference (Kentucky/Vandy, Alfred/Hartwick)? Check. I understand the analogy isn't perfect: the SEC is far better top-to-bottom than the E8. But the parallels are striking.

5) Prepare for another kick to the midsection. Bombers798891 touched on this. Can there be any doubt that Ithaca will come back and win its next five games, entering the Cortland game with an 8-1 record. By then, seemingly all will be right in Bombers Nation and we'll probably be analyzing who IC may match up with in the 1st round of the playoffs. Then we'll lose to Cortland by 14 points and either a) play an ECAC game, or b) slip into the playoffs and get hammered by a better team in a road playoff game. Can you tell I'm excited about the rest of the year?

6) Reality Check. Ithaca is 1-4 in its last five games against Fisher and 2-3 in their last five against Cortland. That's 3-7 in the last 10 games against their two biggest rivals. Ithaca hasn't won a playoff game since 2003. Those are the facts. Ugh.

Ok...I'll be posting my thoughts on Fisher later. Time to go watch my Mets blow it on the last day of the season for the second straight year. Oli Perez on 3 days rest!! Get excited. Stab me.