FB: Empire 8

[Bombers798891]

SJF has gone from an extremely balanced team over the years into Hartwick 2.0, no rushing threat what-so-ever!!

I havent seen them this year, but could it be because for 7 of the last 10 years they had 2 of the better backs in the history of upstate football?

They've totally gone to the spread option zone read crap instead of being under center and running the zone run scheme that produced those 1,000yd RB's....

Im saying maybe they changed their offense because they don't have those 1000 yard rbs?

Carlton would be alot more effective if he was getting the hand offs from the QB when he came out from under center, he would be hidden by the lineman and his cutbacks would be alot more effective.  Instead of attacking the line with Carlton they are having him run lateral.  They are limiting their entire offense with this, there is no threat of play action what so ever.  Their bootlegs out of the Shotgun require a super human effort by the QB to complete the pass.  It just looks like a total cluster **** out there on offense.

Over their last four games, they're averaging 37 points a game in regulation. What exactly is the problem with the offense again? Could it be that a defense that's allowed 113 points in three losses might be to blame?

No the offense is definitely not as good as it has been.  The defense outside of the debacle that was Salisbury I think has been solid.  No shame in giving up 33 to Mount Union who is averaging 49 points per game against everybody else.  Held Hartwick to 10 points below their season average, but our offense cost us that game.  Then there is holding U of R to 17, Buffalo State to 7 (on a garbage time touchdown), Norwich to 6 points, and Ithaca to 6 points. 

That wasn't my point. My point was, in the three games your team has lost, it hasn't been the offense that was the issue. What is your offense supposed to do against Salisbury? Score 60 points? You say there's no shame in giving up 33 points to MUC, but if you're ok with that, then you can't really expect to score 35 on them. Maybe the Wick game was rough because of the turnovers, but still. I'm so sick of hearing SJF fans complain about their offense every week when, with the exception of the MUC game, which is probably unwinnable anyway, your offense has scored enough points to win every game.

Your offense is not why you're 3-3. Your defense is.

And clearly you are missing my point that outside of the Salisbury game in which the defense was poor, the other 2 loses cannot be pinned on a defense that held both the teams well below their season scoring average.  The offense is so definitely responsible for losing to Hartwick and if there was any signs of offense whatsoever against Mount Union (well they did move the ball well on a few drives but couldn't finish for the life of them) it might have actually been a game. 

SJF YPG

2008- 414
2007- 387
2006- 409

SJF Yards allowed

2008- 372
2007- 295
2006- 270

So, you're telling me that the biggest difference from say, two years ago to today is the offense that's gaining more yards than they were then and not the defense that's giving up 100 more yards?

Why can;t your defense hold Hartwick to less than 28 points? Alfred's did. If you score 28 points, you should be able to win a football game. The offense totalled up 490 yards. I'm sorry, but those are not the signs of an innefective offensive system

Regarding Mount Union, your own logic condradicts itself. You claim that you can't blame the defense for holding MUC to 12 points below their season average. But MUC has only allowed 5.5 points per game, which means that the offense did exactly what you'd expect, which is, not produce a touchdown. If you're going to trot out some argument based on expected, or average returns in crediting the defense, you have to do the same for the offense. And frankly, the offense did all you could expect them to as well.

And for the record, allowing a running back to average nine yards a carry, and a quarterback to average 16 yards a completion is not what you could call keeping a team in the game. You really think your defense played well? There wasn't a single MUC drive where they didn't cross midfield. They put up 524 yards of total offense. You couldn't stop the run nor the pass.

I don't understand why an offense that has seen a drop off of 5 points per game from 2007 gets all the blame, whereas a defense giving up 8 more points a game gets a pass.

And, as someone else pointed out, why can't it be a talent question? Look at IC. Dan Juvan's numbers are awful compared to Josh Felliceti's, but that's because Dan's not a good and he doesn't have the talent at WR.

[boobyhasgameyo]

SJF has gone from an extremely balanced team over the years into Hartwick 2.0, no rushing threat what-so-ever!!

I havent seen them this year, but could it be because for 7 of the last 10 years they had 2 of the better backs in the history of upstate football?

They've totally gone to the spread option zone read crap instead of being under center and running the zone run scheme that produced those 1,000yd RB's....

Im saying maybe they changed their offense because they don't have those 1000 yard rbs?

Carlton would be alot more effective if he was getting the hand offs from the QB when he came out from under center, he would be hidden by the lineman and his cutbacks would be alot more effective.  Instead of attacking the line with Carlton they are having him run lateral.  They are limiting their entire offense with this, there is no threat of play action what so ever.  Their bootlegs out of the Shotgun require a super human effort by the QB to complete the pass.  It just looks like a total cluster **** out there on offense.

Over their last four games, they're averaging 37 points a game in regulation. What exactly is the problem with the offense again? Could it be that a defense that's allowed 113 points in three losses might be to blame?

No the offense is definitely not as good as it has been.  The defense outside of the debacle that was Salisbury I think has been solid.  No shame in giving up 33 to Mount Union who is averaging 49 points per game against everybody else.  Held Hartwick to 10 points below their season average, but our offense cost us that game.  Then there is holding U of R to 17, Buffalo State to 7 (on a garbage time touchdown), Norwich to 6 points, and Ithaca to 6 points. 

That wasn't my point. My point was, in the three games your team has lost, it hasn't been the offense that was the issue. What is your offense supposed to do against Salisbury? Score 60 points? You say there's no shame in giving up 33 points to MUC, but if you're ok with that, then you can't really expect to score 35 on them. Maybe the Wick game was rough because of the turnovers, but still. I'm so sick of hearing SJF fans complain about their offense every week when, with the exception of the MUC game, which is probably unwinnable anyway, your offense has scored enough points to win every game.

Your offense is not why you're 3-3. Your defense is.

And clearly you are missing my point that outside of the Salisbury game in which the defense was poor, the other 2 loses cannot be pinned on a defense that held both the teams well below their season scoring average.  The offense is so definitely responsible for losing to Hartwick and if there was any signs of offense whatsoever against Mount Union (well they did move the ball well on a few drives but couldn't finish for the life of them) it might have actually been a game. 

SJF YPG

2008- 414
2007- 387
2006- 409

SJF Yards allowed

2008- 372
2007- 295
2006- 270

So, you're telling me that the biggest difference from say, two years ago to today is the offense that's gaining more yards than they were then and not the defense that's giving up 100 more yards?

Why can;t your defense hold Hartwick to less than 28 points? Alfred's did. If you score 28 points, you should be able to win a football game. The offense totalled up 490 yards. I'm sorry, but those are not the signs of an innefective offensive system

Regarding Mount Union, your own logic condradicts itself. You claim that you can't blame the defense for holding MUC to 12 points below their season average. But MUC has only allowed 5.5 points per game, which means that the offense did exactly what you'd expect, which is, not produce a touchdown. If you're going to trot out some argument based on expected, or average returns in crediting the defense, you have to do the same for the offense. And frankly, the offense did all you could expect them to as well.

And for the record, allowing a running back to average nine yards a carry, and a quarterback to average 16 yards a completion is not what you could call keeping a team in the game. You really think your defense played well? There wasn't a single MUC drive where they didn't cross midfield. They put up 524 yards of total offense. You couldn't stop the run nor the pass.

I don't understand why an offense that has seen a drop off of 5 points per game from 2007 gets all the blame, whereas a defense giving up 8 more points a game gets a pass.

And, as someone else pointed out, why can't it be a talent question? Look at IC. Dan Juvan's numbers are awful compared to Josh Felliceti's, but that's because Dan's not a good and he doesn't have the talent at WR.

Ok Alfred held them to 24 points, not that much of a difference.  So Fisher was able to hold them to their 2nd lowest point total of the season, and it is beyond me how you keep pinning that game on the defense when the offense that kept screwing up is what cost Fisher the game.  Also you rely way too heavily on the stats for this year when they are misleading.  Against Salisbury Tim Bailey tied the record for most touchdowns in a game for a Fisher QB, so does that mean he is one of the best QB's Fisher has ever had?  If you actually watch the games you will realize he is so definitely not.  The offense as Upstate or pretty much anybody else that has seen any games this year will tell you is a disorganized mess, and they don't seem as if they have any sense of identity. 

And I'm not contradicting myself with the logic towards Mount Union, that's just why Mount Union wins alot because get ready for this...They score a lot of points, and they don't give up many at all.  But the defense did a fair job against them, I don't see how you are even arguing that when if you just look at the score and see we've held them to their lowest point total of the season.  But again you are getting caught up in stats that don't tell the story, I was there...If the offense was able to finish some of the drives it would have been a more competitive game (not saying we would have won by any means).  Also I mean if you want to get technical the defense only gave up 27 points to Mount Union because Tim Bailey threw a pick 6 right before the end of the half (yeah our offense is solid like that).  He also fumbled the ball and Mount Union recovered it deep in our own territory which led to an easy TD for them..I'd pin that one more on the offense than the defense as well.  So don't get so caught up in the stats if you haven't actually consistently seen the team play this year.

[fisheralum91]

well jose ya got what ya wished for-----congrats i guess----
sorry-im a tired angry sox fan that is in a bad mood

[JQV]

Three points

1) FA05, I think you are crazy if you think the E8 gets three teams again.  The loss to Curry almost certainly guarantees the committee won't be that generous with us again.

2) Someone that knows the numbers, like Frank, also told me that IC has the edge in the fourth tiebreaker if it comes to a 3-way tie.  Alfred still has something to say about that though.

3) I was there last night and there really are no words.  More to come but the quintessential moment for me was Pena's run.  The whole play was right in front of us and it took him a loooooooooong time to run that last 90 feet.

[PBR...]

Three points

1) FA05, I think you are crazy if you think the E8 gets three teams again.  The loss to Curry almost certainly guarantees the committee won't be that generous with us again.

2) Someone that knows the numbers, like Frank, also told me that IC has the edge in the fourth tiebreaker if it comes to a 3-way tie.  Alfred still has something to say about that though.

3) I was there last night and there really are no words.  More to come but the quintessential moment for me was Pena's run.  The whole play was right in front of us and it took him a loooooooooong time to run that last 90 feet.

congrats jose to the rays...now its time to take on the phightin' phils....the city of brotherly love is in full buzz mode waiting for this series to begin. pbr was downtown this weekend and you could just feel it, the city is ready to rockin' roll....cheesesteaks and soft pretzels around the horn and finish it off w/ a yuengling....

[JQV]

Three points

1) FA05, I think you are crazy if you think the E8 gets three teams again.  The loss to Curry almost certainly guarantees the committee won't be that generous with us again.

2) Someone that knows the numbers, like Frank, also told me that IC has the edge in the fourth tiebreaker if it comes to a 3-way tie.  Alfred still has something to say about that though.

3) I was there last night and there really are no words.  More to come but the quintessential moment for me was Pena's run.  The whole play was right in front of us and it took him a loooooooooong time to run that last 90 feet.

congrats jose to the rays...now its time to take on the phightin' phils....the city of brotherly love is in full buzz mode waiting for this series to begin. pbr was downtown this weekend and you could just feel it, the city is ready to rockin' roll....cheesesteaks and soft pretzels around the horn and finish it off w/ a yuengling....

The Phils are certainly a fitting opponent.  Tampa's other two titles had to go through Philly (Barber with the 95 yard pick six, Bolts over Primeau's Flyers in 6) so it is only fitting that yet another Philly team stands in this team's way.

Seems like it should be an exciting series.

[Jonny Utah]

Three points

1) FA05, I think you are crazy if you think the E8 gets three teams again.  The loss to Curry almost certainly guarantees the committee won't be that generous with us again.

2) Someone that knows the numbers, like Frank, also told me that IC has the edge in the fourth tiebreaker if it comes to a 3-way tie.  Alfred still has something to say about that though.

3) I was there last night and there really are no words.  More to come but the quintessential moment for me was Pena's run.  The whole play was right in front of us and it took him a loooooooooong time to run that last 90 feet.

I agree about the 3 teams getting in.  Maybe, just maybe if Ithaca beats Cortland by 5 touchdowns it might look like the E8 has the 3 of the better teams in the east.  SJF and Hartwick should cruise through the rest of their games.

[Jonny Utah]

Call me a sore loser but I will watch no part of this world series. 

[Frank Rossi]

To clear up the questions about the SoS in a 3-way, 1-loss tie:

1) Alfred and Utica cannot be in such a tie scenario.  They can only be in a 2-way, 1-loss tie, if any;

2) It's helpful to look at the entire W/L records of the affected teams OOC opponents, INCLUDING those yet to be played (remember, only in-region games of opponents count, and we must subtract out the W or L if the teams have played each other):

Ithaca 9-4, Hartwick 5-12, SJF 2-7;

3) We would need to measure the in-league wins and losses ONLY if a two teams were within 3 wins and 3 losses of each other in the above numbers or are close in the win % in those numbers.  Since that is not the case, Ithaca clearly wins the fourth tiebreaker in the three-way, one-loss E8 tie scenario.

[PBR...]

Call me a sore loser but I will watch no part of this world series. 

sounds like u need some brotherly luv JU...head on down and its pbr's treat for a nice cheesesteak wid cheez....

[fisheralum91]

no offense to the phils and the rays-- but i think the mlb gasped when they both got in---ratings will be an all time low.

that said-- it should be very entertaining.

look for the rays in 6---yup i said it--
gotta root for who beat ya to get there

[Frank Rossi]

Since I know someone will challenge me on the earlier post, here are the raw numbers for the three teams:


Ithaca (2-0 OOC, 1 Pending)
---------------------------
Lycoming  3-2 (W)
King's    0-4 (W)
Cortland  6-0 (-)
          ---
          9-6 (-2 Ls = 9-4)

Hartwick (2-0 OOC, 1 Pending)
-----------------------------
Becker    2-4 (W)
WNEC      1-6 (W)
Mt. Ida   2-4 (-)
          ---
          5-14 (-2 Ls = 5-12)

St. John Fisher (2-0 OOC, 0 Pending)
------------------------------------
Buff. St. 0-6 (W)
Rochester 2-3 (W)
          ---
          2-9 (-2 Ls = 2-7)

[JQV]

no offense to the phils and the rays-- but i think the mlb gasped when they both got in---ratings will be an all time low.

I don't doubt this but Bud Selig has only himself to blame.  For going on 10 years now MLB has spent all their effort marketing just two teams.  Ironically, this wrongheaded emphasis has hurt the team he still unofficially owns...

Everyone watches the Super Bowl regardless of who is in it because the NFL promotes all 32 franchises.

Interesting fact, in 11 years of Rays Baseball, Bud Selig has seen exactly 1 game at Tropicana Field, and it took him about 7 seasons for that to happen.  Shouldn't the Commissioner see every park pretty regularly?

[fisheralum91]

understood jose
worst to first is one hell of a story and yes bud should have been there more--
tho if----and im only saying if because i think he is an idiot------if he got the dodger/sox world series he would have been fine.

[Bombers798891]

SJF has gone from an extremely balanced team over the years into Hartwick 2.0, no rushing threat what-so-ever!!

I havent seen them this year, but could it be because for 7 of the last 10 years they had 2 of the better backs in the history of upstate football?

They've totally gone to the spread option zone read crap instead of being under center and running the zone run scheme that produced those 1,000yd RB's....

Im saying maybe they changed their offense because they don't have those 1000 yard rbs?

Carlton would be alot more effective if he was getting the hand offs from the QB when he came out from under center, he would be hidden by the lineman and his cutbacks would be alot more effective.  Instead of attacking the line with Carlton they are having him run lateral.  They are limiting their entire offense with this, there is no threat of play action what so ever.  Their bootlegs out of the Shotgun require a super human effort by the QB to complete the pass.  It just looks like a total cluster **** out there on offense.

Over their last four games, they're averaging 37 points a game in regulation. What exactly is the problem with the offense again? Could it be that a defense that's allowed 113 points in three losses might be to blame?

No the offense is definitely not as good as it has been.  The defense outside of the debacle that was Salisbury I think has been solid.  No shame in giving up 33 to Mount Union who is averaging 49 points per game against everybody else.  Held Hartwick to 10 points below their season average, but our offense cost us that game.  Then there is holding U of R to 17, Buffalo State to 7 (on a garbage time touchdown), Norwich to 6 points, and Ithaca to 6 points. 

That wasn't my point. My point was, in the three games your team has lost, it hasn't been the offense that was the issue. What is your offense supposed to do against Salisbury? Score 60 points? You say there's no shame in giving up 33 points to MUC, but if you're ok with that, then you can't really expect to score 35 on them. Maybe the Wick game was rough because of the turnovers, but still. I'm so sick of hearing SJF fans complain about their offense every week when, with the exception of the MUC game, which is probably unwinnable anyway, your offense has scored enough points to win every game.

Your offense is not why you're 3-3. Your defense is.

And clearly you are missing my point that outside of the Salisbury game in which the defense was poor, the other 2 loses cannot be pinned on a defense that held both the teams well below their season scoring average.  The offense is so definitely responsible for losing to Hartwick and if there was any signs of offense whatsoever against Mount Union (well they did move the ball well on a few drives but couldn't finish for the life of them) it might have actually been a game. 

SJF YPG

2008- 414
2007- 387
2006- 409

SJF Yards allowed

2008- 372
2007- 295
2006- 270

So, you're telling me that the biggest difference from say, two years ago to today is the offense that's gaining more yards than they were then and not the defense that's giving up 100 more yards?

Why can;t your defense hold Hartwick to less than 28 points? Alfred's did. If you score 28 points, you should be able to win a football game. The offense totalled up 490 yards. I'm sorry, but those are not the signs of an innefective offensive system

Regarding Mount Union, your own logic condradicts itself. You claim that you can't blame the defense for holding MUC to 12 points below their season average. But MUC has only allowed 5.5 points per game, which means that the offense did exactly what you'd expect, which is, not produce a touchdown. If you're going to trot out some argument based on expected, or average returns in crediting the defense, you have to do the same for the offense. And frankly, the offense did all you could expect them to as well.

And for the record, allowing a running back to average nine yards a carry, and a quarterback to average 16 yards a completion is not what you could call keeping a team in the game. You really think your defense played well? There wasn't a single MUC drive where they didn't cross midfield. They put up 524 yards of total offense. You couldn't stop the run nor the pass.

I don't understand why an offense that has seen a drop off of 5 points per game from 2007 gets all the blame, whereas a defense giving up 8 more points a game gets a pass.

And, as someone else pointed out, why can't it be a talent question? Look at IC. Dan Juvan's numbers are awful compared to Josh Felliceti's, but that's because Dan's not a good and he doesn't have the talent at WR.

Ok Alfred held them to 24 points, not that much of a difference.  So Fisher was able to hold them to their 2nd lowest point total of the season, and it is beyond me how you keep pinning that game on the defense when the offense that kept screwing up is what cost Fisher the game.  Also you rely way too heavily on the stats for this year when they are misleading.  Against Salisbury Tim Bailey tied the record for most touchdowns in a game for a Fisher QB, so does that mean he is one of the best QB's Fisher has ever had?  If you actually watch the games you will realize he is so definitely not.  The offense as Upstate or pretty much anybody else that has seen any games this year will tell you is a disorganized mess, and they don't seem as if they have any sense of identity. 

And I'm not contradicting myself with the logic towards Mount Union, that's just why Mount Union wins alot because get ready for this...They score a lot of points, and they don't give up many at all.  But the defense did a fair job against them, I don't see how you are even arguing that when if you just look at the score and see we've held them to their lowest point total of the season.  But again you are getting caught up in stats that don't tell the story, I was there...If the offense was able to finish some of the drives it would have been a more competitive game (not saying we would have won by any means).  Also I mean if you want to get technical the defense only gave up 27 points to Mount Union because Tim Bailey threw a pick 6 right before the end of the half (yeah our offense is solid like that).  He also fumbled the ball and Mount Union recovered it deep in our own territory which led to an easy TD for them..I'd pin that one more on the offense than the defense as well.  So don't get so caught up in the stats if you haven't actually consistently seen the team play this year.

Look, of your three losses, there's only one that you can say "Well if the offense had played better, we could have won it". (Hartwick) Which is exactly the number of times you can say that about the defense (Salisbury) The MUC game was the MUC game and they would have needed better play from BOTH units to win that one. (And even then, you would need some help, because hey, it's MUC). But every single week, it's "This offense is so terrible," "What are these coaches doing with this offense?" And so my general point was: How many times has your offense cost you a game? The answer is one. So I really don't understand what all the anger is about.

Outside of the MUC game, Fisher is averaging 34 PPG and 400 YPG. I know stats can be misleading, but those are some good numbers. A team that can put up numbers like that is not having offensive problems. They hung 52 on a ranked Salisbury team. They hung 37 on a ranked Ithaca team. The offense scored 31 last week against Norwich and pulled the starters.

So maybe the offense got a case of fumbilitis during the Wick game. That doesn't mean it's a bad SYSTEM. Fumbles are the result of players not being focused and being unable to hang on to the ball--or sometimes just a really good individual defensive play. A bad system is one that doesn't allow your team to move the ball up and down the field. If the players are fumbling, then they need to secure the ball better.