FB: Liberty League

[UfanBill]

  ALAS, EGAD, YIKES or just plain OUCH...D3football.com's Guru Greg Thomas is out with his yearly ranking of the conferences and the Liberty League has fallen behind the E8 in his rankings...https://www.d3football.com/columns/around-the-nation/2022/re-ranking-the-conferences-for-2022 

[Bartman]

ALAS, EGAD, YIKES or just plain OUCH...D3football.com's Guru Greg Thomas is out with his yearly ranking of the conferences and the Liberty League has fallen behind the E8 in his rankings...https://www.d3football.com/columns/around-the-nation/2022/re-ranking-the-conferences-for-2022 

This is not surprising based on the results this year. Tip of the hat to the E8 teams, especially Utica, Morrisville and SJF , all taking down one of the LL "top four". The Bombers will be defending the LL reputation against the Red Dragons at Yankee Stadium(Correction) at the end of the season, and we will all be trying to make sure the Bombers are not undefeated going into that game

[IC798891]

ALAS, EGAD, YIKES or just plain OUCH...D3football.com's Guru Greg Thomas is out with his yearly ranking of the conferences and the Liberty League has fallen behind the E8 in his rankings...https://www.d3football.com/columns/around-the-nation/2022/re-ranking-the-conferences-for-2022 

This is not surprising based on the results this year. Tip of the hat to the E8 teams, especially Utica, Morrisville and SJF , all taking down one of the LL "top four". The Bombers will be defending the LL reputation against the Red Dragons at Metlife at the end of the season, and we will all be trying to make sure the Bombers are not undefeated going into that game

The biggest thing keeping the LL close the E8 right now is IC's win over Port. All due respect to Utica's comeback against a banged-up Union (I've given them plenty of credit elsewhere), but I think Port is the #2 in the conference.

The E8 will be largely sorted out by the 22nd. Cortland will have played Port and the two upstarts, and Utica will have played Port.

Then starting the week of the 29th, the LL will start to sort itself out when the top 4 start playing each other. Hobart and IC tomorrow a nice little preview of some of those battles

[IC798891]

Here's what I'm interested in this week in the LL:

Given their performance against Brockport, I don't see Rochester scoring much (if at all) on RPI*

*Whenever I say this, I'm referring to actual offense, not D/ST scores, or 1 play 5-yard offensive drives set up by D/ST

But RPI's gotta start showing something on offense. If they can't score in the 20s (at least) on a Rochester team Utica hung 43 points and 555 yards on, the alarm bells should start sounding in Troy.

Union's got a get right game. They're going to win, probably by a comfortable margin, regardless of who is injured on offense. But I'm interested to see if the D looks sharp. If the special teams is sorted out.

IC/Bart is the shot for the early inside track in the conference.

[Ice Bear]

The Bear ****s out a +k to his fellow LL brethren for the pre-weekend talk. Ice loves when this board gets going. Ice is going to throw out a big compliment to IC on his thoughts and posts. Ice says IC you really add a ton to this board and Ice knows he can speak for many (like Bartman, Utah, Ufan, and others) by saying we appreciate what you bring to the board man. Ice says it's also nice to have J42 busting out some posts as well. Much appreciated from the arctic.

Ice is really curious about this weekend in regards to his Dutchmen. Ice believes they will win but he also believes that there is going to be some real in game struggles for the Dutchmen. So much is dependent on what Sherman can bring to the table. Ice says that slow, methodic, deer caught in headlights stuff won't cut it. Like Ice said before, he know Sherman was an excellent HS athlete and he hopes to see some of that come Saturday against what should be an overmatched Bengal squad. Ice expects the Garnet will be keeping the ball on the ground a significant amount tomorrow and hopes the oline can respond after getting it's ****ing ass handed to them during the ENTIRE second half last week. Ice says stack the box or not, running is our bread and butter. Get it done.

As far as the defense goe Ice will share a tid bit of info with the Bengal O...throw the ball. U's secondary was horrific last week and will need to improve if this team hopes to compete/defeat the likes of the other top three teams in the league. The Dutch are luckier than **** to have BState this week to get Sherman acclimated, make adjustments on D, run the ball with success again, and regain some positive momentum going into the next couple weeks.

Ice is also very excited about the IC/Pumpkin game on Saturday. Ice says this will be a very telling game for us to see how far the divide is between what many of us feel is the best team in the league in IC and a top contender in The Giant Pumpkin. Ice admittedly doesn't know what to expect between these two as he really hasn't watched much of IC yet this season. Ice knows the Pumpkin Spice D is very capable of being excellent and the O can explode at times.

Ice will concur with IC 100%...If ****ing RPI can't score against the Roch Cha Cha then they really are in deep **** this season on that side of the football. Papantonis didn't go ballistic against his first real competition this season, let's see how he does against the moster D that is RPI...straight out of Troylet. :-

[Bartman]

+k to IB for his usual "chilling" commentary and good luck to his Dutchman in righting the ship. Bartman is nervous about the big bad Bombers coming into the Boz, but loves the challenge and hopes each Statesman just gives his best effort and leaves it all on the field tomorrow. If the effort leads to hearing the Alma Mater sung off key at the end of the game by the entire team with their Pumpkin helmets held high.....that would be awesome.... This is what D3 Football is all about.

[UfanBill]

Union hosts Buffalo St. this week and their Two Deep is posted...https://unionathletics.com/gameday/football-vs-buffalo-state/football/296/
As expected Stratton Sherman is listed as the starting QB backed up by Jr. Kyle Bicho. I'm sure Stratton is taking a ton of snaps this week in practice but I'm also hopeful Bicho and other QBs are not overlooked. The Dutchmen have 7 QBs listed on their roster but besides Pacatte and Sherman none of them have ever taken a college snap. Coach Behrman has done a great job of building depth by getting the whole roster playing time EXCEPT inexplicably at the quarterback position. Look for that to change this week, I hope.

Thankfully there appeared to be no other significant injuries suffered last week and the Two Deep reflects no other changes. 

[Ice Bear]

Union hosts Buffalo St. this week and their Two Deep is posted...https://unionathletics.com/gameday/football-vs-buffalo-state/football/296/
As expected Stratton Sherman is listed as the starting QB backed up by Jr. Kyle Bicho. I'm sure Stratton is taking a ton of snaps this week in practice but I'm also hopeful Bicho and other QBs are not overlooked. The Dutchmen have 7 QBs listed on their roster but besides Pacatte and Sherman none of them have ever taken a college snap. Coach Behrman has done a great job of building depth by getting the whole roster playing time EXCEPT inexplicably at the quarterback position. Look for that to change this week, I hope.

Thankfully there appeared to be no other significant injuries suffered last week and the Two Deep reflects no other changes.

Ice would really like to see Sherman come out and take care of business. Ice has heard he is a capable QB who gave Paccatte a heck of a run during camp. To Ice, it just didn't look like it at all last week. Ice knows it's tough coming in and is really rooting for the kiddo. The Bear agrees though it would be nice to get some of those other 7 some game time experience Ufan.

[Jonny Utah]

ALL-TIME SERIES/TODAY'S MATCHUP: Ithaca and Hobart will meet for the 34th time on Saturday since the rivalry began in 1961. Ithaca is 29-4 in the previous 33 contests, which includes a 28-21 victory last season at Butterfield Stadium to extend IC's record at home vs. Hobart to 17-0.

The Bombers have won each of the past four meetings against the Statesmen, while Hobart's four victories came in 2016, 2014, 2002 and 2000. In the Bombers' four losses to Hobart, IC has not scored more than 15 points in any contest.

Ithaca won the first 22 matchups from 1961 to 1999, with its largest margin of victory in 1988 – a 58-0 shutout

Ithaca SID showing no love for the 1983 Hobart squad who took out the Bombers at the Boz 23-20 (as Bartman pointed out on an earlier post).  In fact there were a bunch of close games in the mid 1980s. 

[Jonny Utah]

And as for today, I'm not going to say Hobart is the favorite to win, but I would not be shocked if Hobart wins by 14 points.  Krewson is back and looked sharp last week and I've never been one to thing a "bye" week helps a team.  It sounds like it should but sometimes teams lose focus with so much time off.  That being said I think Ithaca has a slightly better defense than Hobarts and that should be the difference. 

[IC798891]

And as for today, I'm not going to say Hobart is the favorite to win, but I would not be shocked if Hobart wins by 14 points.  Krewson is back and looked sharp last week and I've never been one to thing a "bye" week helps a team.  It sounds like it should but sometimes teams lose focus with so much time off.  That being said I think Ithaca has a slightly better defense than Hobarts and that should be the difference.

The main thing byes are good for, in my eyes, are getting those sorta banged up guys an extra week to recover. I'm not huge on the whole "extra week of prep" thing. Maybe if you were playing Springfield or Salisbury, those extra reps against a super unique look would be good.

[Ice Bear]

Ice Bear says the Dutchmen are electing to start Freshmen QB Patch Flanagan out of Daniel Hand in Madison, CT.

[Jersey42]

RPI gave the start this week to sophomore QB Jake Kazanowsky. A change from the first four weeks when Matt Petercuskie had all of the starts and most of the snaps.

[unionpalooza]

Ice Bear says the Dutchmen are electing to start Freshmen QB Patch Flanagan out of Daniel Hand in Madison, CT.

Man, it's just one quarter, but the freshman can ball.

[unionpalooza]

Union freshman Patch Flanagan looks great at QB as the Dutchmen lead Buff St. 28-0 at the half.

Ithaca creaming Hobart 21-0 at the half in what looks a heavy mismatch.

RPI leading Rochacha 7-3 at the half but their offensive ineptitude continues, mustering only 3 first downs so far.   Rochacha is averaging 5 years a rush, so if they can stop throwing picks, they could def pull this one off.