FB: Liberty League

[Ice Bear]

In other NCAA stats, Union has blocked 4 punts and 5 kicks, putting them in the top nationally in both.

Poppe coaches special teams himself, and that's his background - had tremendous success at Harvard in that area.  The upgrade to special teams across the board has been amazing this year, especially since that has been an Achilles heel weakness in recent years.

Union also continues to lead the nation in both total defense and scoring defense, along with a top 10 scoring offense and rushing offense.

So Harvard has their Spring practices at 6am during the Spring season.  Their practices are open and I was able to get up close on the field a few times luckily enough as a buddy of mine coaches there.  Their special teams periods were always great to watch because every coach and every player (quarterbacks included) would be involved in some facet of the special teams period.  The OC and QB coach would be coaching FG blocks or Punt return blocking, while Poppe (ST coach) had his own group.  I always learned a lot from these special teams periods that Harvard would run (Poppe being in charge as well).

That's very cool and had to be a very enjoyable experience hanging on the field with the Crimson UTAH.

Poppe does seem like the real deal. There is an intensity and focus there that I have not seen before. One that my father compares to New Harkness. It seems to me as if the players feel this, everyone around feels this, and they are all buying in. Honestly, I don't know if he'd tolerate anything less. At this point, at this moment, I would say we at Union could not be more fortunate than to have Coach Poppe leading this program.

[Bartman]

IC7, I hope you are OK, seriously. Your insights were/are valuable . I get it, I've had a few episodes where I take things a bit too personally/seriously, but that has mostly been with with old Union posters , years back. Ithaca is a fine college and we are lucky to have it in the LL( Ouch that really hurt to be serious and admit that).We only have a few contributors and I hope you will reconsider if you so choose. Heck, Mach has been on his best behavior and he was just warming up for some spicy Ithaca Bombers comments  . Cheers and hope to see you back

No idea which old Union poster(s) you are referencing... Please elaborate...


(Please don't)

Ok Mach, the incident(2014) occurred when I heard Frank Rossi say during aUnion football  broadcast  some critical things about a LL member team that was clearly aimed at Hobart. I just posted it here and removed it because it's not worth a detailed re-hashing. It is my example of being sympathetic to IC7 for leaving the LL posting world, as I did at the time, for an issue that was very personal to me. When Frank referenced the article from The NY Times , I thought it was a kick below the belt  to the program at the time.  I took it to the boards since Frank was a contributor and was pretty hot. I even got them to discuss it on their InthehuddLLe show. You can look up the exchanges (if you even care) in my historical posts....or in LewDogg's for that matter.  BTW, I kinda liked LewDogg....very entertaining I wish he was still contributing

[unionpalooza]

IC7, I hope you are OK, seriously. Your insights were/are valuable . I get it, I've had a few episodes where I take things a bit too personally/seriously, but that has mostly been with with old Union posters , years back. Ithaca is a fine college and we are lucky to have it in the LL( Ouch that really hurt to be serious and admit that).We only have a few contributors and I hope you will reconsider if you so choose. Heck, Mach has been on his best behavior and he was just warming up for some spicy Ithaca Bombers comments  . Cheers and hope to see you back

No idea which old Union poster(s) you are referencing... Please elaborate...


(Please don't)

Ok Mach, the incident(2014) occurred when I heard Frank Rossi say during aUnion football  broadcast  some critical things about a LL member team that was clearly aimed at Hobart. I just posted it here and removed it because it's not worth a detailed re-hashing. It is my example of being sympathetic to IC7 for leaving the LL posting world, as I did at the time, for an issue that was very personal to me. When Frank referenced the article from The NY Times , I thought it was a kick below the belt  to the program at the time.  I took it to the boards since Frank was a contributor and was pretty hot. I even got them to discuss it on their InthehuddLLe show. You can look up the exchanges (if you even care) in my historical posts....or in LewDogg's for that matter.  BTW, I kinda liked LewDogg....very entertaining I wish he was still contributing

OK, so I had to look it up.  Oof.

At any rate, please don't hold Frank Rossi against Union; between his podcast and the Audino firing bad blood, he's basically disowned the college, and I think it's safe to say the college community is perfectly happy about that.  The boards are much better for his absence here these past few years.

[Machiavelli]

IC7, I hope you are OK, seriously. Your insights were/are valuable . I get it, I've had a few episodes where I take things a bit too personally/seriously, but that has mostly been with with old Union posters , years back. Ithaca is a fine college and we are lucky to have it in the LL( Ouch that really hurt to be serious and admit that).We only have a few contributors and I hope you will reconsider if you so choose. Heck, Mach has been on his best behavior and he was just warming up for some spicy Ithaca Bombers comments  . Cheers and hope to see you back

No idea which old Union poster(s) you are referencing... Please elaborate...


(Please don't)

Ok Mach, the incident(2014) occurred when I heard Frank Rossi say during aUnion football  broadcast  some critical things about a LL member team that was clearly aimed at Hobart. I just posted it here and removed it because it's not worth a detailed re-hashing. It is my example of being sympathetic to IC7 for leaving the LL posting world, as I did at the time, for an issue that was very personal to me. When Frank referenced the article from The NY Times , I thought it was a kick below the belt  to the program at the time.  I took it to the boards since Frank was a contributor and was pretty hot. I even got them to discuss it on their InthehuddLLe show. You can look up the exchanges (if you even care) in my historical posts....or in LewDogg's for that matter.  BTW, I kinda liked LewDogg....very entertaining I wish he was still contributing

1. I said 'Please Don't'...LOL
2. I miss LewDogg too. He was the best. Huge weiner, too(I heard).
3. Yup. My example/experience/and reason for an extended vacation put into the most simplest hypothetical scenario:

Let's pretend all of the LLPP posters randomly met up at a bar once upon a time. No names exchanged outside of our handles. Having a great time. Drinking car bombs. Taking shots. Laughing our nuts(or whatever) off at all kinds of stupid and hilarious stuff. Just having a good time. Maybe ribbing each other a little, since that's what you do, but all in good fun. Then some chach, know it all, my **** doesn't stink,  douche-can comes walking in and is like 'Hey! You're Jimmy Stugots! I know you! My friend banged your sister. She said you used to sh!t your pants all the time when you were a kid. I heard she was a rockstar in the rack as well. And oh, I heard your cousin got tossed in jail last week for kicking a puppy. I heard your parents hate you. And my cousin's best friend from Russell Sage college said you have a tiny ding dong.'

As soon as that a-hole arrives at said hypothetical watering hole and starts getting into personal and in the past BS, that's when the fun stops. That's when some individuals, like myself, might be seeing red and might want to start smashing some **** and/or some people. And as grown adults, those are the times when it's probably best to remove yourself from that bar, even though it was a phenomenal time, while it lasted, before some a-hole showed up to ruin all the fun. Adults don't go there. But adults walk away. Adults don't try to publicly humilate others over personal issues over a somewhat anonymous football message board.


There it is. There it was. And here we are. Mostly getting along. No personal bull****. No seeing red. No feeling any ill-will towards each other on a personal level. The way it should be. I don't miss that.

[Jonny Utah]

IC7, I hope you are OK, seriously. Your insights were/are valuable . I get it, I've had a few episodes where I take things a bit too personally/seriously, but that has mostly been with with old Union posters , years back. Ithaca is a fine college and we are lucky to have it in the LL( Ouch that really hurt to be serious and admit that).We only have a few contributors and I hope you will reconsider if you so choose. Heck, Mach has been on his best behavior and he was just warming up for some spicy Ithaca Bombers comments  . Cheers and hope to see you back

No idea which old Union poster(s) you are referencing... Please elaborate...


(Please don't)

Ok Mach, the incident(2014) occurred when I heard Frank Rossi say during aUnion football  broadcast  some critical things about a LL member team that was clearly aimed at Hobart. I just posted it here and removed it because it's not worth a detailed re-hashing. It is my example of being sympathetic to IC7 for leaving the LL posting world, as I did at the time, for an issue that was very personal to me. When Frank referenced the article from The NY Times , I thought it was a kick below the belt  to the program at the time.  I took it to the boards since Frank was a contributor and was pretty hot. I even got them to discuss it on their InthehuddLLe show. You can look up the exchanges (if you even care) in my historical posts....or in LewDogg's for that matter.  BTW, I kinda liked LewDogg....very entertaining I wish he was still contributing

1. I said 'Please Don't'...LOL
2. I miss LewDogg too. He was the best. Huge weiner, too(I heard).
3. Yup. My example/experience/and reason for an extended vacation put into the most simplest hypothetical scenario:

Let's pretend all of the LLPP posters randomly met up at a bar once upon a time. No names exchanged outside of our handles. Having a great time. Drinking car bombs. Taking shots. Laughing our nuts(or whatever) off at all kinds of stupid and hilarious stuff. Just having a good time. Maybe ribbing each other a little, since that's what you do, but all in good fun. Then some chach, know it all, my **** doesn't stink,  douche-can comes walking in and is like 'Hey! You're Jimmy Stugots! I know you! My friend banged your sister. She said you used to sh!t your pants all the time when you were a kid. I heard she was a rockstar in the rack as well. And oh, I heard your cousin got tossed in jail last week for kicking a puppy. I heard your parents hate you. And my cousin's best friend from Russell Sage college said you have a tiny ding dong.'

As soon as that a-hole arrives at said hypothetical watering hole and starts getting into personal and in the past BS, that's when the fun stops. That's when some individuals, like myself, might be seeing red and might want to start smashing some **** and/or some people. And as grown adults, those are the times when it's probably best to remove yourself from that bar, even though it was a phenomenal time, while it lasted, before some a-hole showed up to ruin all the fun. Adults don't go there. But adults walk away. Adults don't try to publicly humilate others over personal issues over a somewhat anonymous football message board.


There it is. There it was. And here we are. Mostly getting along. No personal bull****. No seeing red. No feeling any ill-will towards each other on a personal level. The way it should be. I don't miss that.

Even back then the LLPP was Trans-inclusive and ahead of its time.  And Lewdogg was a major dink.  You guys have memory problems.

[Bartman]

Ok, I feel better because I know I've purged this incident  from my sole(not a typo). I apologize for bringing it back up because I am a better Bartman now (I'm thinking of changing my handle to Bartperson). I promise to only discuss the LL games and enthralling/relevant football topics like TOP.   

[Machiavelli]

IC7, I hope you are OK, seriously. Your insights were/are valuable . I get it, I've had a few episodes where I take things a bit too personally/seriously, but that has mostly been with with old Union posters , years back. Ithaca is a fine college and we are lucky to have it in the LL( Ouch that really hurt to be serious and admit that).We only have a few contributors and I hope you will reconsider if you so choose. Heck, Mach has been on his best behavior and he was just warming up for some spicy Ithaca Bombers comments  . Cheers and hope to see you back

No idea which old Union poster(s) you are referencing... Please elaborate...


(Please don't)

Ok Mach, the incident(2014) occurred when I heard Frank Rossi say during aUnion football  broadcast  some critical things about a LL member team that was clearly aimed at Hobart. I just posted it here and removed it because it's not worth a detailed re-hashing. It is my example of being sympathetic to IC7 for leaving the LL posting world, as I did at the time, for an issue that was very personal to me. When Frank referenced the article from The NY Times , I thought it was a kick below the belt  to the program at the time.  I took it to the boards since Frank was a contributor and was pretty hot. I even got them to discuss it on their InthehuddLLe show. You can look up the exchanges (if you even care) in my historical posts....or in LewDogg's for that matter.  BTW, I kinda liked LewDogg....very entertaining I wish he was still contributing

1. I said 'Please Don't'...LOL
2. I miss LewDogg too. He was the best. Huge weiner, too(I heard).
3. Yup. My example/experience/and reason for an extended vacation put into the most simplest hypothetical scenario:

Let's pretend all of the LLPP posters randomly met up at a bar once upon a time. No names exchanged outside of our handles. Having a great time. Drinking car bombs. Taking shots. Laughing our nuts(or whatever) off at all kinds of stupid and hilarious stuff. Just having a good time. Maybe ribbing each other a little, since that's what you do, but all in good fun. Then some chach, know it all, my **** doesn't stink,  douche-can comes walking in and is like 'Hey! You're Jimmy Stugots! I know you! My friend banged your sister. She said you used to sh!t your pants all the time when you were a kid. I heard she was a rockstar in the rack as well. And oh, I heard your cousin got tossed in jail last week for kicking a puppy. I heard your parents hate you. And my cousin's best friend from Russell Sage college said you have a tiny ding dong.'

As soon as that a-hole arrives at said hypothetical watering hole and starts getting into personal and in the past BS, that's when the fun stops. That's when some individuals, like myself, might be seeing red and might want to start smashing some **** and/or some people. And as grown adults, those are the times when it's probably best to remove yourself from that bar, even though it was a phenomenal time, while it lasted, before some a-hole showed up to ruin all the fun. Adults don't go there. But adults walk away. Adults don't try to publicly humilate others over personal issues over a somewhat anonymous football message board.


There it is. There it was. And here we are. Mostly getting along. No personal bull****. No seeing red. No feeling any ill-will towards each other on a personal level. The way it should be. I don't miss that.

Even back then the LLPP was Trans-inclusive and ahead of its time.  And Lewdogg was a major dink.  You guys have memory problems.

This kind of sounds like sour grapes. Like did you have a weiner-off with LewDogg and get doubled up or something? That dude was a legend.

[Ice Bear]

Nice to see the LL get rated #6 by Greg Thomas. I believe that's the highest ranking our conference has received in some time (if ever?). Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about the conference ranking.

The 19-6 record is impressive though, even if you sprinkle in the many subpar OOC teams that league members played. Our top four are tough and with Rochester improving and SLU even winning 2 (as bad as they are) we seem to be in good standing. I think we play some pretty good college football here in Upstate NY.

[Pat Coleman]

You are correct -- in the story, we have a bulleted link to all of the previous conference rankings, in chart form. LL previous high was 7, in both 2019 and 2021.

https://d3football.com/columns/around-the-nation/all-time-conference-rankings

[Machiavelli]

Nice to see the LL get rated #6 by Greg Thomas. I believe that's the highest ranking our conference has received in some time (if ever?). Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about the conference ranking.

The 19-6 record is impressive though, even if you sprinkle in the many subpar OOC teams that league members played. Our top four are tough and with Rochester improving and SLU even winning 2 (as bad as they are) we seem to be in good standing. I think we play some pretty good college football here in Upstate NY.

It's good to see a little recognition for sure. Interesting how only 1 team from the LL is in the Top 25 and they are only at 16. Makes me feel like there is some understanding that the LL is much deeper than many of the other conferences, including the ASC and OAC, but those conferences have some beasts, like Hardin Simmons....LOL... The E8 has a very similar Top 25 representation, but it's clear the E8, after Cortland, is pretty week overall these days. I'm actually a little surprised they are that high. Maybe a week premature since they'll likely drop to like 12 after Cortland beats Utica by 4 TDs this week. It's a little humorous that the OAC signature win is Marietta over St John Fisher. Fisher hasn't beaten much more than a wet paper bag this year, and they were considered signature. Fair enough. Atleast we have Ithaca beating Endicott. That looks lovely from the 16K foot view.

And my earlier assessment of the NJAC looks really accurate. Man has the NJAC gone in a bad direction. The beasts of the East used to live there. No longer. I am surprised the MAC is so low since they have everyone's dear Delaware Valley and powerhouse Kings. I'd expect them to be at least 4 since DV is there. Losing to DV 28-0, like Kings did, is like losing to Georgia 24-21. Same. Exact. Thing.

Fair list overall me thinks.

[Pat Coleman]

Nice to see the LL get rated #6 by Greg Thomas. I believe that's the highest ranking our conference has received in some time (if ever?). Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about the conference ranking.

The 19-6 record is impressive though, even if you sprinkle in the many subpar OOC teams that league members played. Our top four are tough and with Rochester improving and SLU even winning 2 (as bad as they are) we seem to be in good standing. I think we play some pretty good college football here in Upstate NY.

It's good to see a little recognition for sure. Interesting how only 1 team from the LL is in the Top 25 and they are only at 16. Makes me feel like there is some understanding that the LL is much deeper than many of the other conferences, including the ASC and OAC, but those conferences have some beasts, like Hardin Simmons....LOL... The E8 has a very similar Top 25 representation, but it's clear the E8, after Cortland, is pretty week overall these days. I'm actually a little surprised they are that high. Maybe a week premature since they'll likely drop to like 12 after Cortland beats Utica by 4 TDs this week. It's a little humorous that the OAC signature win is Marietta over St John Fisher. Fisher hasn't beaten much more than a wet paper bag this year, and they were considered signature. Fair enough. Atleast we have Ithaca beating Endicott. That looks lovely from the 16K foot view.

It's right to the point Greg made about how the OAC doesn't have any marquee opponents on its non-conference schedule, John Carroll vs. Whitewater aside.

[Bartman]

Nice to see LL ranking at #6 now. I think it has always been a strong league, but the addition of Ithaca really solidified the strength of the league.

[UfanBill]

Time to get my picks in for this week:

Hobart 48 - Buff St 13...The Statesmen refocus and push around the better, but not good, Bengals. Boswell and Denham pad their stats.

Union   41 - Rochester 14...The Garnet give up 2 scores for the first time this season as the Papantonis brothers are a tough combo. Union special teams block another kick.

Ithaca 22 -  RPI 17   ...Late Bomber score is nearly answered by the Engineers in a desperate two minute drive but Ithaca D gets a last play pick.

Great to see the Liberty League getting recognition. I'm hopeful it's our turn to get 2 teams to the tourney this season. A lot of things would need to fall right.


I'd also like to say that I'm sorry I'm stubborn when I think I need to defend myself. I tried to reach out to IC by PM to clear the air but I'm not sure if he received it. I certainly didn't want him to leave this board and hope he's able to work through his "personal challenges" enough to rejoin us.     

[Jonny Utah]

IC7, I hope you are OK, seriously. Your insights were/are valuable . I get it, I've had a few episodes where I take things a bit too personally/seriously, but that has mostly been with with old Union posters , years back. Ithaca is a fine college and we are lucky to have it in the LL( Ouch that really hurt to be serious and admit that).We only have a few contributors and I hope you will reconsider if you so choose. Heck, Mach has been on his best behavior and he was just warming up for some spicy Ithaca Bombers comments  . Cheers and hope to see you back

No idea which old Union poster(s) you are referencing... Please elaborate...


(Please don't)

Ok Mach, the incident(2014) occurred when I heard Frank Rossi say during aUnion football  broadcast  some critical things about a LL member team that was clearly aimed at Hobart. I just posted it here and removed it because it's not worth a detailed re-hashing. It is my example of being sympathetic to IC7 for leaving the LL posting world, as I did at the time, for an issue that was very personal to me. When Frank referenced the article from The NY Times , I thought it was a kick below the belt  to the program at the time.  I took it to the boards since Frank was a contributor and was pretty hot. I even got them to discuss it on their InthehuddLLe show. You can look up the exchanges (if you even care) in my historical posts....or in LewDogg's for that matter.  BTW, I kinda liked LewDogg....very entertaining I wish he was still contributing

1. I said 'Please Don't'...LOL
2. I miss LewDogg too. He was the best. Huge weiner, too(I heard).
3. Yup. My example/experience/and reason for an extended vacation put into the most simplest hypothetical scenario:

Let's pretend all of the LLPP posters randomly met up at a bar once upon a time. No names exchanged outside of our handles. Having a great time. Drinking car bombs. Taking shots. Laughing our nuts(or whatever) off at all kinds of stupid and hilarious stuff. Just having a good time. Maybe ribbing each other a little, since that's what you do, but all in good fun. Then some chach, know it all, my **** doesn't stink,  douche-can comes walking in and is like 'Hey! You're Jimmy Stugots! I know you! My friend banged your sister. She said you used to sh!t your pants all the time when you were a kid. I heard she was a rockstar in the rack as well. And oh, I heard your cousin got tossed in jail last week for kicking a puppy. I heard your parents hate you. And my cousin's best friend from Russell Sage college said you have a tiny ding dong.'

As soon as that a-hole arrives at said hypothetical watering hole and starts getting into personal and in the past BS, that's when the fun stops. That's when some individuals, like myself, might be seeing red and might want to start smashing some **** and/or some people. And as grown adults, those are the times when it's probably best to remove yourself from that bar, even though it was a phenomenal time, while it lasted, before some a-hole showed up to ruin all the fun. Adults don't go there. But adults walk away. Adults don't try to publicly humilate others over personal issues over a somewhat anonymous football message board.


There it is. There it was. And here we are. Mostly getting along. No personal bull****. No seeing red. No feeling any ill-will towards each other on a personal level. The way it should be. I don't miss that.

Even back then the LLPP was Trans-inclusive and ahead of its time.  And Lewdogg was a major dink.  You guys have memory problems.

This kind of sounds like sour grapes. Like did you have a weiner-off with LewDogg and get doubled up or something? That dude was a legend.

Dude we had one weiner-off and he deleted his account in shame it was that bad.  I'll give him credit though he tried hard........

[Jonny Utah]

Speaking of polls.....

In FCS, Holy Cross was ranked 5th in the country last week while Harvard was ranked 24th.

This past weekend, #24 Harvard beats #5 Holy Cross 38-28.

The poll comes out and Holy Cross is ranked 12th and Harvard is ranked 19th.

Similar to Florida/Tenn, (and Endicott/H-S) just another example of pollsters not wanting to drop a team so far for one loss. 

I also noticed the AFCA poll has Ithaca ranked above Cortland.  Sometimes those goofy bastards get things right over there at the AFCA.  Hell they even have Endicott ranked over Hardin-Simmons!!!!  Come on Pat!!! Defend your poll!!!