FB: Liberty League

[Touchdown Tommy]

Dear Regulator,

Why are you dragging your feet signing up for the LLPPSCFJFFL2009?  TDT is looking forward to slappin' you around...

[pumkinattack]

What excites me is that this will be the third year in a row with a new starting QB (after Mizro, Strom then Doyle and now either Vella or the Fr Strang).  In the (second half of the) 90's a new QB meant 6-4 at best.

We might have been higher in 2005 (that Bart - Union clash may have been the most anticipated game in LL history as it relates to the national landscape - setting any rivalry games aside). 

[AUPepBand]

If Bart and Union can get to 10/10 undefeated (a big if as they will both be challenged by Dickinson and Ithaca respectively right out of the gate), that will be a pretty big matchup.  Maybe even worthy of a trip by KMack and the Guru (though you should really come to one in Geneva one of these days, way nicer area than Troy or Schenectady). 

TGP thinks this 09 #15 preseason ranking is the highest Hobart's probably had ever (at least during the D3fb.com era). 

'Bart is certainly deserving of the preseason ranking. Heck, Pep's Saxons haven't beaten Cragg's team in their last eight encounters, despite many of them being close encounters of the losing kind. Pep had hoped the Statesmen would host the Saxons on their common Oct. 17 open date, but not to be in 2009.

Cragg's Hobart teams always seem poised to pull out the tight games usually with an absurd risky call from the bench being the clincher....like when nursing a 21-14 lead at Merrill Field and running for a first down out of punt formation deep in Statesmen territory, then going on to kill the clock. Or coming from two scores down to tie a so-so Saxon squad and then win in OT 25-19 to retain its unbeaten record at the Boz.

It appears the Saxons' next meeting with 'Bart will be in the post-season. Time will tell. Stay tuned!

[mattvsmith]

Rev,
I agree with all that as far as the government's involvement except the GI Bill.  I left Hobart with the belief there should be no government spending, but I don't have a problem lumping the GI Bill in as a cost of defense

The Rev hopes no one takes my prior post as being anti-vet.  The Rev puts the GI Bill in the same pot because the effect is the same.  The GI Bill, even though it requires the serviceman to "invest" $100 a month for his first twelve months, is perceived as "free money."  Recruiters even push it that way.  If schools know that they can get $1,000 a month out of a veteran, they are going to price their school at about $1,500 a month.  No GI Bill to drive that price up, the school would be cheaper.  The Rev figured this out when the USMC raised the off-base living allowance in Yuma.  The day it happened, all of the apartment complexes raised their rents to just a little bit more than the allowance.  The government, by subsidizing housing, education, etc., ends up creating a price floor as an unintended consequence.  Also, it opens up vets to being taken advantage of by unscrupulous proprietary schools, like University of Phoenix.  These schools use vets and the government pay-out as their bread and butter.

The Rev's observation is that most GIs put the GI Bill money to good use.  The Rev just thinks it contributes to the problem of jacking up costs.

[mattvsmith]

RE: Trade School

I partially agree with sending young adults to trade school as opposed to college in moderation.  These are the kids that know what they want to do.  Want nothing else in life than to do this trade and will be happy doing this trade forever. (I have dismissed the possibility of "retirement" as we see it today, I think it will pretty much be work until you can't work anymore)
The part I agree with you on is that there are so many people being funneled through college with business degrees that it is really difficult to differentiate yourself.  I mean....how many chiefs do you really need to run an organization?

With that being said, most of the "valuable stuff" that I took away from college was when I wasn't learning about Stats, Calc or Ghanian Drumming. 

Right or no?

100% right.

[mattvsmith]

Try not to pimp my stuff outside of the NWC board too often but WC11 went on a bit of a rant last night about senior/team posters after I peeped the most horrible college football video of all time and wanted to share my thoughts with the LL'ers

ADvantage Catdome:  WHY? WHY? WHY?

Painful.  Is there any way to give -K to Tennessee for that?

[mattvsmith]

dlippiel very excited about the d3football.com preseason poll (thanks Pat and others)! Hobart is the lone LL rep with neither Union or RPI getting any votes at all. To dlippiel this is maybe a good thing for both. dlippiel's thoughts being that hopefully the U will surprise many this season and be motivated to really make a mark early with a victory over pre-season #10 Ithaca Bombers. For RPI dlippiel feels they often get so much attention and are constantly grilled because of their weak ass schedule and then they end up disapointing in the end. This ealry season lack of votes or outside belief in the Engineers may just provide the fire this team needs to take care of buisness throughout the entire year and recieve an NCAA birth. Although dlippiel must make it clear that he would prefer da U or Bart to get their instead. **** dlippiel thinks he may have even matured enough this off season to root for RPI in OOC games for the better of the LL. Who knows, crazier **** has happened!

The Rev has to admit that he is very pleasantly surprised by Hobart's place in the pre-season poll.  He hopes the Statesmen can live up to the ranking.

Naturally, this happens during a year when The Rev is overseas and cannot make it to Geneva for a game.  The Rev thinks this bodes well for the Statesmen since every game The Rev has attended in the last 4 years are the only (regular season) games that Hobart has lost. 

With the Rev-Jinx overseas, the Statesmen will go undefeated.

[stimulator]

Not disparaging Hobarts pre-season ranking at all.. but clearly looking at the returning talent, which I know is not the only indicator but may not be as much of a difference between RPI, Unon and Hobart as indicated by the polls.

I expected to see Hobart up there based on there NCAA bid last year but they do lose significant D talent and are starting a new or minimally experienced QB.  The disparity between 15th and no votes for Union or RPI seems a bit odd.  They both return a bunch.   

[labart96]

Not disparaging Hobarts pre-season ranking at all.. but clearly looking at the returning talent, which I know is not the only indicator but may not be as much of a difference between RPI, Unon and Hobart as indicated by the polls.

I expected to see Hobart up there based on there NCAA bid last year but they do lose significant D talent and are starting a new or minimally experienced QB.  The disparity between 15th and no votes for Union or RPI seems a bit odd.  They both return a bunch.   

Not to disparage RPI and U but the disaparity between them and Hobart (in 2008 terms) is that they didn't a) win the league and b) make it to the 2nd rd of the NCAAs. 

Regardless IMHO pre-season polls are merely congratulatory (i.e., mostly based on last year's results) in nature.  That said Bart did lose a few key guys (Hager and Aruck, specifically) but return 7 starters on both offense and defense respectively (that's a total of 14 for the Cortland grads reading this post . 

Connolly from U is still probably the best returning QB in the league (based on last year) but Vella showed some talent and this Frang kid sounds like a freak (in a good way).  Either way, Hobart still needs to get it done on the field.  Only rankings that matter are those at the end of the season (after the playoffs), not the preseason.

[stimulator]

The disparity (and I know how this is going to sound) was a 38 yarder as time expired in a game they were outgained ~ 400-250 and rushed for 47 yards.

Let me give credit though where it is due... they won.  They deserve the credit for executing when they needed to.  There are no moral victories for statistics.  They executed the big 3rd down pass play at the end and they converted the field goal.  They were outplayed a bit bit, gutted it out defensively and came away with the win.  They deserved it and the league title for taking care of business as the visitor at the end .. and all year. 

My point is that the disparity was that narrow last year head to head.  Of course RPI did itself no favors last year by shooting themselves in the foot at MM last year. 

Stim just thought it was strange .....not that Hobart was in the top 20, but that RPI who is losing only 5 senior starters didn't get one vote.  I know Robertson is a big loss  but still..

Unless I am missing something didn't Hobart graduate 11 senior starters assuming you count the FB Siravo as a starter?  10 by my count anyway. 

[Jonny Utah]

Ok heres a financial question for LLPP from an unexperienced stockman.

If someone buys 100K (7,220 shares at 13.85) of Bank of America stock right now.  How is it possible to lose that money?  Or I guess the question I should ask is, What are the chances that Bank of America stock does not rise above $14?

Or what if you did the same with Ford Motors? Buying 100K (13,513 shares at $7.40)

Today:

BAC (15.32)
F      (8.33)

Pumpkin when should I put my 100K in!!!!

I'm just giving you the investment thesis.  You asked what are the odds that B of A won't be higher five yeras from now.  If you want tto be a trader, then go ahead.  I know guys with MBA's from Wharton and PhD's from MIT who've lost money on many trades as professional money managers (they've happened to made more winning bets than losers over their career however).  Trading , to me, is no different than going to Mohegan Sun or Foxwoods and hitting the blackjack tables.  I subscribe to the Robert Schiller theory that you have semi-perfect information in the market so there's no way to know what news will impact stocks in what way.  I'm a discounted cash flow kind of guy with a longer term horizon.  Oddly enough, Ford is expected to show increased sales for the first time in a while and  the market is expecting a sell off tomorrow (in Ford).  The only advice I can give for trading is protect yourself with options (e.g. if you go long, buy puts or sell calls, to lower your cost basis, but riskier because the loss on the call is potentially unlimited vs. buying a put where your downside is the cost of the option).  

Yea giving me an ivestment thesis is like giving a monkey a copy of 'Othello'.  I want to be in the Lenny Dykstra school of stockbroking.

But seriously I was wondering if there was really any chance to lose money by buying 100K of stock of a company like BAC or F right now.

_{Disclaimer:  JU does not have 100K, 10K or even 1K to invest in stocks right now...}

[lewdogg11]

Enough about the preseason polls.  RPI lost to MM, which is inexcusable, especially when hoping for pre-season votes the following year.  Hobart is putting a winning product on the field year in and year out, and they deserve any pre-season recognition that they get.

RPI will be listed on the Upstate poll and if they can manage to win the games they should, and win the few other tough games, they will get some votes in the big boy poll(yes I said big boy poll, and I didn't mean Gro's big boy poll) if/when the time is right.

Stop losing to St. Lawrence, Rochester, Utica and MM, and we can talk preseason rankings.

[lewdogg11]

And after that rant...+K to the board, courtesy of the gay sniper.

[pumkinattack]

JU,

 Not being a trader but having worked for a couple of big banks (for whatever that's worth these days as I live on savings and start my own business), it looks like there's short term momentum and a rising tide will lift everything.  One guy on a CBNC show today (fast money) was of the opinion that BAC is an indicator for the market currently.  ML will make them a lot of money long term (more than they'll lose on their CRE portfolio), so if your time horizon is 5+ years you're probably in good shape.  Having liquidity helps (I bought GE at 7 which offset the GE I had bought at 14) if you are a long term holder.  Ford, I just don't like the political risk.  While they didn't take gov't money, the have the same suppliers (Magna Intl, Johnson Controls, etc.) and have to compete in pricing with them.  They did the right thing in raising liquidity and restructuring around profit over volume but could end up being a loser because of the gov't involvement with the industry.  Five years ago I never would have though AIG would be worthless, Bear Stearns would crash (they were considered very good mgrs of risk and fixed income players) or that Goldman Sachs would be a bank, so you can lose money on either, but if it were my money, I'd go with BofA (now, or wait for a little pullback which will come).

Stim,

 I don't doubt we could get into this all day, but Hobart lost their starting TE and RB in game 7, with the loss of Duliba being particularly significant.  They also lost Doyle in the RPI game.  Beyond that, they had a FR TE for the U of R game and two playoff games as well as Marlier and Tritten (two backup RB's) play two playoff games (and U of R for the LL title) and Vella, the backup QB got valuable experience.  In addition, they have a returning ILB who replaced Sanders in 07 as a FR and won LL ROY (Kyle O'Laughlin), so in effect, four of the lost starters will be replaced by guys who are reloads and not really replacements.  Marlier and Tritten destroyed Lycoming (maybe not the best team) in the first round playoff game.  So they return their top four receivers (Schulz, Vincent - who also missed games late in the season with an injury, G Muratori and A Schettine), a TE who played three games incl two playoff games (one against Mt Union), two RB's with playoff experience (one who's got 11 td's over the last two years as a backup), a their DE's, OLB's, two CB's with alot of experience and a safety who made every special teams tackle I saw it seemed.  They will have holes, particularly on defensive interior, possibly the O-line, but both sides can get portected to a large extent by a ton of returning skill guys on both sides of the ball.

TGP will do a better preseason review probalby next month, there's the case for Hobart deserving preseason consideration.  Nonetheless, I'm still nervous about the Dickinson game.  They've got some returning talent, it's our first game, their second in Carlisle.  

[pumkinattack]

On a separate note.  I'm a Tenn (Vols) fan for DI football.  I'm completely disgusted by this clown, Kiffin, whom they've hired.  I just moved to Atlanta and my father-in-law is a huge Georgia Tech alum and booster (with very good seats).  Should I throw my loyalties out the window to Knoxville and get on board with the Jackets or stick with my boys?  If I go the GT route, should it just be for the tenure (assumed to be no more than two seasons) of this clownshoe or go whole hog on the anti-bulldog engineers?