FB: Old Dominion Athletic Conference

[mattvsmith]

Remarkable win by SU. I can't believe the SU penalties!
Still, an outstanding effort by the team and a most excellent coaching job. Yoder is great.

[D-BAT]

I caught last 2 minutes and HSC announcers stated that SU was shooting themselves in the foot at critical times.

HSC announcers were impressed with SU's running back Andrew Smith and praised Drew Ferguson in leading the comeback for SU in the 2nd half.

[jknezek]

Yeesh. I hate to say "I told you so" but... ODAC champion, let me introduce you to Mount Union or Mary Hardin Baylor. Enjoy your brief stay in the playoffs. If Guilford wins out, they have two very unimpressive losses on the resume. If HSC or RMC find a way to squeeze through, they both have unimpressive losses and a bad OOC. Two losses, including losses to non Regionally Ranked opponents, will get you sent somewhere unimpressive. In fact, the whole ODAC is going to be without a RR win right now. That is not going to be good for us.

Who was it that said earlier this year that the ODAC champion would be undefeated in conference? That's still possible, but for Guilford not HSC, and said at least two rounds deep? Somehow I don't think that's happening...

[jknezek]

Remarkable win by SU. I can't believe the SU penalties!
Still, an outstanding effort by the team and a most excellent coaching job. Yoder is great.

Man you Hobart guys like to pop in here when Yoder gets a win, but when he gets blown out it is deathly silent. I love to cherry pick victories too, but it does make me laugh. I will credit him with making Shenandoah better, but lets keep our heads on straight. They could have hardly been worse...

[HSCTiger74]

I guess it was only a matter of time before HSC reverted to form defensively.   
That being said, congratulations are in order for Shenandoah. Without knowing any particulars of how the game played out, well done to all the players and coaches. 

[mattvsmith]

Remarkable win by SU. I can't believe the SU penalties!
Still, an outstanding effort by the team and a most excellent coaching job. Yoder is great.

Man you Hobart guys like to pop in here when Yoder gets a win, but when he gets blown out it is deathly silent. I love to cherry pick victories too, but it does make me laugh. I will credit him with making Shenandoah better, but lets keep our heads on straight. They could have hardly been worse...

Perhaps because getting blown out is the historic norm, and thus deserves no attention. It would be like pointing out a mount union win over Otterbein. Why waste the bandwidth?
But an SU win? That's a moment to remember. I was at Hobart when we hit rock bottom and was blessed to be there for the first invite to the ecac game (which we had to turn down because of final exams). When we were picking ourselves of the pavement from severe beat downs, we talked about our wins because you get a choice focus in the loses and keep losing. Or focus on the wins and start winning more. We chose the latter and 20 years later Hobart is the real deal. (I remember beat UofR 2-0. As far as we were concerned that year, we had just won the Superbowl. That tiny victory was a huge moment. It meant we could win. BTW, UofR ground us into dog food the next year.) Could Scott Yoder do for SU what Coach Maxwell and Coach Cragg did at Hobart? Possibly. SU was at rock bottom and they may not see .500 this season, but all that matters is the the transformation has begun.

The big thing now is to look at why the heck were there so many penalties? Good Lord! it must have been one of the ugliest wins in the history of the sport. SU penalties acted as a second offense to HSC. Hideous. F.U.G.L.Y. Atrocious. But a win.

[narch]

Yeesh. I hate to say "I told you so" but... ODAC champion, let me introduce you to Mount Union or Mary Hardin Baylor. Enjoy your brief stay in the playoffs. If Guilford wins out, they have two one very unimpressive losses on the resume.

corrected that for you...at least for now - losing to a 5-2 team is hardly unimpressive...if the monarchs finish the season with 7 or 8 wins (both possible), i'd call that a quality loss...your point is still valid, though...and whichever team the odac doesn't get, the usasac likely will

[jknezek]

Yeesh. I hate to say "I told you so" but... ODAC champion, let me introduce you to Mount Union or Mary Hardin Baylor. Enjoy your brief stay in the playoffs. If Guilford wins out, they have two one very unimpressive losses on the resume.

corrected that for you...at least for now - losing to a 5-2 team is hardly unimpressive...if the monarchs finish the season with 7 or 8 wins (both possible), i'd call that a quality loss...your point is still valid, though...and whichever team the odac doesn't get, the usasac likely will

No... I meant what I said. In the eyes of the seeding committee, even an 8-2 Methodist isn't going to help Guilford. To be honest, losing to anyone short of the USASC champion, and even losing to that champion, isn't going to earn you any brownie points. Just like losing to the ODAC champion doesn't earn you any brownie points. The conferences just aren't that well-thought of, for good reason, on the national or regional scale. And since I highly doubt Methodist will be regionally ranked, it is pretty much a game that counts against you however you look at it. We can be proud of our teams, especially when they are having a good season, but the big picture is still important.

[pumkinattack]

Rev hit it for me, but having played for Cragg and with Yoder, I think he's cut from the same cloth.  JK, you suggested before that SU had nothing special to offer relative to the other schools, but what I was suggesting is that Yoder is special.  Why would Hobart ascend past Union, SLU, RPI, Ithaca which are all fine schools, mostly with bigger endowments and the answer is Coach Cragg.  No one said it was going to happen overnight, but it would be hard to deny that he hasn't already made an incremental impact.  They were flat out awful last year and are credible now including giving HS their first conference loss of the season. 

Why fight the notion that Yoder has already made a difference and be so against the idea he can build a winner there?  Isn't it better for the entire conference to elevate the quality of the competition, especially if it's a bottom ring team?

[narch]

No... I meant what I said. In the eyes of the seeding committee, even an 8-2 Methodist isn't going to help Guilford. To be honest, losing to anyone short of the USASC champion, and even losing to that champion, isn't going to earn you any brownie points. Just like losing to the ODAC champion doesn't earn you any brownie points. The conferences just aren't that well-thought of, for good reason, on the national or regional scale. And since I highly doubt Methodist will be regionally ranked, it is pretty much a game that counts against you however you look at it. We can be proud of our teams, especially when they are having a good season, but the big picture is still important.

gotcha...so "very unimpressive" means "it won't help [your seeding in the ncaa tournament]"...you w&l guys have a much deeper understanding of the english language than i do...i appreciate that you translated that for me

[D-BAT]

Rev hit it for me, but having played for Cragg and with Yoder, I think he's cut from the same cloth.  JK, you suggested before that SU had nothing special to offer relative to the other schools, but what I was suggesting is that Yoder is special.  Why would Hobart ascend past Union, SLU, RPI, Ithaca which are all fine schools, mostly with bigger endowments and the answer is Coach Cragg.  No one said it was going to happen overnight, but it would be hard to deny that he hasn't already made an incremental impact.  They were flat out awful last year and are credible now including giving HS their first conference loss of the season. 

Why fight the notion that Yoder has already made a difference and be so against the idea he can build a winner there?  Isn't it better for the entire conference to elevate the quality of the competition, especially if it's a bottom ring team?

If one goes to a SU home game, one can witness the difference the Yoder is making by just watching the sidelines.  The only thing that I don't agree with that appears to be unprofessional from my perspective is a couple of asst. coaches doing the chest/hip bumps (whatever it is) with the players before a game starts and sometimes during the games.   Again, that's my opinion as it looks plain silly from the stands.  It's just going to be a matter of time before one of these asst. coaches gets clipped and goes down with an injury.   

Again, Coach Yoder has made a world of difference with the structure, discipline and preparation with the team ... it's so evident that Ray Charles could see it and for the life of me ... I just don't why it took the SU admins so long to make a change with the head coach! 

[hasanova]

That's it. I'm done picking against the Quakers...

lol  I knew this statement was coming. 

[hasanova]

Please humor me for typing this, but I've never been able to do it before:  Guess who's in sole possession of first place in the ODAC?

I accept the fact that the ODAC regular season champ (not yet settled, of course) will get a crappy deal in seeding.  Honestly, that's all we deserve.  With that said, however, this is a terrific step for Guilford's program considering where we've been.  I, for one, am enjoying this moment for the great strides it represents.

Look forward to meeting HSC fans next Saturday!

[hasanova]

RMC can not stop that wide receiver.

Sophomore Adam Smith had 226 yards receiving and 3 TDs ... the first for 86 yards on the opening drive, then another for 58 yards before halftime.

[odacsuperfan]

Great win Guilford ! Great win Shenandoah ! Next week at Guilford will be a sellout and a great game ! Can't wait to see this one !