FB: Old Dominion Athletic Conference

[onceamink]

Selfishly, I was rooting for the Yellow Jackets, but W&L made a good comeback.  Guilford hosts RMC next week.

Not feeling the love this year guys. But I'll take it because I know what it means right now!  RMC isn't very good. W&Ls offense stayed on the bus in the first half.

Offense wasn't ready to play, looked like they were on break with the rest of the students.  Every game is going to be a struggle.  Generals looked tight shocked when RMC didn't roll over.  Lots of yelling on sideline instead of taking a deep breath and being excited to be there.

Defense did its job.  RMC played well and together. 

I think W&L will lose to at least EH and BC... hopefully Sat. was a wake up.

[jknezek]

Offense wasn't ready to play, looked like they were on break with the rest of the students.  Every game is going to be a struggle.  Generals looked tight shocked when RMC didn't roll over.  Lots of yelling on sideline instead of taking a deep breath and being excited to be there.

Defense did its job.  RMC played well and together. 

I think W&L will lose to at least EH and BC... hopefully Sat. was a wake up.

Bridgewater is at home. Coming after this game hopefully that will provide the extra focus needed. It's always hard on the break games. E&H is going to be difficult. The Generals will have to be much better than they were this weekend to pull that out. May try to get to that one if we beat Bridgewater. 11 hour plus round trip, but it'll be a big game with big implications. We'll see. Eagles first and they are rarely a push over. I don't expect them to be one this year.

[ODACInsider]

JK,

The Generals will be fine. Winning on the road after a bad day is nothing to be ashamed of. They don't have to be perfect the rest of the way, just win 3 of 4. Remember, they are a tough preparation for only having one week to get ready for them.

[duck]

HSC tiger instead of arguing with this  "hypothetical " person we should understand after getting fired from his last two jobs he needs to blame someone. We should pray he gets help. Once in recovery he will appreciate what  his last two employers have done for him

[jknezek]

W&L just can't crack that top 25. I can't blame the voters this week after the struggle with R-MC. With two teams still receiving more votes, W&L is going to have to win the next two weeks to get given a shot at cracking in. Funny how it works. Guilford was given way more benefit of the doubt, early this season, than W&L has been given after winning their way forward.

Keep going Generals and the recognition will come. Of course, keep going Generals and the even more important rings will come!

[ODACInsider]

JK,

The votes will come, just keep winning. In the end, it's all about the wins.

[Mr. Ypsi]

W&L just can't crack that top 25. I can't blame the voters this week after the struggle with R-MC. With two teams still receiving more votes, W&L is going to have to win the next two weeks to get given a shot at cracking in. Funny how it works. Guilford was given way more benefit of the doubt, early this season, than W&L has been given after winning their way forward.

Keep going Generals and the recognition will come. Of course, keep going Generals and the even more important rings will come!

DePauw may have even more to complain about - they've now been (#26) two weeks in a row!

[jknezek]

I'm not really complaining. I wouldn't have slotted W&L into the top 25 yet either. I have Berry marginally higher than them after this weekend in my fan poll. They simply weren't impressive enough over a bad team. So I'm actually behind the D3 top 25. I'd just like to see it happen. W&L has had a few years recently they could have been ranked and have never quite cracked it. Somehow Guilford cracked it before them despite several conference championships for the Generals and none for Guilford over the years.

Only H-SC (several times), R-MC (one week when it shouldn't have happened), and Guilford (a week or two this year) have cracked it for the ODAC since Bridgewater's salad days. I'd like to see W&L make it in at some point also. The wins over Guilford and H-SC, both of whom have continued to win, are pretty solid victories at this point.

[Pat Coleman]

Somehow Guilford cracked it before them despite several conference championships for the Generals and none for Guilford over the years.

This being directly related to the fact that W&L has never gotten out of the regular season with fewer than two losses in the 13 years we've had a Top 25. And Guilford needed to follow last season's 8-2 with a 3-0 start in order to get its brief visit to the land ot 25.

[Ralph Turner]

W&L just can't crack that top 25. I can't blame the voters this week after the struggle with R-MC. With two teams still receiving more votes, W&L is going to have to win the next two weeks to get given a shot at cracking in. Funny how it works. Guilford was given way more benefit of the doubt, early this season, than W&L has been given after winning their way forward.

Keep going Generals and the recognition will come. Of course, keep going Generals and the even more important rings will come!

DePauw may have even more to complain about - they've now been (#26) two weeks in a row!

And DePauw lost 2 votes this week, too (43 votes to now 41 votes).

My bias is that the ODAC is too well-balanced. Yes their #1 ought to be in the final Top 25, but I don't think that we can declare a single team that would beat one of the Top 25 teams in the country on a neutral field at this time.  W&L 20 plus H-SC 14 and Guilford 6 equals 40 points. That is still outside the Top 25, but the last time a team made it into the Top 25 with fewer than 40 points or fewer in Week #7 was in 2010 when Ursinus was 24th with 39 pts and Wabash was 25th with 36 points.

[HSCTiger fan]

Somehow Guilford cracked it before them despite several conference championships for the Generals and none for Guilford over the years.

This being directly related to the fact that W&L has never gotten out of the regular season with fewer than two losses in the 13 years we've had a Top 25. And Guilford needed to follow last season's 8-2 with a 3-0 start in order to get its brief visit to the land ot 25.

I know the ODAC is a balanced league. But WL is the first ODAC team to ever be 6-0 and not be ranked.  In 2010 RMC was ranked as high as 20 despite having gone 6-4 the prior year and having never gotten out of the regular season with fewer than 2 losses in the 7 seasons D3Football.com had a Top 25.   

Ralph Turner
I don't know who does the odds making for you.  But HSC who lost to WL, easily handled CNU who #21 Rowan struggled mightily to beat. Rowan lost a very close game to #23 Salisbury.  Salisbury only lost to #20 Albright (after Albright had a 21 point rally in the 4th) by a single point.  Based on that information alone I feel WL or HSC could be favored over any of those teams. Further if a 4-2 Dubuque (who received 10 pts in the latest poll - less points than both WL and HSC) can manhandled #22 Wartburg, I see no reason why a 6-0 WL could not be favored in a neutral location over Wartburg as well.

[Pat Coleman]

I know the ODAC is a balanced league. But WL is the first ODAC team to ever be 6-0 and not be ranked.  In 2010 RMC was ranked as high as 20 despite having gone 6-4 the prior year and having never gotten out of the regular season with fewer than 2 losses in the 7 seasons D3Football.com had a Top 25.   

Rather than talk about this in the abstract, let's talk about this in the facts. Randolph-Macon beat Johns Hopkins, which went to the national quarterfinals the year before. That's how they got ranked. Even seven years later, it seems deserved based on the six games that were played at the time the ranking came out.

[Pat Coleman]

Just to suggest an ODAC team that goes 6-0 should be ranked is pretty incomplete. It doesn't say anything about half of those games -- the non-conference games. It also isn't all that clear about the conference games. Someone could play H-SC, E&H and W&L, or Catholic, Shenandoah and Bridgewater, or some combination of the two. And it doesn't say anything about the rest of Division III, which is also important in the conversation. Just way too many variables.

[HSCTiger74]

   I'm proud of my school and the team's accomplishments over the years, and I love the fact that the ODAC is such a balanced and unpredictable league, but since Bridgewater's glory years none of the teams has made much of a mark on the national stage. It's a good, solid, middle-of-the-road D3 conference. Given that, (and I'm sure I'll catch flak for this) in my mind any ODAC team would have to get to at least 8-0 or beat a perennial Top 15 before I would consider them for the Top 25.
   In the words of Dennis Miller, however, "that's just my opinion, I could be wrong".
                            cf: recent posts on the Top25 Fan Poll board.

[Mr. Ypsi]

FWIW, I have W&L at #23 this week on my national fan ballot, which matches the #23 I had Guilford at when they were 3-0.