FB: Old Dominion Athletic Conference

[HSCTiger fan]

JK many "upsets" might turn out not to be upsets. Buster Douglas over Tyson for example. But at the moment it was shocking. Same as App v. Michigan. App was at the time of the game the two time defending national champs.  ASU had never beaten a FBS team not named Wake Forest. Michigan's tradition, 85 scholarship players vs 63, opening day of what was supposed to be a championship season for Michigan, Mike Hart, Jake Long, Chad Henne, Mario Maningham, heck there was not even a betting line on the game. Michigan scheduled App  because they ran the spread. They wanted to play the game because they thought they'd be playing for the national championship against Florida (another spread team). So even their coaches who wanted this game thought this was a good tune up. Playing Michigan on opening day in front of 109000 people certainly was daunting.  It is widely regarded as the greatest college football upset of all time. Google it. Every article I looked at agrees. Even with hindsight it is still the great upset of all time.

[jknezek]

JK many "upsets" might turn out not to be upsets. Buster Douglas over Tyson for example. But at the moment it was shocking. Same as App v. Michigan. App was at the time of the game the two time defending national champs.  ASU had never beaten a FBS team not named Wake Forest. Michigan's tradition, 85 scholarship players vs 63, opening day of what was supposed to be a championship season for Michigan, Mike Hart, Jake Long, Chad Henne, Mario Maningham, heck there was not even a betting line on the game. Michigan scheduled App  because they ran the spread. They wanted to play the game because they thought they'd be playing for the national championship against Florida (another spread team). So even their coaches who wanted this game thought this was a good tune up. Playing Michigan on opening day in front of 109000 people certainly was daunting.  It is widely regarded as the greatest college football upset of all time. Google it. Every article I looked at agrees. Even with hindsight it is still the great upset of all time.

I know. Don't disagree with any of your info. I just think the conclusion is wrong. UM wasn't that good and App State was much better than expected. We proclaim it is the greatest upset of all time by looking at the game in a vacuum instead of in context. I don't expect that to change. I just like to point out the reality sometimes. That is 100% a week 1 phenomenon. Had the pundits gotten a look at UM for a few weeks before the game happened, they never would have been ranked that high and it wouldn't have been a "greatest of all time" type thing. Just a big upset.

And I'd take Temple over VTech in 1998 any time. It's just not as flashy. Temple was a team that ended up as 106th in the Massey Ratings beating a team that ended up 23rd. Temple only won 2 games that year. VT won 9. It was orders of magnitude larger an upset than 2 time FCS champion App State beating Michigan in week 1 of a season in which App State won another National Title and Michigan lost 4 or 5 games.

[Bombers798891]

Since we're not going to see eye to eye on this, I'll go back to the part of the statement that I really disagree with:

and by the way, a HSC victory...would be upset of decade (several decades) in D3

Without continuing into the hairiness of cross-division comparisons, which get complicated quickly, this part of the statement is inarguably false—at least based on what we know right now of the teams. The 15th ranked team in the country losing to a middle of the pack team is not the upset of several decades in Division III. As I pointed out, we tend to have a similar upset once or twice a year. (Heck, I even missed #7 North Central losing to 4-6 La Crosse in 2012) That's not conducive to this being the upset of several decades.

It's also worth pointing out that, while the connotation of upset brings to mind a ranked team losing, if we're being literal, there's no reason that say, 5-5 TCNJ losing to a 1-9 FDU-Florham team that lost their other 9 games by an average of 33 points isn't also a big upset. Or the year Whitewater went 7-3, but lost to 2-8 Stevens Point.

(Heck, this doesn't even get into really fun hypotheticals. Like: How big of an upset is Rowan over Mount in 1999? Sure, Rowan was always right there on Mount's heels, but they'd lost in the regular season and lost the Stagg Bowl by 29 points*)

*Yes, I have heard the "They played their Stagg Bowl the week before" argument. I even sort of agree with it. But the actual Stagg Bowl still got played, Rowan still got housed, and that has to factor in to our math.

[HansenRatings]

Been watching this conversation from the sidelines for a couple of days. Right now, without adjusting for returning starters, of which JHU & UWP lost a lot, Hopkins is a 4-touchdown favorite, and UW-Platteville is a 5-touchdown favorite. By contrast, using Massey's final 2007 ratings, App State would have been only a 2-touchdown 'dog on the road. HSC would have to return 22 more starters than UWP (that's the whole team) to work out to the same spread as that UMich/AppSt game.

[jknezek]

Well this has been fun. I mean, what else do we have to discuss in mid July? I like all the viewpoints and I think really we are separated by degrees. Terms like "big upset", "huge upset" and "upset" just aren't quantified or at least don't have an agreed definition. I think that almost all of us will agree that H-SC beating UWP is an upset. I'm not going to touch on W&L vs JHU. There is no doubt that would be an upset.

App State beating Michigan was an upset. UWW losing to Buff State was an upset. Upsets happen. Here's hoping our ODAC teams pull off a few when they face Huntingdon, JHU, UWP and TMC...

[tigerFanAlso2]

I pay little to no attention to coaches preseason polls; but thoughts on what that might look like. My guess is as follows;

RMC
W&L
BC
E&H
HSC
GC
SU

Anything is possible in the pending odac shoot out but I'm guessing the team with best defense/running game combination finishes #1. 

[jknezek]

This is probably the toughest year I can remember. It doesn't really feel like any school has too many stars coming back. RMC and W&L lose a lot. I know that.

I am going to go out on a limb and say Shenandoah will not be the worst team in the league this season. I think they will be in the top 4 actually. Bauserman is a good qb and he's coming back for his jr season. Losing Delaney hurts, but their stud receiver also comes back. Last year the threat of Delaney opened up the passing game for Bauserman. I think Bauserman is good enough this year that the threat of his arm and Ashwell running patterns will be enough to open up the running game for whoever replaces Delaney. Defensively.... eh, not sure. But the offense should win them a few games.

With Hoy and Frederick back I think RMC's running game will be good. They bring back Castle on the O line as well. They graduate a lot, but that's a good enough base for the offense if its similar to what they ran last year. I think the defense will be good again. Maybe not as good as last year as they lose 4 first team and 2 second team All-Odac selections, but good enough though they maybe won't be able to rely on it quite so much.

W&L needs to rebuild the offense. Don't get me wrong, they have a lot of guys that have played and played well in spots, but all the big producers from last year basically graduated. One first team All-Odac O lineman back. Defensively I think W&L will be ok. They lose Dyson and Delk, all-ODAC guys, but a lot comes back. Freeman and Garrison should be a good tandem leading the DB/LB areas respectively.

I feel like BC and E&H will be bringing back a lot. I think BC is a legit threat to win the conference this year, just a gut feeling based on how they ended the season, and so is E&H if you don't have my tendency to see them as head cases.

I have no idea on Guilford. Not one clue. I have a ton of faith in Coach R. What he did rebuilding that program was amazing. Last year was ugly. Coach R showed he can take young guys and coach them through a lot of playing time to be really, really good. The question is can he transform the guys that have been waiting a turn to be ready to be starters. Last year didn't look so good, and sometimes coaches need to get that concept figured out. I think he will, but I have no idea what Guilford has.

HSC -- no bloody clue. The last 3 years have had a trend that isn't pretty. I didn't watch a lot of the Tigers last year except for the W&L game, and that was pitiful. 3 of the last 5 seasons have been 3 or more losses, something that only happened in the very first rebuilding years of Coach Favret's reign. Coach Favret hasn't forgotten how to coach, but something has happened to the talent level relative to the rest of the ODAC. I just don't know if that can be corrected in one off season.

I also have a feeling that this isn't a season of a 6-0 team and an 0-6 team and it's pretty clear in the middle. This seems more of a nasty ODAC muddle at this point. In other words, I'm thinking more 2008 or 2014 than 2016 or 2011.

[jknezek]

We can all go laugh about this later but I did an interesting exercise. I just looked at the conference schedule and realized how big home and away could be if we have a lot of parity this year.


Home vs Away games
RMC  4 (SU, E&H, W&L, H-SC)  2  (BC, GC)
SU     3 (E&H, BC, W&L),           3 (RMC, GC, HSC)
W&L   2 (GC, BC),                     4 (E&H, HSC, RMC, SU)
E&H   3 (W&L, BC, HSC),           3 (SU, RMC, GC)
BC     2 (RMC, GC),                   4 (HSC, SU, E&H, W&L)
HSC   3 (BC, W&L, SU),             3 (GC, E&H, RMC)
GC    4 (HSC, SU, RMC, E&H)    2 (W&L, BC)


What does this mean? I'm downgrading W&L's and BC's chances, upgrading RMCs, and a whole lot depends on how good GC is this season. RMC having 4 home games is huge. Having them against 2 or 3 of the teams I think could be in the top half of the standings is even better. Unless GC surprises, RMC looks like going to BC is their only tough road game. Huge, huge advantage.

BC has the opposite problem. They get RMC at home, a chance to prove themselves, but road trips to SU, E&H, and W&L, plus HSC, could be trying. GC at home is a variable.

If you consider my three teams as RMC, SU, and E&H as challengers, GC gets them all at home. Plus HSC. Trips to W&L and BC might be challenging. Really makes GC the wildcard.

Teams having 4 home games, and others having 2 conference home games, is one more reason I'm looking forward to Ferrum joining the conference.

Having looked at this, I'm going to give RMC a decent chance at going 5-1 in conference.

[HSCTiger fan]

Been watching this conversation from the sidelines for a couple of days. Right now, without adjusting for returning starters, of which JHU & UWP lost a lot, Hopkins is a 4-touchdown favorite, and UW-Platteville is a 5-touchdown favorite. By contrast, using Massey's final 2007 ratings, App State would have been only a 2-touchdown 'dog on the road. HSC would have to return 22 more starters than UWP (that's the whole team) to work out to the same spread as that UMich/AppSt game.

I'd take that bet 8 days a week.

[HansenRatings]

Been watching this conversation from the sidelines for a couple of days. Right now, without adjusting for returning starters, of which JHU & UWP lost a lot, Hopkins is a 4-touchdown favorite, and UW-Platteville is a 5-touchdown favorite. By contrast, using Massey's final 2007 ratings, App State would have been only a 2-touchdown 'dog on the road. HSC would have to return 22 more starters than UWP (that's the whole team) to work out to the same spread as that UMich/AppSt game.

I'd take that bet 8 days a week.

I'm definitely partial to UWP, having coached there for a couple years, but their #5 preseason rating in my system right now feels overly-optimistic. A five-TD victory after traveling from WI to VA seems QUITE unlikely to me also (sorry Coach Emendorfer).

[hasanova]

I also have little idea what to expect from Guilford.  If Bell is healthy and the QB matured last season, the Quakers will be much better than last season's completely unexpected 4-6.  With a 4-0 start in 2016, I would have bet the farm we wouldn't finish 0-6!  The HSC monsoon game broke the momentum and the SU and BC games broke their backs.  After BC, the last two games appeared to be lackluster efforts mailed in to finish the season.  Not sure what to expect on the road versus ranked Huntingdon, DI non-scholarship Davidson and Jacksonville, but I bet GC will be in the mix versus Methodist and the ODAC.

[tigerFanAlso2]

just don't take the frustrations of no home games in September out on HSC when they arrive first weekend in October.

[jknezek]

just don't take the frustrations of no home games in September out on HSC when they arrive first weekend in October.

3 of W&L's 4 OOC games are at home, so regardless of only playing 2 home conference games, they still have a 5-5 split. 4 of those home games come before traveling to Farmville, so I don't think that will be an issue. With 3 of our last 4 on the road, including RMC and Shenandoah, the Generals need to have a running start. The front half of the schedule, however, does not look easy. This will be a challenging year for W&L.

Hosting JHU -- definitely not favored
Hosting Sewanee -- favored
At CMS -- not favored thanks to last year's collapse and the long road trip
At E&H -- toss up?
Hosting Wash U -- maybe toss up, probably not favored
Hosting Guilford -- probably favored

That's not an easy stretch. The OOC is as brutal as I've ever seen for W&L. I've advocated for these tougher games, but staring down the gun at them is not real pretty.

[tigerFanAlso2]

Jk

That is a tough OOC schedule but that could easily help W&L in the long run.
HSC OOC is not easy;

Averett  --  50/50
at CNU   --- 25/75
UWP ----   10/90
Apprentice  -- 95/5

I have no idea what to expect from the Tigers, but hoping for a better result.

[jknezek]

Jk

That is a tough OOC schedule but that could easily help W&L in the long run.
HSC OOC is not easy;

Averett  --  50/50
at CNU   --- 25/75
UWP ----   10/90
Apprentice  -- 95/5

I have no idea what to expect from the Tigers, but hoping for a better result.

I think you are being somewhat optimistic on the Apprentice odds. It's so hard to tell, because they have so much turnover year to year, but last year's squad wasn't bad. They went 3-1 against DIII teams, losing to Methodist but beating Bridgewater. That's opposed to the couple years before when they were lucky to win a game against DIII opponents.

It's hard to tell what will show up, but I'd be more 75/25 than 95/5.