FB: Old Dominion Athletic Conference

[y_jack_lok]

^^^ I caught a bit of the Ferrum/Muskingum game. Ferrum looked okay -- at least they did better than last season's 31-3 loss to a pretty average Muskies team.

RMC looked good against NC Wesleyan, though #1 QB Campanale was not as sharp as he was most of last season. Backup QB Heuchan, who played the second half, had equivalent passing stats, though he, too, was off a bit (mostly high) on some of his throws. Thanks to a 31-0 halftime lead, lots of guys saw action. Should mean a rested group of starters for a tougher Catholic team on Saturday.

[y_jack_lok]

All ODAC teams that played yesterday won. Congratulations! W&L and Shenandoah were idle.

[Macon]

Another impressive showing for the Jackets.  The starters are seeing very little action in the second half of first two games.  Jackets run for 428 yards (over 700 yards overall) while holding CUA to 8 yards on the ground.  On to SVU!

[jknezek]

All ODAC teams that played yesterday won. Congratulations! W&L and Shenandoah were idle.

With the exceptions of Huntingdon and Maryville, I think the USASAC is.... a work in progress

[Ralph Turner]

All ODAC teams that played yesterday won. Congratulations! W&L and Shenandoah were idle.

With the exceptions of Huntingdon and Maryville, I think the USASAC is.... a work in progress

... and even the monkey stomp that Berry put on Huntingdon last week is cause for concern on how much work needs to be done.

[Blazers1]

All ODAC teams that played yesterday won. Congratulations! W&L and Shenandoah were idle.

With the exceptions of Huntingdon and Maryville, I think the USASAC is.... a work in progress

Don't forget about Belhaven as well!

[hasanova]

Guilford 2-0 for the first time since 2017.  Schedule gets tougher, but I believe there are more wins in store.  Go Quakers!

[Macon]

Interesting matchup for the Jackets today, playing an SVU team that has only 4 Seniors and 11 Juniors.  RMC has about 17 5th years and about 25 Seniors. 

[Macon]

The ODAC game today that interests me the most is GC at Huntingdon.  Is GC for real at 2-0, how does GC weather the long ride to Alabama, is HC (USA South preseason favorite) a step up in competition for GC, will GC be 3-0 heading into the ODAC opener with RMC?

[y_jack_lok]

ODAC goes 6-2 vs USA South. Some close games, some not so close games. Of the three that were expected to be competitive, the ODAC won two -- Ferrum over LaGrange 13-10 and Averett over Brevard 17-14. SU fell behind Maryville 20-3 at the half and 27-6 in the 4th quarter then scored two TDs to make it 27-20. They had the ball with less than a minute left but were out of time outs and didn't generate any offense on their final possession.

[jknezek]

Well that was an uninspiring ODAC vs USASAC challenge. I get that the matchups were done more or less to limit travel, but it made for some really poor games. 3 of 8 games were competitive, but the only game that involved teams expected to be toward the top of their conferences was Maryville at Shenandoah.

RMC and Huntingdon have been at the top of these conferences for years. That should have been simple. It would have boosted resumes for the playoffs, should those teams replicate their recent success. Belhaven is a hike, so I kind of get why they were excluded, but it stinks as well. I doubt Bridgewater or Shenandoah (2 and 3 ODAC in 2022) would have wanted to pay to travel to Jackson MS. But either one could have taken on Brevard, though ODAC 2022 bottom feeder Averett squeaked out a win there, and H-SC easily handled Brevard last week, so maybe not a compelling matchup. Of course we did get Shenandoah/Maryville. H-SC/Methodist would have been next.

Would this slate have been more interesting? I don't know. Certainly the R-MC/Huntingdon game would have been. You really need Belhaven in the mix to help I guess. Belhaven/Bridgewater might have been fun like Shenandoah/Mville. After that I'm not sure it matters. Methodist has now been hammered twice by W&L, they didn't fair much better against Shenandoah or Guilford this year, so I think H-SC would have cruised. That would have pushed W&L to N.C. Wes, who was hammered by all 3 ODAC opponents this year (though they did take on last year's top 3 squads). I doubt N.C. Wes hangs with W&L.

That just leaves the 3 ODAC teams that finished 1-6 in conference last year, Averett, Guilford, and Ferrum, to take on a combination of Greensboro, S. Virginia and Lagrange. Guilford and Averett already handled Greensboro this year, Ferrum might have as well. S Virginia was crushed by Bridgewater earlier this season, but they certainly would have done better against any of the remaining 3 ODAC programs than they did against R-MC, and will probably drag down R-MC's SoS should they be in playoff contention. As it turns out LaGrange gave Ferrum all they could handle, so that was probably the right matchup, though I suspect both programs are in for a long year.

In the end, I wish it had gone like this:

R-MC - Huntingdon
Bridgewater - Belhaven
Shenandoah - M'Ville    ** could flop this and the next, both Brevard and M-Ville 5-2 last season, but Shenandoah/M'Ville was a good contest both years
H-SC - Brevard
W&L - Methodist -- we got this one, it wasn't pretty
Averett -- NC Wes
Guilford -- S Virginia
Ferrum -- Greensboro

Anyway, overall the ODAC went 14-2 against the USASAC this year. Sounds impressive, but if you think Huntingdon, Belhaven and M'Ville (preseason poll) are likely to be the top of the conference, as the coaches and I do, the ODAC was 0-2. Meanwhile, assuming R-MC, Bridgewater, and W&L are the top of the ODAC, preseason poll and less sure I believe it, that is 0-5 for the USASAC. They played our top teams, we only played a bit of theirs. And nowhere in this challenge, or anywhere else in the schedule, did the top take on the top. You can't schedule based on pre-season polls, but that would have been fun:

R-MC - Huntingdon
Bridgewater - Belhaven
W&L - M'Ville
Shenandoah - Brevard
H-SC - Methodist
Averett - N.C. Wes
Ferrum - LaGrange    We got this one today -- Ferrum W 13-10 at home
Guilford - Southern Virginia

[y_jack_lok]

^^^^ Well, I guess it is what it is. But you make a good point. As you say, you can't schedule based on pre-season polls, but they could have scheduled based on knowledge of the teams/programs with an intention to create as many competitive matchups as possible rather than on ease of travel. Oh well. Gotta wonder who in the conferences decides on what basis to create the matchups. Years ago, when he was athletic director at Webster U in Saint Louis, I was acquainted with Tom Hart, now USA South commissioner. He's a great guy. Always very friendly to me and fun to talk to. I hope he is still reading the boards and tucks your observations into the back of his mind for reference in regard to future situations like this, not just for football, but for all sports.

[thescottharris]

H-SC at Greensboro game concluded over 24 hours ago and yet we still don't have a box score. Get your act together Greensboro SIDs

[JFPIV]

Based on the H-S recap it looks as if Puccinelli played the entire game at qb against Greensboro.  Is Sido hurt?

[jknezek]

I hadn't really paid much attention this year to the schedule, when I finally took a look I was amazed at what I found:

R-MC has H-SC, W&L, and Shenandoah all at home, going on the road only to Bridgewater amongst teams in the top half of the coaches' poll. They do have to go to Bridgewater, host Shenandoah and W&L on three consecutive weeks, so that will be a difficult stretch. But in terms of home/away, hard to shape that up any better!

W&L ends the season this way: At H-SC, at R-MC, hosting Bridgewater, at Shenandoah. Ouch... that is a brutal second half of the season. On the upside, they could carry quite a bit of momentum into that stretch.

H-SC hosts Bridgewater, W&L and Shenandoah, only going to R-MC for The Game. Only Shenandoah and Bridgewater are back to back, so I give them the second best conference schedule of the group.

Shenandoah hosts Bridgewater, goes to R-MC then closes the season at H-SC and hosting W&L. The last two, at H-SC and hosting W&L are back to back. Probably pretty equivalent to H-SC's schedule.

Bridgewater goes to H-SC, Shenandoah and W&L, but is hosting R-MC. They have their own gauntlet starting 9/30, at H-SC, at Shenandoah, and hosting R-MC all in a row. This is almost as hard as W&L's road.

R-MC just has to be a prohibitive favorite with that conference schedule set up.