FB: Old Dominion Athletic Conference

[Birddawg79]

  Sooooo. How 'bout them Cubs? I'm really surprised the Dodgers stole one while in C-town.

Seriously..... back to business.

Will the Generals put back to back performances together? I sure hope so. Watching the sideline this past Saturday I saw a different team, a different attitude, than the past few weeks. Intensity and excitement were rampant. Even as we made mistakes those were soon forgotten and we moved on to play the next play.

The HSC tigers can not afford to drop another conference loss so I'm sure they will be fired up and come in to Wilson Field like they own it. How the Generals respond is the big question.

At this point the Conference is down to a 4 way race. HSC, RM, and Shen. all have 1 loss and W&L has 0 losses in conference play. This is a pivotal weekend coming up. I think a HCS loss knocks them out.

So this weekend we have:
Hampden-Sydney(2-1) at Washington and Lee(3-0)
Guilford(1-2) at Shenandoah(2-1)
Catholic(0-3) at Randolph-Macon(2-1)
Emory & Henry(1-2) at Bridgewater(1-2)

[hscathletics]

so coach Williams is breaking the law?

As far as I can tell, yes, him forbidding his student-athletes from protesting during the anthem is illegal. Unless there is some loophole I am missing, but the law is pretty cut and clear when it comes to a state organization.

State schools can't outright forbid protests. It's unconstitutional without a shadow of a doubt. However, they are allowed to forbid a protest but school officials must demonstrate that the speech would provoke "substantial disruption" of school activities or invade the rights of others. However, I don't see how that could possibly apply to the Colin Kaepernick-style anthem protests since the games have all gone without any disruption and we do not possess the right to not be offended or disrespected.

They are permitted to say people can't protest in a specific area because it would disrupt normal traffic flow or normal operation (such as if someone wanted to protest in the middle of class or run onto the field in the middle of a game).

Some exceptions apply that would allow for the outright denial of a protest opportunity, but none that I have seen apply to any of these anthem protests that I have heard about - such as the exemption that forbids protests that would prevent orderly operation of a government function in which the Secret Service is in attendance, hence why people can't protest inside of rallies for Clinton or Trump.

State schools also can't legally punish a person for protesting. People can be punished for things they do during the protest, like if they start breaking laws doing stuff like committing acts of violence and etc., but they can't be punished for the act of protesting nor their message as long as it was legally performed. For example, they can't encourage or incite violence nor can they commit acts of slander, if they do they can be punished for the violence and slander.

[jknezek]

I agree. This is a huge weekend. I'm hopeful for W&L for the first time since the middle of the CMS game.

I don't think H-SC can stay with the W&L team that showed up against Guilford. H-SC's defense has leaked large amounts of points in every game not played in the outer bands of a hurricane. However, I'm sure H-SC can play with the W&L team that showed up for Sewanee and Catholic.

I won't be surprised if Guilford loses at Shenandoah. A lot will depend on line play. If they get abused by the Shenandoah lines like they did by W&L, Guilford will have another long afternoon. If they can keep the pressure off the qb, then I'm thinking Guilford has plenty of tools to win.

I don't think Catholic can beat RMC in Richmond. Catholic has had two heartbreakers at home, but going on the road is a different story. RMC's defense is stout. I don't think Catholic's is good enough to hold off what little is passing for RMC's offense these days.

E&H at Bridgewater. E&H can score, Bridgewater really hasn't except against H-SC and Gettysburg. 2 teams that have given up a lot of points this year. I think Bridgewater is in trouble this year.

[tigerFanAlso2]

HSC vs W&L  = W&L by 10
GC vs. SU = GC by 7
CUA vs. RMC = RMC by 17
E&H vs. BC = E&H by 7

HSC's defense must play much better than anything we've seen so far. I'd put 9 in the box and force W&L to beat me with passing game. otherwise W&L might rush for 600 yards forcing HSC to score a bunch to keep it competitive. We'll see how it plays out.

GC will not lose three odac games in a row (I don't think)
RMC defense will shut CUA offense down
E&H and BC are both pretty bad but I think E&H wins

[jknezek]

I don't think anyone has fewer than 8 in the box against W&L. 9 isn't overly unusual with a DB covering the single wide and a safety medium deep, but you run the risk of not covering the edges with 9 in the box. Defenders have to stay home and stay awake on every single play and not get twitchy. And the D Line has to keep the O line from sealing edges and knocking LB's out of lanes. It's a lot to ask of a defense that doesn't get a whole lot of practice against the scheme.

Nelson and Sgro are both adept at reading the defense. All it takes is one guy to step the wrong direction thinking it's a dive up the middle at the snap and they are headed out to the edge. Or, as Guilford found all day Saturday, all it takes is the outside LBs to cheat a step or two to the edge, fearing the slot back in motion on a jet sweep, or step a yard or two up toward the line on the outside looking to attack the pitch point, and the line will blow a hole up the middle.

[tigerFanAlso2]

yes I get it. I'm firmly believe if the first option is taken away the other two are easier to defend. We'll see what happens. If HSC does not score at least 35 points, W&L wins. Can HSC slow down the running attack ? Has not done so all season, so probably not. Can W&L defense the pass and keep the HSC offense off the field ? If they can, they win big.

[jknezek]

yes I get it. I'm firmly believe if the first option is taken away the other two are easier to defend. We'll see what happens. If HSC does not score at least 35 points, W&L wins. Can HSC slow down the running attack ? Has not done so all season, so probably not. Can W&L defense the pass and keep the HSC offense off the field ? If they can, they win big.

I agree. Football is always football. Stop the other guy, don't get stopped yourself. Don't make mistakes. These teams have a history of playing good games. I will be surprised if it is a blowout. Too much on the line. W&L is looking for their longest ODAC winning streak in team history. H-SC is playing for their conference championship lives every week. Shame it is only Monday.

[jknezek]

Interesting how quiet this board has gotten. With RMC, HSC, W&L and Guilford all in the mix I'd hoped to see some more new blood.

From W&L's game notes for this week, with some added analysis:

HSC leads the all time series 38-34-2, stretching back to 1899. The last nine meetings have had at least 57 points scored. The lowest score for a winning team was 35, twice. W&L is 20-18-2 at home against H-SC all time, but only 3-5 in the d3football.com era.

Coach Favret is 10-6 against W&L, Coach Abell is 2-2 against H-SC.

The key for W&L is to get 400 yards rushing. In the last 7 seasons, W&L has gotten 400 yards rushing 29 times and is 27-2, a 93% winning record. They hit the mark in 42% of games played over the time period. Over the same span they are 18-22, a 45% chance of winning, when they fail to reach 400 yards rushing. W&L is 1-2 on the season when they don't rush for 400 yards, losing to JHU (358), beating Sewanee (261), and losing to CMS (379). They are 3-0 when rushing for 400+ yards, E&H (495), Catholic (434), and Guilford (498).

W&L once again leads all of college football in average rushing yards per game, as they did last season. At just over 404 ypg, they lead by less than 1 ypg over an NAIA team, and by about 8 yards per game over Salisbury. W&L has yet to gain less than 400 yards of total offense in a game yet this season, with a low of exactly 400 against Sewanee and a high of 579 against E&H.

A win this weekend would be 12 straight ODAC wins for W&L. The Generals are currently tied for their longest ever conference win streak, 11 wins, with a winning streak that stretched across the 2010/2011 seasons. That streak included a perfect 6-0 conference record in 2010, and a 5-0 start to the 2011 season before a 42-35 season ending loss at H-SC. I still hold W&L's 11th week bye in contempt for helping end that season and part of the reason I dread Catholic leaving the conference.

In an interesting turn of fate, H-SC's longest conference win streak of the Favret era is 12 games starting the week after a loss in Lexington in 2006 to finish with 2 conference wins, then 6-0 in 2007, and 4 wins in 2008 to open the season. The 12th and final win in that streak was a 39-29 win at W&L, before a 33-21 loss at Catholic the following week.

Of course neither team can touch Bridgewater's run of 36 consecutive ODAC victories from 1999 to 2006.

W&L's generally entertaining game notes can be found here:

http://generalssports.com/sports/fball/2016-17/releases/Sydney_Notes

[HansenRatings]

Just because the race is getting interesting, I figured I would drop my conference record projections in here.

Washington and Lee	3-0	6.1-0.9
Randolph-Macon	2-1	4.6-2.4
Shenandoah	2-1	3.8-3.2
Guilford	1-2	3.7-3.3
Hampden-Sydney	2-1	3.4-3.6
Emory and Henry	1-2	3.0-4.0
Bridgewater	1-2	2.3-4.7
Catholic	1-2	1.1-5.9

A quick and dirty way to tell if a team is lucky or unlucky so far is to use their pythagorean expectation to generate an expected winning percentage from only conference points scored.

Wins Above/Below Expectation

Team	Wins	Expected	Difference
Guilford	1	2.2	-1.2
Catholic	0	0.4	-0.4
Emory and Henry	1	1.1	-0.1
Randolph-Macon	2	2.1	-0.1
Shenandoah	2	2.0	0.0
Bridgewater	1	0.7	0.3
Hampden-Sydney	2	1.5	0.5
Washington and Lee	3	2.2	0.8

This can help explain why GC is expected to finish ahead of HSC by the model despite their current conference records.

[tigerFanAlso2]

You are correct, this board is dead.

Hope Coach Favret will be 11-6 vs. W&L around 4pm on Saturday. Not able to attend due to family obligations, but would sure love to be in Lexington this time of year, plus these games have been really entertaining in recent history.

What happened to hasa ? Not heard from him in a good while.

[jknezek]

What happened to hasa ? Not heard from him in a good while.

He's probably out travelling. He's still getting his South Region Fan Poll ballots in, so he's following along at least a bit.

[tigerFanAlso2]

You expecting a close game in Lexington on Saturday ?
Does the W&L team that played CUA show up or the one that played GC ?
Is GC not very good or did W&L play really well ?
Can W&L beat HSC and RMC back to back ? (not the feat it once was)
Can/will to a 2 loss team win the odac in a tie break ? (not likely for W&L to lose 2 odac games)

[jknezek]

You expecting a close game in Lexington on Saturday ?
Does the W&L team that played CUA show up or the one that played GC ?
Is GC not very good or did W&L play really well ?
Can W&L beat HSC and RMC back to back ? (not the feat it once was)
Can/will to a 2 loss team win the odac in a tie break ? (not likely for W&L to lose 2 odac games)

Yes. These teams usually play competitive games. I expect this one to be no different though perhaps not as close as recent contests. H-SC has held W&L under 35 points 4 times since 2007, those were all H-SC wins. When W&L scores 35 or more recently, W&L wins. Only Guilford (15), in a downpour, and Catholic (28), have scored less than 35 on H-SC. The only game H-SC has score 35 points is at a relatively poor Bridgewater team. I think W&L will score on H-SC, I'm not sure H-SC has the horses this year to keep up, especially on the road.

Don't know. Really hope W&L found something last weekend and can carry it forward. They are formidable if that happens.

GC is good. Not as good as last year by quite a bit, but good enough to cause problems. W&L put together their best game of the year. Watch the GC lines. I wasn't impressed. I don't know if they had a bad game or if that is their weak point.

Yes, W&L can beat them both. Especially at home. If the team that played last weekend shows up, I think they are 1-2 score games. RMC's defense will be a tough nut to crack, but I really don't think much of their offense.

I think it's unlikely we will have a 2 loss champion. Either W&L or RMC is likely to win out in my opinion. W&L's offense or RMC's defense, take your pick. W&L has 3 of their last 4 at home. Huge schedule advantage, especially since the road game is at a fairly hapless Bridgewater squad that scored 10 points in the last 2 games. RMC has to go to Lexington and Farmville.

There is a loose cog in the machine, and that is Shenandoah. Ask me about them after they play Guilford this weekend. I don't think they are a threat, but we will find out more this weekend.

[tigerFanAlso2]

W&L scored fewer points against CUA than HSC did. Mean anything ? Probably not as each game is different from the other.
I'm just hoping for a 42 to 35 HSC victory. Good luck and may the second best team playing win !!!!!

[jknezek]

W&L scored fewer points against CUA than HSC did. Mean anything ? Probably not as each game is different from the other.
I'm just hoping for a 42 to 35 HSC victory. Good luck and may the second best team playing win !!!!!

About as much as W&L scoring more against Guilford. It'll play on the field. Both teams have been too inconsistent to really have confidence in an outcome.