FB: Region 3 fan poll

[Ralph Turner]

Year-in-review South Region Fan Poll...

(Rankings are listed for the Pre-season and weekly polls until the final poll in week 14.)

Team..........................	P...	1....	2....	3....	4....	5....	6....	7....	8....	9....	10...	11...	16...
1)  UMHB	2	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	2	3	3	2	1
2)  HSU	8	7	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	5	3	2
3)  Wesley	1	1	4	3	3	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	3
4)  W&J	5	6	7	7	6	6	6	6	6	RV	9	7	4
5)  Millsaps	7	4	3	4	4	2	3	3	3	1	1	1	5
6)  CNU	RV	-	10	-	-	10T	10	10	9	6	6	6	6
7)  Muhlenberg	3T	3	2	2	2	3	2	2	1	2	2	5	7
8 ) Salisbury	3T	5	6	6	8	8	8	8	6	10	8	RV	8
T9 ) LaGrange	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	RV	10	8	T9
T9)  Thomas More	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	7	RV	9	T9

Teams which have received votes...in alphabetical order.

Team..........................	P...	1....	2....	3....	4....	5....	6....	7....	8....	9....	10...	11...	16...
Catholic	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	RV	7	-	RV
DePauw	-	-	-	RV	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	10T	RV
ETBU	-	-	-	-	-	10T	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Ferrum	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	RV	-	-	-
Hampden-Sydney	10	10	9	9	9	9	9	9	-	-	-	RV	-
Huntingdon	-	-	-	-	-	-	RV	RV	RV	10	8	-	-
Mississippi Coll	9	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Moravian	RV	RV	RV	RV	10T	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
NCWC	RV	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Randolph-Macon	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	RV	-
Trinity	6	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	8	9	-	-	-
Washington U StL	-	-	RV	10	10T	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Waynesburg	RV	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

[Ralph Turner]

Pre-season South Region Fan Poll

Rank...	Team.....	Points......	Votes.......
1	UMHB	50	1,1,1,1,1
2	HSU	44	2,2,2,2,3
3	Wesley	41	2,3,3,3,3
4	W&J	33	4,4,4,4,6
5	CNU	30	4,5,5,5,6
6	DPU	25	5,5,6,6,8
7	Salisbury	18	6,7,8,8,8
8	Millsaps	14	7,7,7,10,10
9	Trinity	6	9,9,9,-,-
10T	Muhlenberg	4	9,10,10,-,-
10T	Miss Coll	4	7,-,-,-,-
*	*	*	*
RV	Bridgewater	3	8,-,-,-,-
RV	Dickinson	2	9,-,-,-,-
RV	LaGrange	1	10,-,-,-,-

Thanks to Hasanova, Llamaguy, PA_Wesleyan, and Wes Anderson.

Corrections are always appreciated.

[DPU3619]

No real surprises here, I don't think.  The first 5 or 6 are kinda no-brainers, and then there's a lot to choose from between 7-10.

Guess I'm a little surprised Trinity wasn't on everybody's ballot, but I reckon that's about it.

[Ralph Turner]

I think that we have to include Salisbury in that group, too.

Millsaps and MissColl may sort something out this weekend.

[Ralph Turner]

Week #1 South Region Fan Poll

Rank	Team	Points	Votes
1	UMHB	50	1,1,1,1,1
2	HSU	43	2,2,2,3,3
3	Wesley	42	2,2,3,3,3
4	W&J	34	4,4,4,4,5
5	Salisbury	27	4,5,6,6,7
6	DePauw	26	5,5,5,6,8
7	Miss Coll	16	6,7,8,9,9
8	Trinity	12	7,7,9,10,10
9	CNU	8	6,8,*,*,*
10	Hampden-Sydney	6	8,9,10,*,*
*	*	*	*
RV	Millsaps	4	7,*,*,*,*
RV	Bridgewater	4	8,10,*,*,*
RV	Dickinson	2	9,*,*,*,*
RV	Thomas More	1	10,*,*,*,*

Corrections are always appreciated.

Thanks to Ryan Tipps for the proofreading

[Ralph Turner]

Okay, let's have a serious discussion about what did or did not happen here.

I will take the ASC/SCAC games.

How does the bloom fall off the rose for Millsaps?  They lose a road, double OT game to their crosstown "South Region Ranked" rival and fall off the face of the map?

I like to think that Trinity dodged a bullet on a much improved McMurry team, led by All-Region baseball player Jake Mullin at QB.

HSU needed to come back on Defense to win their game.  Justin Feaster won ASC POTW.  It looks like we have several quality QB's in the ASC.

Impressive shut-out by Wesley.  Did Tunde Ogun hurt himself/get hurt?  Aside from total dominance by Wesley, that is the other thing that I can think of that would give a line such as 12 carries for 8 yards.

What about the northern half of the region?  Dickinson only won by 5 at Grove City.  How strong is Grove City?

I can see Bridgewater and Hampden-Sydney sharing the love for the best in the ODAC.

[Ron Boerger]

So hard to read teams after week one.

Millsaps has always seemed to be treated skeptically by the majority of members of this poll.    I was watching the game off-and-on Saturday and it seemed that once the new QB got more comfortable in the pocket (and adjustments were made by the Majors' staff) he was able to find his receivers much better.   The MC defense was also not that impressive in the second half, the Millsaps receivers just kept running fly patterns right past the Choctaw defenders.   I would like to know how an offensive holding penalty in the 2OT ended up being marked off as 15+ yards, which ultimately was what kept the Majors from converting on third down (or certainly contributed).  

It's going to be interesting to watch McM to see if Mullin can keep squeezing the ball into such tight spaces.  He had some pinpoint passes against Trinity that were well defended.  At the same time, IMO the Nation needs to develop some sort of running game to keep the pressure off Mullin.   Trinity's (relative) success came when they totally disregarded the run and just started sending people left and right.  A more physical/faster defensive side will end up killing the young McM QB unless changes are made.    McMurry has some good size in their receiver corps which makes them hard to defend when the ball is thrown in the right spot!

Trinity - according to the Abilene Reporter-News (who did a great story and video highlights package vs. the TWO SENTENCES Trinity got in its hometown paper), starting QB Jeremy Staska pulled a hamstring which led to Robert Davidson starting the second half.  I thought Davidson looked better in the scrimmage and on Saturday night - he seemed to take charge and play more assertively.  The fumble at the end and low passing completion are worrisome, but again, it was the first game of the season.    Coach Mohr has a tough choice to make on Saturday if both are healthy.   You expected the offense to struggle with so many new pieces, but the defense - which returned most of last year's players plus picking up a second-team all-SCAC player from CC - certainly struggled on the road.  We'll see what things look like in Seguin this week, but to contend for the SCAC championship, play on both sides of the ball will have to improve substantially.  

HSU - a tale of two halves with the defense playing much better in the second half than the first.  Was it adjustments in the locker room, the heat wearing on the UW-LaX players, or both?  There's never a question about HSU's offense, if they can continue the defensive improvements shown in the second half they'll give UMHB another fight.

Can't comment on the northern part of the south region, one reason I dropped out of the poll a couple of years ago.  

[PA_wesleyfan]

  CNU may win the USA  but with games against Salisbury and Wilkes coming up they could be 0-3 before they start the conference play. CNU really didn't stop Wesley from doing much on Saturday and I don't know if they will stop Salisbury's run game. Wilkes usually has some size and IMHO CNU has to toughen up if they want to win either of those games.
 
 Right now I have Dickinson and Bridgewater winning their respective conferences. Dickinson has a tough game coming up with Hobart and that should give a better idea how good they are. They also play two of the three teams they lost to last year at home. Bridgewater has a tougher road with away games at Hamden-Sydney and Emory and Henry with a tough non-conference game with Lycoming so they may have a tough task ahead.

Washington and Jefferson and Thomas More should fight it out for the PAC title again with the edge going to Washington and Jefferson being the home team for their matchup.
   
I do think that there are 6 or 7 teams from the ASC/SCAC that may be better than most of the northern teams but it's hard to compare without any crossover games for reference. Wesley is the only team recently to compare with and that has only been with UMHB.

[HSC85]

I still find it hard to understand how HSC can totally dominate a team that is picked second in the USA South and Bridgewater can win a shootout by 10 to a team that is picked lower and people still think Bridgewater should be ranked higher.  I am not saying that HSC should even be in the top 10.  They have much more to prove.  They have the opportunity by playing the ODAC schedule and Salisbury later in the year.  I am just trying to understand some of the logic.   I know you have to rank the teams and it is for discussion purposes but when teams are totally dominate against a good team or get shut out without showing much of anything there should be some movement. 

[PA_wesleyfan]

HSC85

  There are 6 teams who seem to be bunched together in the voting for the last two top ten spots and HSC and Bridgewater are about as close in the voting as you can have with a 5 voter panel. It may take a few more games to separate those teams. And as has been discussed on the boards it is hard to compare scores without comparing common opponents.

[Ralph Turner]

I have stuck with the 5-voter panel that the "Bridgewater Kid" began at this poll's inception.  I like to show the voting that each team receives to give us an idea of what the team's breadth of support is.  I think that HSC has edged put BC, 3 ballots to 2.

The value of this poll is to get good discussion as to who is doing what in the South.

Ron Boerger brought up the challenge that we have in comparing the southwest and the Atlantic Coast aspect of the region.  Fortunately, we have three voters who know that part of the region to help us.

Huntingdon, Centre and Louisiana College are also on the watch list on the ballots for teams that did not get at least a vote.

[DPU3619]

My thoughts on how I voted:

I think I had Millsaps in at 7 in the pre-season poll.  I can't justifibly keep them in with a loss.  If I had them at 5, I could see penalizing them to 8 or 9 for the loss, but I think they have to fall out of my poll with the loss, even if it is to a somewhat evenly-matched team on the road.  Just my opinion.  Staying in that conference, the Trinity result really makes me nervous.  I dropped them a couple of spots.  Yes, this is isn't your older brother's McMurry team, but one of the SCAC's favorites has to do something better than win by 5 against a team that was winless last year and is playing it's first game under an entirely new system.  Yeah, TU is breaking in at least one new QB (maybe two), but it was the Black Flag that gave me a great deal of pause after Week #1.  Finally, we won't learn much about DePauw this weekend unless they win by less than 30.

I like Hampden-Sydney.  I hadn't really considered them until the win on Saturday.  I think I had them in and out of the poll last season.  I think that win tells a lot about HSC, but I think it may tell us more about NC Wesleyan.  Don't get me wrong, that's a big win for the Tigers, but if that's what happens to NC Wesleyan this week, what happens with Salisbury & CNU still on the schedule?  I'd be stretching out the collar a little bit if I were in that coaches' meeting today.  From the Bridgewater side, I think Averett is a better football team than last year and I think they're on the verge of getting back to the 2006 or so Averett.  Therefore, I'm not going to penalize Bridgewater for it.  I put them in at 10.  I also almost put them in at 10 last week, but I was stupid and voted for LaGrange.  On top of that, Bridgewater will be 4-0 going to HSC.  That's almost a certainty.

CNU didn't play very well against a darned good football team, but I think they may have a better shot at it this week at home against Salisbury.  We'll learn a lot about both of those teams this Saturday.  I'm going to give them one more chance to prove me right.  That's a playoff team from last year, although they may not have been if the Wesley game would have happened. 

[Ralph Turner]

So hard to read teams after week one.
...
Can't comment on the northern part of the south region, one reason I dropped out of the poll a couple of years ago.  

But don't make yourself scarce in providing commentary on the poll.

+1! 

[golden_dome]

Since there aren't any other MC posters on here, some thoughts on the 47-44 MC-Millsaps OT game that I posted on the ASC board.

MC dominated the first half leading 24-3 and was driving late in the 3rd quarter to potentially go up 31-10. MC fumbled a pitch that Millsaps picked up and ran back for a TD to make it 24-17. MC answered with a couple scores to go back up 34-17 midway through the 4th.

MC was driving again with 5:34 left to potentially go up 41-24 or 37-24 before another fumble around the Millsaps' 30. Millsaps drove the field to pull within 34-31. MC stopped Millsaps and forced a punt with 2:14 left, then picked up a 1st down that should have ended the game.

After the 3rd down play there was about 42 seconds on the game clock when the 40-second play clock was set, but MC's tailback was slow to get up and the official blew the whistle. The kid jumped up and ran off right after the whistle went off, but the play clock was reset to 25 on the dead ball adding 7-8 seconds to the game. Then MC had a bad punt snap that allowed Millsaps to kick the tying field goal with a couple seconds left.

Just an odd ending to an odd game. Millsaps was 0-10 on 3rd down conversions but still put up 44 points. I was impressed to see MC win in OT because Millsaps had all the momentum and I'm sure the MC guys were stunned. It was huge having an experienced QB like Adam Shaffer, he was 5-5 for 44 yards and 2 TD's in OT.

Neither team played a clean game although it was a great game, lots of mistakes and penalties on both sides. MC had 3 fumbles to no turnovers for Millsaps and still won. Adam Shaffer completed 26-33 with 4TD's and no picks. Backup QB Tommy Reyer, last year's ASC Co-Freshman of the Year, is a great complement who can run and throw.

I don't think there's any question MC is very improved, but gave up too many big plays late that almost lost the game. The Millsaps' QB completed 3 passes for 121 yards and 2 TD's in the final 9 minutes. Up until then, MC was very good on defense holding the Millsaps offense to just over 200 yards offense.

A couple thoughts on Millsaps. I hope nobody is sleeping on them because they are good again. They have 10 starters back from a great team last year. Two things they miss from last year. For one, they miss Juan Joseph's running ability. We literally could not tackle the kid last year. But Chris Graves can throw the football, and he's a tough kid. I think he had his helmet knocked off twice on huge hits, and it didn't faze him. He can throw it, the OL returns 3 starters and is big, Bowzer is back, and they have a couple WR's who can play. They will score points. And you can bank on their defense being very good. They have good personnel again and a great coach.

A second thing they are missing is the continuity they had last year, just a lot of new coaches and new players. MS College is in the same boat with 8 transfers starting, which made for a sloppy game. But Millsaps' new players physically looked the part. I don't see anyone in the SCAC beating them. They beat DePauw by 42 and Trinity by 29 last year, a lot to make up on a team that is still very good. Trinity was very unimpressive against a McMurry team that went 0-10 last year. Depauw will have to be significantly better than a year ago if they are going to win the SCAC. Maybe they are.

[Llamaguy]

I still find it hard to understand how HSC can totally dominate a team that is picked second in the USA South and Bridgewater can win a shootout by 10 to a team that is picked lower and people still think Bridgewater should be ranked higher.  I am not saying that HSC should even be in the top 10.  They have much more to prove.  They have the opportunity by playing the ODAC schedule and Salisbury later in the year.  I am just trying to understand some of the logic.   I know you have to rank the teams and it is for discussion purposes but when teams are totally dominate against a good team or get shut out without showing much of anything there should be some movement.  

You are on the money HSC85. Basically the only way I will rank BC over HSC is "if" they beat SU, Ferrum, Lycoming, & HSC. Or HSC has a bad loss first. BC played with it's 4th & 5th string RBs from the half on last week. One of the top 3 is possibly out for the year. The defense that now has one year of starting experience had some assignment issues last Saturday. The tell tail sign is the improvement from Week 1 to Week 2. If BC goes to SU and handles the Hornets, gains some momentum, then the sky is the limit. At this point the questions of injuries, O-line & QB play will determine the fate of BC's season.