FB: Southern Athletic Association

[Ron Boerger]

@Ron - any word on if Bertness will finally make his return?

I have zero insight into his condition (or anyone else's, really).  Will keep an eye out tomorrow to be sure.  This would be a tough team to make a return against.

[Cowboy2]

BSC's offense has shown great signs of growing up fast.  This 24-10 win over a very good Berry team is showing that.  I'm expecting another great game against Trinity next weekend, we owe you guys a home loss, and we are bringing it with us.

Are you able to make it out to the game today?

[D3Navy]

This week's In the (D3FB) Huddle Picks & Previews includes interviews with Garrett Smith (BSC DE) and Tucker Horn (Trinity QB).  Horn also gives a shout out to Centre QB Trentin Dupper and Dupper's battle with cancer. 

Edit:  Smith is around the 14 minute mark, Tucker around the 38:00 mark.

Thanks for the link, Ron.  Great episode featuring some fine gentlemen.

[Cowboy2]

What an amazing game. BSC looked the part as did TU. Both teams battled. I will say BSC was very athletic and large upfront! SAA has some powerhouses. Will be interesting to see how the following weeks progress for each program. Wish everyone well and that neither team suffered any significant injuries. Hard fought battle in San Antonio on a beautiful afternoon.

[D3Navy]

I think this is the first game where I've left feeling my team (Trinity) had lost, yet they actually won.  The game was determined by swings of momentum.

Trinity started both haves looking very good by quickly scoring.  But in both halves, they couldn't follow up.

BSC started the halves on their heels but recovered and counterpunched very effectively.

The last 8 minutes were all BSC as they stopped a sluggish Trinity, then took possession and ran down the clock and scored with just over a minute left.  BSC seemed to have shaken the curse of losing to Trinity and their fans were jubilant.

TU took a nice kick return from BJ Stewart out to near midfield but then seemingly stalled yet again with a 4th and 5 just into BSC territory.  QB Tucker Horn's final lob pass down the center seemed to be in slow motion, but receiver Carter Self got under it for a racing fingertip catch and run to the end zone. 

Mayhem on the TU side, stunned silence for BSU.  BSU then tried an ironically Trinity-like lateralfest, but couldn't pull it off.
Some of the BSU players remained on the field for maybe 20 minutes in seeming shock.  Completely understandable.

The stats won't tell the story of this game that keeps TU moving along toward the SAA title and now makes it very difficult for BSU's playoff hopes.  A shame one team had to lose.

I'm exhausted...

[BSCpanthers]

BSC's offense has shown great signs of growing up fast.  This 24-10 win over a very good Berry team is showing that.  I'm expecting another great game against Trinity next weekend, we owe you guys a home loss, and we are bringing it with us.

Are you able to make it out to the game today?

Wasn't able to make it to SA for this one, but did watch on TV.  Thought BSC had it, before having our hearts ripped out in the final seconds. 

Ultimately we should end our season with 2 losses, both to top 25 teams by 3 points each.  If the football gods get on our sides, add a little chaos and maybe we can still sniff a Group C bid.  But right now I'm becoming a Berry fam very quickly. 

[Ralph Turner]

What is the tie-breaker for a 3-way tie in football?

[BSCpanthers]

What is the tie-breaker for a 3-way tie in football?

If I'm not mistaken, I believe it is the point differential in versus those teams,  example, BSC beat Berry by 14, lost to Trinity by 3, so we have 11 points.  Of course Berry and Trinity would have their game to figure out their total, currently Trinity has 3 and Berry is -14.

[Cowboy2]

What is the tie-breaker for a 3-way tie in football?

If I'm not mistaken, I believe it is the point differential in versus those teams,  example, BSC beat Berry by 14, lost to Trinity by 3, so we have 11 points.  Of course Berry and Trinity would have their game to figure out their total, currently Trinity has 3 and Berry is -14.

Games like to today make sporting contest leave a sour taste because both teams left it on the field. Just like the Wheaton game TU faced....made it rough to be excited and not feel for the opponent as a competitor. I'll leave it at this... I've watched a lot of games across the the country and I will throw this out there. The SAA is a good conference. No matter what the field says. The R3 teams are good too. You don't have a UHMB run through the playoffs with no one coming close. Then they beat up on the rest of the conference. Then those teams defeat their opponents out of conference as handily. The R3 have conferences that have improved and the upper teams can beat anyone or at least keep it a respectable game.

Huntingdon plays a good  Linfield team and loses in a 1 score game
HSU spanks UWP
Trinity beats a good Wheaton team by 1 pt in OT
Huntingdon beats a good BSC team by 3
UMHB loses a 1 (-4) score game on the road at UWW late in the game (95 yard 2 min drill)
Berry goes toe to toe with UWW in a 2 score game while Defense holds their own
HSU leads UMHB for 2 QTs (almost) then lighting strikes twice   
BSC beats Berry by a couple scores in the second half while tied at half
TU pulls a rabbit out of their hat and beats BSC at home

Wheaton keeps it close with NCC
Linfield hasn't been tested out west
UWW played some other tight games with STJ and LX...and Bethel

There's parity out there. I think BSC has as good of a chance should they play out as any other 8-2 on the ballot should they finish there....and Huntingdon/Linfield and Trinity/Wheaton keep on doing well

[Ralph Turner]

There is no bigger fan of Trinity than HSU! HSU needs to be the 1st at the table for Pool C from R3.

If Berry beats TU, then BSC gets the Pool A. TU is 1-1 versus regionally ranked opponents (or maybe even 2-1 if the ODAC Pool A is sullied enough not the make the regional rankings).I cannot imagine Berry beating TU 26.

[Cowboy2]

A lot of ball to still be played. Who knows how it shakes out. However, if it ended today it would be hard to dismiss any of these programs from being in PC contention...
No particular order:
Bethel/STJ (possible rematch)
BSC
HSU
UWLX
Wheaton

[Ron Boerger]

Well ... 12+ hours later, that was pretty spectacular to see in person.   I'm still not sure how Carter Self managed to haul in that pass *and* keep his balance to get into the end zone.  Not a bad way for the junior, who has fought injury most of his career, to score his first collegiate touchdown.

Both teams had chances to put more points on the table.  Trinity had the missed FG (which didn't miss by much) and of course the unfortunate INT late when it looked like they were about to put the game away.  B-SC had several drops on long pass plays and the TU secondary is probably still having nightmares about Brandon Rew who almost single-handedly (153 of the team's total 311 yards) gave the Panthers their first win in the series.   I'm sure there will be some film study to analyze exactly how the big man got so open so frequently.  And I don't know how many times we saw McClary, under extreme pressure, pull a rabbit out of his hat and complete a long pass about two microseconds before he would have been sacked.

Trinity controlled the B-SC rushing attack better than they did last year, with Jon Lewis ending up with 90 yards and only one long TD run early on, but the success did keep the Tigers from being able to blitz as much as they might have liked.  It was Birmingham-Southern who changed up their schemes to get more pressure on Tucker Horn from about mid-second quarter; the official stats say three sacks but they were getting some very hard hits on the Trinity QB, both just after releasing the ball and on his scrambles (7 carries, 46 yards).

I was, frankly, quite surprised that Trinity didn't call a timeout after Rew's spectacular catch to the one a play before Lewis easily scored.  It would have been interesting to see what would have happened had the defense stopped Lewis on first down; as it was, it worked out perfectly for Trinity who had *just enough* time left and didn't leave Birmingham anything to work with after the (again, spectacular) fourth down TD conversion. 

As they say, on to the next.  I fear both teams may have lost a player or two for the season based on the way they came off the field but hope that will not be the case.

[Ron Boerger]

So you see "Centre 21, Rhodes 7" and think "yeah, about what I expected."

Did you expect Centre to struggle to get 100 yards and need not one but two TDs off turnovers to get the win?  Yep, the conference-leading Lynx defense held the Colonels to *seven* first downs, 115 yards, and if not for committing those and two other turnovers things could have been different.  Centre's defense for their part held Rhodes to -8 yards rushing on 33 attempts and allowed 236 yards passing.  With Trinity taking a trip to Memphis this week, it will be interesting to see if the Lynx defense continues its strong play. 

[BSCpanthers]

Big Lynx fans this weekend. This season will be a weekly, "Who can I cheer for to beat Trinity" marathon. 

[D3Navy]

Big Lynx fans this weekend. This season will be a weekly, "Who can I cheer for to beat Trinity" marathon.

But Trinity fans are such nice people!