Some thoughts Following Lehigh's 54-35 win over Georgetown Saturday:
1. D is for Depth: Georgetown 's
defense was shredded for the fourth consecutive weekend Saturday, in a way that
hasn't been seen for many years at the Hilltop.
In fact, the closest parallel to the crushing defeats to
Princeton, Harvard, and Lehigh was the middle of the 2007 season, a miserable
run where the Hoyas finished 1-10 and lost to Holy Cross, Cornell, and Pennsylvania by a
combined score of 142 to 20. (In the
last three games, it's 144-67, so pick your poison.)
The recaps of those games read as eerily familiar to 2017.
"Georgetown
turned in a thoroughly non-competitive effort in a 55-0 runaway by Holy Cross
at Fitton Field Saturday," read HoyaSaxa.com on September 22, 2007. "Sadly,
the score could have been even worse."
A week later, it wrote, "In an otherwise unremarkable
game, Cornell posted 469 yards of total offense in a 45-7 walkover of the Georgetown Hoyas... The
Hoyas' inexperience and conservative offense continue to be its biggest
adversaries in making plays on the margin that could provide a fighting chance."
By the third week, this entry: "The heretofore winless
University of Pennsylvania team needed only a quarter to walk over the Hoyas,
42-13, before 8,823 at Franklin Field Saturday. Outmatched on the lines for a
sixth straight week, Georgetown
offered little resistance to a team that was in need of a win and was
determined to get it."
The Quakers led 28-0 after the first quarter.
These recaps share one common thread: depth killed the 2007
team. Sure, the revolving door of quarterbacks Matt Bassuener and Robert Lane didn't
help, and the recent play calling of Michael Neuberger channeling that of Jim
Miceli isn't encouraging. But the depth of 2007 (and succeeding years) doomed
those teams to be able to compete.
The Hoyas are down three starters from opening week and are
ranked 117th of 123 teams for tackles for loss. Sacks? Nonexistent. Give any
talented quarterback time in the pocket and he will find receivers.
For the better part of a generation, Georgetown ahs been able to hang on in the
patriot largely on the sheer will of its defense. For it to win Saturday, and
anytime in the near future to a team not named Davidson, the defense must step
up, play through the pain, and set an example. As strange as it sounds,
Saturday offers that hope.
2. Whither Fordham?
No team, not even the one further down this column, is more surprising
in PL play as is Fordham. With the best PL All-America candidate since Gordie
Lockbaum on the Rams' roster, Chase Edmonds' senior season was going to be
Fordham's run to the PL title and a healthy run in the playoffs. It's been
anything but.
Injuries have rendered the Fordham offense a shell of
itself--the Rams average just 115 yards a game on the ground and its defense
has been battered all season long. From a
64-6 opening loss to Army right up through last week's 38-12 loss at
Colgate, Fordham has allowed 30 or more points in all but one game this season.
Maybe even more telling: the Rams have not scored more than
12 points in any of its last three games.
3. Whither Holy Cross? The biggest news of the week was,
without question, the mid-season firing of Tom Gilmore at Holy Cross. At 14
seasons (and until last week, still counting) at Mt.
St. James, no one doubted Gilmore's coaching ability nor his recruiting, but
four straight losses and a shutout at Yale was a breaking point. It's the kind
of thing that we expect in the SEC, but not in the Patriot League. What's going
on?
To tie this to the pressure of scholarship football is, for
now, a logical fallacy. One decision does not a trend make. Yes, Holy Cross
spends a lot of money on football and, yes, Gilmore was under .500 for his
tenure in Worcester .
But scholarships didn't lead to a change, but momentum, or the lack thereof. It
helped bring an early beginning to Frank Tavani's retirement plans at Lafayette , and it turning
up the heat on Fordham's Andrew Breiner, 9-9 in two seasons.
Numbers like this (from the Fordham media guide) don't help,
either:
"The 2017 Fordham Rams have yet to score on their first
offensive possession of a game. Last
year, the Rams scored on their first offensive possession in eight of the
eleven games. Conversely, three of Fordham’s seven opponents have scored on their
first offensive possession. The Rams are being outscored 93-21 in the first
quarter."
Pressure is part of the business for all head coaches,
including Georgetown .
While Rob Sgarlata sits in a different position than Tom Gilmore did, momentum
is important. In his 40th game as a head coach Saturday, Sgarlata has just 11
wins. He has to do better going forward, and he knows that. The collective Georgetown has to do
better as well, and I'm not sure they know that.
