Week 2 Thoughts

Some thoughts following Georgetown's 20-14 win over Delaware State this past Saturday.

1. The More Things Change... As games go between a 658 day absence, Saturday's game was fun, if, at a macro level, somewhat predictable (more on that below).  Given the absence of playing Marist probably cost Georgetown some familiarity in the first 20 minutes of this game, once the momentum picked up, the Hoyas were ready to take over.

College basketball coach Al McGuire once noted that the most important eight minutes of basketball are the last four minutes of the first half and the first for of the second, and it applied in this game as well. Getting that touchdown to close the first half may have been the play of the game, because I'm not sure where GU would be down 14-0 to enter the second half.

Years ago I did a study of Georgetown's record in the I-AA era when trailing by 10 or  more points a the half. The numbers were, well, prohibitive. In that sense, getting to 14-7 was just what a young team needed and the first four minutes allowed Georgetown to lock down the Hornets defensively and set up the tying touchdown drive in the next series.

Not every game is that cut and dried in those eight minutes, of course, but giving up a late touchdown is never, ever good for a team carrying a lead into halftime., or even one trying to build from it. Delaware State took in a pick -six to end the first half 26-3, the difference of the game as Bowie State scored 21 in the second half to close to 32-24.

But if blocking a field goal in overtime is a novel way to capture an opening win, the larger view confirms what has been a long standing pattern of Georgetown football, namely:

1. The defense always steps up.

2. The linebackers and secondary are Top 30 in the subdivision.

3. The offensive line cannot dominate the line of scrimmage.

4. The rushing game struggles.

5. If they can get the ball, the receivers can produce.

Some of this is the price of non-scholarship football, of course.  Coordinators come and go and GU has never been a particularly good rushing team in the PL era. In the last 25 years, just two Georgetown backs have rushed for more than 70 yards a game in a season. And with one back sets, it's even more noticeable.

The Hoyas rushed 32 times for 48 yards versus Delaware State,  109th of 114 schools for yardage and 112th in yards per carry.  The defense ranks 22nd overall in total defense allowed. Again, no surprise. But unless the defense can continue to block kicks and pick off two or  three passes a game, a tepid offense is a point of concern as the schedule steps up. Harvard may be shaking off its own rust this coming week but their athletes tend to be bigger, faster, and more agile on offense than Georgetown is comfortable with. The Hoyas have scored just 22 points in four games versus Harvard since 2014, and 17 of those came in one game. For better or worse, the run game is an area of opportunity.

2. Changing Channels. Saturday's game was Georgetown's first under the PL's new contract with ESPN+. So how did it go?

From a production point of view, a solid game. Del State's game are managed through a partnership with Heritage Sports Radio Network, which provides coverage of historically black colleges and universities--viewers heard the HSRN audio with the ESPN+ video, which was fine, even if the DSU analyst had some peculiar phrasing, using the formal name of the school frequently in the broadcast, e.g., "That was a fine tackle by Delaware State University linebacker Kamari Jackson." Overall, a good product, even if I shuddered when the pregame show asked, "So, what's a Hoya anyway? Is it a shrub?"

Really? It's not 1984 anymore.

The previous broadcasts under Stadium featured Jeremy Huber were very well done. But ESPN+ is just video, so announcers are important. Last week's broadcast of Monmouth at Fordham had no announcers and no "time and distance" graphics, leaving viewers to rely on the public address announcer and some slight murmurs from the press box along the line of "Hey, did he catch that?"

Depending on the agreement, ESPN+ can be a net gain to a conference or just a means to offload production on someone else. Either way, it's a net gain to expand visibility of PL games, even if the recent product has been, well, bad.

3. Whither The Patriot League: Some rough times for the PL over the first two weeks.  Georgetown's win was one of only two PL non-conference wins this season in 13 games. Fans of Bucknell, Colgate, Fordham, Lehigh, and Lafayette are a combined 0-10 so far this season.

Why is this?

There has been a trend of diminishing returns for PL teams since 2016 in the non-conference, some of which is a reflection of better competition. Georgetown notwithstanding, each of the other six PL teams are or will be adding major college (I-A, FBS) opponents. So far this season, PL teams have played the likes of Air Force, Boston College, Connecticut, and Nebraska, with Florida Atlantic and Army in future weeks.  With this in mind, it's not unexpected that PL teams would be taking on losses, but what has been more surprising is that teams have not performed to expectations against  comparable opponents, such as a third year FCS team Merrimack beating Holy Cross or Monmouth defeating Fordham.

The "why's" aren't altogether apparent given the 60-scholarship status of the other six teams, but the next three weeks will see these teams face more Ivy League competition and not Big Ten teams. In recent years, the former expectation that a 60-scholarship PL team would dominate a non-scholarship Ivy team is long since gone. But will they be  competitive?  

I've made this point before. As long as the Patriot League maintains the Academic Index (and what've I've argued as an artificial restraint to recruiting), the overall talent level of the PL is not appreciably different than when it was as a non-scholarship conference. This is why the schools of the Northeast Conference, once not much different that the MAAC Football League, has moved past the Patriot League in nearly every case.

That's why the Merrimack-Holy Cross was striking. Merrimack is a former D-II nonscholarship school which moved to FCS to 2019 and will offer 40 scholarships in the NEC. The Warriors didn't sneak past Holy Cross, they beat them, and the contrast between a HC team that won convincingly at Connecticut in Week 1 and lost at home is apparent.

The Week 3 games are below. Will there be some signs of improvement? There may not be any single Patriot League team favored heading into the games, and that's discouraging.

Princeton (0-0) at Lehigh (0-2), 12 pm

Holy Cross (1-1) at Yale (0-0), 12 pm

Harvard (0-0) at Georgetown (1-0), 12:30 pm

New Hampshire (2-0) at Lafayette (0-2), 12:30 pm

William & Mary (1-1) at Colgate (0-2), 1 pm

Fordham (0-2) at Florida Atlantic (1-1), 6 pm

Pennsylvania (0-0) at Bucknell (0-2), 6 pm

Next week, we'll take a closer look at these games and see what Georgetown can learn from these matchups.