Week 9 Thoughts

 Two brief thoughts following Fordham's 41-20 win over Georgetown on Saturday:

 1. Progress? Not This Week. As a writer, I'm probably best known for basketball but when it comes for football, the emotions of watching game are much more visceral. When there's a win, it's a great feeling. When it's not, it hurts more with each passing year because it's yet another opportunity lost to establish this program where it needs to be. And something Georgetown has missed time and again.

 Did I expect Georgetown to win this game. No. Having seen Fordham games online this season, the Rams a superior team for a variety of reasons.  In the end, unless you're Lafayette or Bucknell, 63 scholarships always trumps no scholarships. But Georgetown had a series of plays which would not have changed the final outcome of the game, but would have been the kind of statements that, in week 10, players, coaches and fans should be seeing from a team, and didn't.

 -- With 5:46 to play in the first quarter, down 13-6, the Georgetown defense had one of its best stops of the season, holding the Rams at the one line of a 12 play drive. One play later, Georgetown fumbles the ball. One more play later, it's 20-7. Ballgame.

 -- With 1:04 to halftime, Fordham takes over after a particularly ineffective GU drive which consumed just 23 seconds of the quarter. The defense held as Fordham misses a field goal, but coming out of halftime, it allows a 45 yard pass to set up a score.  After the Hoyas respond with a six yard, 1:24 drive, a pair of defensive penalties sets up a 33 yard run for the score.

 -- Georgetown had two drives that entered the Fordham red zone in the third quarter. Total number of points? Zero.

 The team racked up 100 yards in penalties. This, more than anything, is inexcusable for the most veteran team Georgetown has ever put in a starting lineup in the modern era.  Coach Sgarlata avoided claiming that the team was "improving 1%" every game. Unfortunately, this team needs to improve much more than 1% every week because a 10% change doesn't win games in November.

 There are deep structural reasons why Georgetown doesn't make plans for football in December. But a team that does not win at home isn't going to be successful in any month. A winless home slate in 2021 matches three of the worst seasons in modern Hoya football: 2007 (1-10), 2009 (0-11) and 2017 (1-10). How does this change?

 2. The Future? Not Next Week. Neither the Washington Nationals  nor the Baltimore Orioles were making it to the playoffs this year; in fact, both finished in last place. But September wasn't merely playing out the spring, but making some call-ups and giving young players something that no practice schedule can provide: experience.

 This is the call-up time of the year in football. The season ends in two weeks and a full third of the lineup, including 17 of 22 starters, is gone next year. If you think 2021 was touch, how does 2022 look without Tomas, Saffold, Moultrie, Crayton, Portobanco, four of five starters on the O-line,  two of four starters on the D-line, the entire linebacking corps, Ahmad Wilson, Jonathan Honore, etc.?

 This is the time the staff should give consideration to sitting the seniors and getting as much time as possible for underclassmen to learn game-time experience. Instead, the same 17 seniors are on the starting lineup in this week's game notes. I get it--coaches and players want to win, but this team has some real holes to fill for 2022. Georgetown needs that elusive commodity of experience and since it is not a program that welcomes the junior college or the transfer portal, it's going to be very tough in 2022 for those that remain.

 The last two games are, at best, a coin-flip, and yes, 4-6 always beats 2-8. But the preparation for 2022 cannot start soon enough.