Some thoughts following Colgate's 28-18 win over Georgetown Saturday:
1. Post-Haste: A day late on the blog, but the mistakes Georgetown made in this game didn't change in the last 24 hours.
When teams are closely matched, three or four plays can turn a game. It certainly was the case in the Alabama-Tennessee game last weekend, or even Lafayette-Holy Cross. And for the first or second time in a decade, 60-scholarship Colgate and Georgetown were actually evenly matched, only to see Georgetown fail on certain key moments of the game which Colgate, to its credit, did not. They were:
1. 11:09, 1st quarter: Tyler Knoop's interception at midfield was, on its own, not a game changer, but the players were well out of position to prevent a runback. One of the reasons a "pick six" is especially effective at midfield is what a returned has ahead of him at that spot of the field: linemen, big and slow. Georgetown's play cal didn't have anyone who could catch up with Goss and thus the Red Raiders cashed in seven before its offense could see their first snap.
2. 4:12, first quarter: Georgetown's second possession brought them to the Colgate 14, but penalties and a breakup in the end forced a field goal, not a touchdown. The Red Raiders made quick work of the GU defense for a touchdown and a 14-3 lead when 7-7 was eminently possible.
3. 2:01 , 2nd quarter: At 21-12 going into halftime, the game was still in range, but two critical defensive fouls and breakdowns in the secondary allowed Colgate to extend the lead to 28-12 in a one minute, 16 second drive.
Yes, three total interceptions by Knoop didn't help. But for Georgetown to have led in nearly every statistic in this game and still lose by double figures was a huge opportunity lost if a six win season is doable for this team, mindful that their odds of a win in the season finale against Holy Cross continue to be prohibitive. Comebacks are nice, but to give up 28 points to a team which mustered just 213 yards at halftime was visible evidence that, in coach Sgarlata's own words, Georgetown did not control the controllables.
2. Injuries: The ability of Georgetown to finish 6-5 this season begins (and may end) with a depleted offensive line. There's a lot of missing pieces to the line as October draws to a close and with two freshmen and two sophomores starting last week, that's a problem.
To its credit, the line has done a solid job keeping Knoop reasonably safe: the nine sacks allowed by the O-line is best in the PL and 18th best nationally. The challenge in facing a Lafayette defense that is holding opponents to 129 yards per game on the ground bears watching. Georgetown got only 93 yards versus Colgate, and that won't be enough Saturday.
3. FCS Realignment? If you think realignment talk is reserved to conferences with a "Big" in their first name, Tuesday's news of a shakeup in the Northeast Conference was newsworthy.
With only eight football-playing schools, the NEC lost Merrimack and Sacred Heart to the MAAC Tuesday, having also lost Robert Morris and Bryant in the past three seasons. While these changes are not driven by football (the MAAC is not reviving football), it does introduce instability to the NEC, which will play at the NCAA minimum for the 2024 season. The football membership of Central Connecticut, Duquesne, LIU, St. Francis, Stonehill, and Wagner have to collectively decide if they will hang together or head for the lifeboats, while Merrimack and Sacred Heart have similar questions to answer , of which there are limited options:
1) The far flung OVC-Big South patchwork, offering schools the opportunity to travel to decidedly non-Eastern locations such as Lindenwood (MO), Eastern Illinois, or Tennessee-Martin with which to fill a schedule;
2) An invite to the CAA, all but unlikely;
3) An invite to the Patriot League, even less so;
4) Garner interest with the MEAC, which has been historically reluctant to pursue any non-HBCU's to its association;
5) Drop scholarships and join the Pioneer League; or
6) Soldier on as an independent until the next turn on the realignment wheel.
At least one school has football (somewhat) in mind, however.
"Football is an important sport on this campus," said Merrimack athletic director Jeremy Gibson to the Mack Report blog. "For anyone who was at Homecoming weekend and saw that we had over 13,000 people back, it's not hard to see why football will continue to matter at Merrimack."
"[The MAAC] are the schools, at the presidential level, deciding who are their peer institutions and who they want to be associated with. This is a validation from the schools in the MAAC that this is what Merrimack is now. We're not a small school anymore, and these affiliations made sense for us."
3. And the Wheels Keep Turning: Per various reports, the U.S. Military Academy will return to a conference in 2024, joining the American Athletic Conference, itself a hodge-podge of programs from UT-San Antonio to Temple. The rivalry with Navy continues (as Navy is in the AAC) but Army must settle millions of dollars in game contracts for a schedule that go out through at least 2034, including road games at Syracuse, Wake Forest, Boston College, UConn, and Missouri.
Army will continue to park its other sports in the Patriot league, giving rise to speculation that the AAC will add Virginia Commonwealth of the A-10 for non-football sports.
With watchful A-10 schools seeing no current path to the Big East (commissioner Val Ackerman said as much at yesterday's Media Day), will schools start looking at offers like this, or does the A-10 start adding more far-flung schools once again? Six of the 15 A-10 schools live in states that do not border the Atlantic Ocean, and one A-10 blog suggested earlier this summer adding Murray State (??) and Monmouth.
This is not over, folks.
4. Around the PL: The game of the year in PL football has, for one week, anyway, placed a new team on top of the leaderboard.
Lafayette 38, Holy Cross 35: Despite a career high 330 yards rushing from Holy Cross QB Matthew Sluka (a record for a QB that may not soon be broken), the Lafayette Leopards were the better team in this one, winning on the road behind 229 yards from RB Jamar Curtis and never trailing in the game, establishing LC as the team to beat in Patriot play., It's the first loss in the league for the Crusaders in four years, and begins a run of three consecutive road games where HC does not control its path to a league title. Holy Cross now must travel to Fordham for an de factor at-large elimination game for one of the two schools, while Lafayette travels to Georgetown.
Lehigh 27, Bucknell 18: The Engineers ended a five game losing streak with a solid 27-18 before an embarrassing total of 966 at Christy Mathewson Stadium in Lewisburg, MA. Lehigh led 20-3 at the half and successfully withstood an 88 yard kickoff return for touchdown and a late Bucknell touchdown that made the game close, but no further. Lehigh is idle this week while Bucknell must play at Colgate, where it has won once since 2013.
