By Pat Cummings
D3sports.com
It wasn't exactly a Mount Union-style record. All things considered, a 36-game ODAC winning streak is barely a glint in the record books to some of the Purple Raiders' eye-popping marks. In the perspective of the ODAC and the region, Bridgewater's first conference loss since a 37-35 defeat at Emory & Henry on Sept. 23, 2000 is a big thing. Guilford played the role of spoiler at newly renovated Herb Appenzeller Field with a 33-28 win over the No. 8 Eagles.
And when one unusual occurrence takes place, several others typically follow.
So where shall we begin?
In the previous weeks of this column, Guilford's lack of a rushing attack in certain games has been well noted. The Quakers took preparation during the bye week seriously and found the will to run the ball. Guilford's offense ran 38 times for 206 yards and three touchdowns. Micah Rushing, a wide receiver turned running back, had 20 of the carries for 150 yards and a 7.5 yards per carry. Prior to Saturday, Rushing had 5 attempts for 74 yards. Needless to say, when Rushing was rushing, he was catching team's off guard.
"Why haven't we done that all season?" Guilford coach Kevin Kiesel asked the Harrisonburg Daily News Record. "We should have our heads examined."
"We planned two weeks for this game," Micah Rushing opened to the Greensboro News & Record, "we knew they were not going to stack the box, with them knowing we were a passing team."
Was it all just one big facade erected by Kiesel? It could have been.
No doubt, though: Guilford has arrived. A renovated field, the signature win, possibly the biggest in program history, doing what none of their peers have done in six seasons. Oh -- and now a legitimate chance to win the ODAC.
We could get into the many possibilities about who can win the ODAC and what the scenarios are, but they are just too plentiful and it's still just the middle of October; so back to more unusual sentiments from this upset.
How many times have we heard this from Mike Clark?
"I really feel like we weren't ready to play out of the gate," Clark told the Daily News Record.
For the past five seasons, Bridgewater has had a week off prior to its game with Guilford. Each time, the Eagles scored no fewer than 49 points. Last week, Bridgewater surrendered 17 points in the first quarter, and did not make it onto the scoreboard until the final four minutes of the first half, playing from behind all afternoon.
"Highfill overthrew some people today. But I haven't lost faith in him. But we are only going to go as far as he's going to take us."
Since when is Bridgewater a one-man team? In all my previous coverage of Bridgewater, including many discussions with Mike Clark, I can never recall such a singular "burden of performance" statement than the one Clark conveyed in that comment.
Begin the licking of chops in Lexington and elsewhere. Emory and Henry seems to have found their stride with a 3-3 mark through seven weeks and will travel to Bridgewater looking to pull a previously unfathomable victory. Washington and Lee will come in one week later and the Eagles could easily look past the Wasps after watching the ODAC trophy slim back to neutral territory, knowing the Generals are nipping at their heels.
I could see just about anything happening at this point, especially with the statement from Clark.
Bridgewater 62
Emory & Henry 7
Emory & Henry 6
Bridgewater 5 (10 innings)
Flip a coin at this point. Benefits of the doubt belong to Clark and his staff, but prepare for anything.
What a great week to play Washington and Lee, eh? Speaking of looking past competition, the Generals will host Guilford this week after a 28-6 win at home versus Hampden-Sydney. The six points W&L allowed were the fewest a Tigers team scored under the Marty Favret era.
The ODAC race does not come down to just W&L and Bridgewater. Factor in Guilford, Catholic and Emory & Henry. Any team with one loss must be feared and with four weeks of football remaining, four ODAC teams have one defeat and W&L plays three of them.
Mitchell's unusual move gets positive press
After a 42-23 win against Methodist on Nov. 13, 2004, the Hornets advanced to the postseason and nearly defeated Delaware Valley. Few would have expected that the win over Methodist would be Shenandoah's last USA South Conference win until a 36-10 victory last weekend.
Furthermore, the SU victory was their first in school history against Greensboro. The Pride ended up on the heavy side of the scoreboard in the previous five meetings.
But an unusual occurrence overshadowed an otherwise ordinary game. Freelance writer Brian Joura covered the game on a weekend in which he took in three football games. His original article can be found here.
Greensboro had the football and were facing a 30-10 defeat barring a last second touchdown toss that would have narrowed the impossible margin. Third-string quarterback Pete McSparin was in as time elapsed and was off the mark with a pass which was intercepted by Shenandoah's Anthony Hayes. The Hornets senior returned the ball 95 yards for what surely a thrilling return for Hayes.
Oh, but for a late Hornets blocking penalty that would have negated the return and the touchdown.
Greensboro coach Neal Mitchell, a 1992 graduate of Washington U. in his fifth season with the Pride, then took the path less traveled.
"Mitchell, in an inspiring moment of sportsmanship, declined the penalty, allowing the touchdown to stand," Joura wrote. "Nobody in the press box could believe what happened. We all agreed that we had not witnessed a similar event previously at the collegiate level."
"I thought it was a class act," Shenandoah coach Paul Barnes told Joura after the game, "Hayes was a senior and he wanted him to have it. Greensboro is lucky to have Mitchell as a coach."
Bullets stop Hopkins, force kicks, win
Johns Hopkins Blue Jays fans cannot say that their team did not have plenty of chances to put points on the board in their 23-18 loss at Gettysburg.
The Blue Jays' senior kicker Ben Scott had four field goals which set a JHU record and pushed him to seventh in NCAA history for three-pointers in a career. After a 36-yarder gave the Jays a 3-0 first quarter lead, Scott's three remaining boots would go from 18, 23, and 21 yards.
Gettysburg stopped JHU at the 1, 6, and 4 on three consecutive possessions which lasted for almost 12 minutes. Instead of walking away with a possible 21 points, the Jays moped through with nine solid points behind the strong foot of Scott, but a five-point loss in the end.
With all of our previous talk about the parity within the conference, points are more precious than ever. The average score through nine Centennial games in 2006 has been 21-11. Blowouts are rare and close games are expected; over half of the games have been decided by eight points or fewer.
Of note: The win was Gettysburg's first over the Blue Jays since the 1994 season.
Newport's numbers require double-take
Count me as one who was surprised to see Christopher Newport defeat Maryville (Tenn.) by a 48-31 final. The Captains had not tallied 48 points for the season until their fourth game. After allowing 32 points in a Week 1 loss at Rowan, CNU's defense allowed a total of 24 points in the four weeks thereafter before allowing more than that to Maryville, most of it in the second half.
CNU and Averett remain undefeated in USAC.
Prothro paces Pioneers past Crusaders
Khalee Prothro carried 22 times for 210 yards and two touchdowns en route to Widener's 31-14 rolling of Susquehanna. The sophomore's longest run of the day was just 35 yards and he averaged nearly a first down with every carry, 9.5 yards per take.
After dropping their first two contests, the Pioneers have reeled off four consecutive MAC victories. Granted, those four wins have come against teams lacking winning records, and the docket gets tougher as King's and Delaware Valley loom ahead, with the Monarchs coming to Chester this weekend. Widener lost to Wilkes and Lycoming by a combined six points, and those are the difference in Widener's season.
Responding to the readers' logic and accusations of bias
This past week, I made the statement why Ursinus, with a 5-0 record, was not in my subjective Mid-Atlantic Region Top 5, but Dickinson at 4-1, was. I received several notes from Ursinus faithful claiming my opinion was flawed and biased. The italicized text includes some the logic used in notes sent to me last week as to why I would have these rankings the way I do.
"Ursinus beat LaSalle, which is a 1-AA team. Regardless of the quality of team they are, their divisional status of a D1-AA team is they (sic) offer scholarships, [are a] much larger school and thus draw better talent."
"We beat D-IAA LaSalle" is not, and never has been, reasonable logic to think your team is a good one. Here's why.
-> LaSalle is D1-AA in football because they have to be. To offer a Division I basketball program, if they want football, they must offer it on the same level, but can do so under the "AA" realm. LaSalle is as much a "D-I" football team as Ursinus is. The Explorers are a non-scholarship program, as are many other I-AA football programs that play some sports on a true D-I level. These schools used to be permitted to play Division III in football.
-> LaSalle had one win in 2006 (prior to their win over Catholic this week), a 24-21 win versus St. Francis. St Francis has just one win in 2006, a 38-3 win versus St. Peter's. St. Peter's has yet to win in 2006. One of their losses was a 21-3 defeat at D3's Western Connecticut.
-> D3 is comprised of schools of all sizes and talent pools. Wisconsin-Whitewater has an undergraduate enrollment of 9,180. Principia has around 600 students. Same division. School size does not dictate D-I/D-II/D-III. And it is also not going to dictate performance on the football field.
Sending e-mails to your humble narrator, pleading that Ursinus should get more respect because they beat LaSalle (by a 6-2 score, I might add), is simply laughable.
"D3football.com Top 25 - VOTES: Ursinus 1 - Dickinson 0"
Given the methodology of the D3football.com Top 25, Ursinus had exactly one voter, voting them as the 25th best team in the country. For all we know, Dickinson could be the next team in on the ballots of all 25 voters. One vote is just that, one vote. There are 8,125 points assigned in the poll on a weekly basis. Ursinus had garnered .012% of the available votes. Hardly a mandate. As one would expect, with their loss, they dropped off the poll entirely.
"Personally I think you are partical (sic) to your devils, and you should not be as a sports writer."
"You went to Dickinson, so I think the final vote may be swayed ..."
So -- I graduated from Dickinson, and now my long-running hatred of Ursinus, or rather my unfettered bias toward my alma mater is rearing its head in the form of this column.
Please, people.
Ursinus was 5-0 against teams with a combined record of 8-15. Their "best" win was the 16-7 victory over Case Western Reserve, who sported a 3-2 record after their loss to the Bears. At the time, CWRU had two wins against teams with 0-5 records (Oberlin and Denison) and one win versus 3-2 Kenyon, whose three wins were against teams with a combined record of 1-16.
Dickinson, on the other hand, has wins against Merchant Marine, Johns Hopkins, and Muhlenberg. Muhlenberg has beaten New Jersey, who nearly knocked off ranked Rowan in a defensive battle three weeks ago. Not to mention a quality loss against 19th-ranked Hobart. That game was on the road, and featured eight lead changes; the Red Devils were right there and could have won the game as easily as they lost it.
Don't believe me, or want some more background before the hatriolic emails pour in, D3football.com calculates the Quality of Wins Index used by the NCAA committee in selecting at-large teams for the national tournament. Prior to this week, Dickinson checked in 21st with a 10.400 and Ursinus, despite an undefeated mark, was lower at 38th with a 9.667 QOWI.
So, before accusing me of bias, do some homework and recognize that some of us out there have reasonable logic behind our writing.
Doing all of this research for just one part of the column was quite fun. If you want to debate this further, please go liven up the Centennial Conference message board.
In light of Ursinus' first loss of the season -- a 22-6 defeat at the hands of Muhlenberg ... well, I think that speaks for itself.
Mid-Atlantic Region Top 5
1. Wilkes
2. Bridgewater
3. Christopher Newport
4. Delaware Valley
5. Dickinson
The Colonels and Eagles shift in this week's completely subjective and wholly unofficial rankings. Bridgewater took a big tumble in the D3football.com Top 25, and they may have been a bit inflated in the poll, but Guilford took the right approach in winning. Regionally speaking, I still think they deserve the second spot. Everything else status quo within the Top 5 as Dickinson got their first win at McDaniel since 1994.
