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| Jaimen Bliss, left, helps spearhead a Hobart defense that has led the Statesment to a 6-1 mark. Hobart athletics photo by Elvis Njomo |
By Greg Thomas
D3sports.com
In recent years, the Liberty League has emerged as one of Division III's most competitive conferences. While Hobart has consistently been a strong contender for the championship, they haven’t claimed the title since 2016. This fall, however, the Statesmen are off to an impressive 3-0 start in league play, standing alone at the top of the standings and halfway to reclaiming the Liberty League crown.
“The parity in our conference over the last five years has really taken off and I think you see that more this year than ever,” Hobart head coach Kevin DeWall said. “I think non-conference wise, you saw some teams that did well in some of the non-conference games. Maybe we gave away one or two as a conference that we probably could have won.”
The Liberty League notably challenged itself in the non-conference portion of the season. Liberty League teams took on ranked teams UW-La Crosse, Johns Hopkins, Endicott (three times!), and of course Hobart’s game at Randolph-Macon. While the conference did not fare as well as they would have liked in these games, most served to verify the league’s competitiveness with nationally ranked teams.
Hobart’s lone blemish in 2024 is the 14-7 overtime loss at Randolph-Macon. That result served to focus the Statesmen on the remainder of this campaign. “I think we learned a lot from our game at Randolph-Macon. That was a good team at their place. It was highly contested and probably a lower scoring game than most thought,” DeWall said. “Both defenses were playing really well. We felt that we had some opportunities to finish it, and we didn't. I remember talking to guys after the game, literally right there on the field, saying, although that outcome wasn't what we wanted, we've got to learn how to finish.”
Senior linebacker and two-time Hobart captain Jaimen Bliss agrees with DeWall about the learning experience at Randolph-Macon. “It was a playoff game type of feel and we were happy for the opportunity to go play a team like that in that environment,” Bliss said. “Of course we wanted to win, but it was a big learning experience for us knowing that we’ve just got to finish games and do what we do.”
The Statesmen have taken those lessons to heart and are finishing games to the tune of five consecutive wins since the setback in Ashland. In the Liberty League opener against two-time deafening champion Ithaca, the Statesmen held Ithaca scoreless in the second half and limited the Bombers to just two first downs in the fourth quarter of their 16-7 win. Opening league play with a win is crucial — and it was something Hobart had not done since 2018.
In fact, Hobart has been in a bit of a rut in a crowded and competitive Liberty League. The Statesmen have finished with conference records of 4-2 or 3-2 in each of the last six seasons. 2024’s Statesmen are primed to break that pattern with an experienced defense leading the way.
“I think the experience of our defense has been phenomenal. We're still having a lot of young guys step up at certain positions, but we have a handful of guys back and defensively they've been playing well all year long,” DeWall said.
Bliss is the leading tackler on a Statesmen defense that is third nationally in points allowed per game and is one of several leaders on the defense that keep Hobart moving toward their goal of a Liberty League championship. “Although I have the role of captain. It doesn't really feel like I'm the one guy, the one leader, especially on the defense because we have a lot of other guys that step up,” Bliss said. In fact, Hobart’s linebacking cohort features three team captains — Bliss, Anthony Romano, and Cashon Young.
“We have five captains and three of them come from the linebacker group, which tells you about the leadership of that group,” DeWall said. “I think if we're healthy, our linebacker crew is strong not just in terms of their play on the field and their performance, but equally strong in terms of just their presence there. The confidence that the players have around them and in our defense. Whether we're blitzing, whether we're putting them in coverage, those guys are key components of our success so far.”
The ultimate goal for Hobart is, of course, to win the Liberty League and return to the NCAA playoffs. “You're probably the first and only conversation we've had so far about the postseason,” DeWall told Around the Nation. “We're not afraid to say that we put it out there. Our goal every year is to win our conference. We’re really attacking it week by week and we're trying to keep the outside noise from distracting where our eyes need to be. We're in a solid position now, but we've earned that opportunity. And now we've got to go earn our 1-0 this week against a team coming in that's going to be really fired up to play us.”
Hobart’s absence from the NCAA postseason has extended farther than any Statesman would like, there is a strong playoff history with Hobart football. Between 2011 and 2016, Hobart qualified for the NCAA playoffs five times, twice advancing to the quarterfinal round.
For Bliss, the opportunity to showcase Hobart football on that stage is powerful. “It would mean everything. For the last couple of years, we've been knocking on the door,” Bliss said. “Although we love bowl games, I think we want a bigger opportunity to really prove to ourselves and prove to others that this is a new team. This is not the same Hobart team. We want to get back to our old ways of making some noise in the playoffs.”
Winless no more
Four teams in Week 7 broke into the win column for the first time in 2024. Congratulations are in order to Crown, Wilmington, Southern Virginia, and especially Lawrence for collecting wins last weekend. The win by Lawrence snapped a 27-game streak dating to October 23, 2021. Week 7’s results trimmed the number of winless teams in Division III down to 16. With three matchups in Week 8 pairing teams searching win number one, there will be no more than 13 winless teams remaining in 2024. How does that compare to recent history?
Winless teams by year:
2023 - 13
2022 - 10
2021 - 12
2019 - 13
Indeed, we are trending toward a banner year for teams winning at least one game in a season.
The other side of that coin are teams that have yet to lose in 2024. Seventeen such teams remain. Multiple undefeated teams remain in the MIAC (St. John’s and St. Olaf) and the OAC (Marietta and Mount Union) and head-to-head games await both pairs later this season. 10-0 appears to take on added significance this year thanks to the NCAA Power Index’s weight on win percentage and the reward of a top-8 seed that will keep a team protected from the other top 8 seeds until the quarterfinal round of the playoffs.
Teams with unbeaten regular seasons by year:
2023 - 11
2022 - 14
2021 - 11
2019 - 9
Seven ways to Saturday
Whether you need to recap the week that was or get ready for the week to come, D3football.com is your daily source for fresh Division III football content. We’re bringing the content seven ways to Saturday.
Sunday: New Top 25 poll
Monday: Around The Nation podcast. Pat Coleman and Greg Thomas recap the weekend that was and preview the weekend to come in Division III football.
Tuesday: Team of the Week Honors
Wednesday: Features columns
Thursday: Around the Nation Column
Friday: Quick Hits featuring our panel’s predictions and insights into the weekend’s games
Saturday: Game Day! The D3football.com Scoreboard has all of your links for stats and broadcasts.
I’d like to thank ...
Special thanks to Hobart’s Kevin DeWall and Jaimen Bliss for spending time with Around the Nation this week. Additional thanks to Hobart and William Smith College Director of Athletic Communications Ken DeBolt for coordinating our conversations this week!
Read options?
There’s nothing small about small college football. Division III is home to 240 teams, and many thousands of student-athletes and coaches. There are so many more stories out there than I can find on my own. Please share your stories that make Division III football so special for all of us! Reach out to me at greg.thomas@d3sports.com or on X @wallywabash to share your stories.
