Skip to main content

I-AA Semifinal Predictions

I Looked It Up
Apparently, there is no law to prevent me from picking the remaining three I-AA playoff games. So, I'll be doing that right now.

James Madison at William & Mary. The Dukes have done it all year with defense and special teams play - evidenced by their blocked FG and extra point being the difference at Furman. William & Mary were getting stomped last week until Delaware inexplicably went away from their rushing game, and gave up 21 points in the 4th quarter to tie and eventually lose to the Tribe.

I don't think the Dukes make the same mistake as the Hens. The Dukes have played with a chip on their shoulders through this whole playoff season, and all that stands in their way to Chattanooga is the matter of revenge against the Tribe (to whom they lost a heartbreaker at home, 27-24, in early November).

Think Giants/Bills, 1990 Super Bowl. JMU 20, W&M 19.

Sam Houston St. at Montana. Sam Houston St. could have the most powerful offense in I-AA, with I-AA superstar Dustin Long. They porved they were no fluke after coming back from a 20 point deficit to upset Eastern Washington at home, 35-34. Montana, on the other hand, has steamrolled past Northwestern St. and New Hampshire in the least competitive games of the postseason. Everything to me points to a shootout.

The problem is, who does this benefit? Montana QB Ochs has been great, but he needs a balanced attack to be effective. Bearkat QB Long has simply shredded every secondary he's faced this year (including Montana's earlier in the year).

This game will come down to how the Montana secondary reacts to their second go-around against the Bearkats. And I think they will find a way to get it done in an absolute thriller. Montana 45, SHS 44.

Comments

Anonymous said…
How about them JMU Dukes? They're surprising the heck out of everyone. To think that just one more little break and this might've been us...I'm a little surprised to learn that that Hines kid who ran so well against us and who I think looked like the best RB we faced all year hasn't been their main weapon in the last two wins.

Popular posts from this blog

How The Ivy League Is Able To Break the NCAA's Scholarship Limits and Still Consider Themselves FCS

By now you've seen the results.  In 2018, the Ivy League has taken the FCS by storm. Perhaps it was Penn's 30-10 defeat of Lehigh a couple of weeks ago .  Or maybe it was Princeton's 50-9 drubbing of another team that made the FCS Playoffs last year, Monmouth.  Or maybe it was Yale's shockingly dominant 35-14 win over nationally-ranked Maine last weekend. The Ivy League has gone an astounding 12-4 so far in out-of-conference play, many of those wins coming against the Patriot League. But it's not just against the Patriot League where the Ivy League has excelled.  Every Ivy League school has at least one out-of-conference victory, which is remarkable since it is only three games into their football season.  The four losses - Rhode Island over Harvard, Holy Cross over Yale, Delaware over Cornell, and Cal Poly over Brown - were either close losses that could have gone either way or expected blowouts of teams picked to be at the bottom of the Ivy League. W

Made-Up Midseason Grades for Lehigh Football

 We are now officially midway through the 2023 Lehigh football season.  The Mountain Hawks sit at 1-5 overall, and 0-1 in the Patriot League. I thought I'd go ahead and make up some midseason grades, and set some "fan goals" for the second half. The 2023 Mountain Hawks were picked to finish fifth in the seven team Patriot League.  In order to meet or exceed that expectation, they'll probably have to go at least 3-2 the rest of the way in conference play.  Their remaining games are vs. Georgetown, at Bucknell, vs. Holy Cross, at Colgate, and vs. Lafayette in The Rivalry. Can they do it? Culture Changing: B+ .  I was there in the Bronx last week after the tough 38-35 defeat to Fordham, and there wasn't a single player emerging from the locker room that looked like they didn't care.  Every face was glum.  They didn't even seem sad.  More frustrated and angry. That may seem normal, considering the agonizing way the Mountain Hawks lost, but it was a marked chan

Mud

I was trying to figure out the worst Lehigh/Colgate game I have ever witnessed. My history goes way back with Lehigh, of course, and I really had to rack my brain.  What loss to Colgate that I had witnessed was worse than this one?   I wasn't at Andy Kerr Stadium when Lehigh lost 61-28 in 1997 to a Colgate team that would win the Patriot League title - as a matter of fact, I'm fairly certain I didn't even find out about the score of the game until that night on ESPN, since the game wasn't televised where I was living at the time.  The win set a Colgate school record for points scored vs. Lehigh - one that still stands today.  QB Phil Stambaugh and RB Rabih Abdullah, both Lehigh football legends today, fumbled the very first exchange, and the game snowballed from there after Colgate converted the gift into an early 7-0 lead. I wasn't at Andy Kerr Stadium when Lehigh lost 21-7 in 2007 , but I remember following the game on TV, when an injured QB Sedale Threatt was red