Patriot League Picks, Week 9 (and some press links)

{Photo Courtesy of Andrew Maier, Brown & White)

This is late, and it's going to be very, very quick since I have a busy afternoon. I will be watching the Georgetown/Lehigh game on Lehigh Broadcast tomorrow and I will be offering my commentary after the game as always, but this posting will be brief just to get the picks out there and to list the press links.

The game will be carried on Service Electric 2 locally, AM 1230 and 1320, and online at LehighSports.com.

A quick note on Lehigh/Lafayette: it is sold out once again. It's the 10th straight year it's been sold out in advance, and I can't remember if it's even not been sold out. There are scheduled to be "standing-room only" tickets to possibly still be sold, but those are dependent on the weather (since those fans will be in the grassy horseshoe area).

Let's just hope that my prediction of the game today is wrong, and we don't see any more of that team that we saw last weekend.

Patriot Predictions
As always, some of these are cross posted in "The CSN Way" on the College Sporting News.

Holy Cross over Bucknell
The Crusaders should dispose of Bucknell easily, who lost 20-17 last week to Georgetown on a last-second field goal. But with their second resounding victory in a row, led be quarterback Dominic Randolph and wideout Tom Harrison, they could find themselves in the Top 25 for the first time in a long time: first their 59-10 domination of Lehigh, and now this blowout victory.
Cruisin’ Crusaders 45, Buffaloed Bison 7

Colgate over Lafayette
The Raiders and Leopards are playing once again for their playoff lives, but Colgate come in with the wind at their backs after putting away Towson of the CAA 27-17, while Lafayette is coming off a shock 34-23 loss to Fordham that in reality wasn’t really that close. With a team that tend not to kill itself coming to town, it’s not the time to have a quarterback controversy, and with senior Mike DiPaola struggling, Leopard coach Frank Tavani might be tempted to put in sophomore Rob Curley. In any event, Raider runningback Jordan Scott should be the difference: in a defensive struggle, the team with the better back wins, and that’s Colgate.
Revved Raiders 20, Lost Leopards 13

Fordham over Marist
I wouldn't be half surprised to hear that coach Masella had addressed the media to tell folks not to "underestimate" the Red Foxes, how QB Stephen McGrath is better than advertised, how they nearly beat Sacred Heart last week. Well, Ram fans, I will indeed be overlooking Marist this week, since quarterback John Skelton and the rest of your team deserves it. Look forward to next week, for it will determine the Patriot League championship.
Tough Rams 41, Flushed Foxes 0

Press Links
LehighSports.Com: Seeing Double (Laquan & Rashaun Gasaway)
Morning Call: Threatt May Not Start As Lehigh Looks To Rebound
Groller's Corner: You Haven't Seen The Last Of No. 3 At Lehigh
Express-Times: Hawks Try To Salvage Season
Brown & White: Hawks To Take Field With Heads Held High
Hoyasaxa: Georgetown/Lehigh Preview

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....

UMass 21, Lafayette 14, halftime

Are you watching this game? UMass had this game under control until about 3 minutes in the second quarter, and then got an interception, converted for a TD. Then the Leopards forced a fumble off the return, and then converted THAT for a TD, making this a game. It's on CN8. You really should be watching this.

Examining A Figure Skating Rivalry: Tonya and Nancy

It must be very hard for a millennial to understand the fuss around the Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding figure skating scandal in the run-up to the 1994 Olympics. If you're of a certain age, though - whether you're a figure skating fan or not, and I am decidedly no fan of figure skating - the Shakespearean story of Harding and Kerrigan still engages, and still grabs peoples' attention, twenty years later. Why, though? Why, twenty years later, in a sport I care little, does the story still grab me? Why did I spend time out of my life watching dueling NBC and ESPN documentaries on the subject, and Google multiple stories about Jeff Gilooly , idiot "bodyguards", and the whole sordid affair? I think it's because the story, even twenty years later, is like opium. The addictive story, even now, has everything. Everything. The woman that fought for everything, perhaps crossing over to the dark side to get her chance at Olypic Gold, vs. the woman who...

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