Patriot League Picks, Week 11 (and Press Links)

(Photo Credit: Andrew Maier, Brown & White)

The Patriot League autobid has been wrapped up by Fordham, Holy Cross and Colgate are hoping for a share of the title (and maybe even an outside shot at an at-large bid), while Lehigh looks towards next year this weekend in Lewisburg.

With the news that senior QB Sedale Threatt has been battling a rotator cuff injury, it's now official: the era of sophomore QB Chris Bokosky has begun. All the talk of quarterback battles are over, and Mountain Hawk fans will finally have one signal-caller to rally behind this week before "The Rivalry". I've got to believe that the lifting of the uncertainty will help this team focus once again on winning football games, beating "that school in Easton", and springboarding Lehigh fans into an exciting offseason.

And hopefully we'll have heard the end of quotes like this from the Brown & White:

"We don't finish plays, we don't rise up and stop them on third down, we don't get up and make the big catch, or the big tackle," Coen said. "This next game against Bucknell is just another opportunity to step up and come through and do these things we have not been doing in past weeks."

Patriot League Picks
You can find my picks, which were originally posted at the College Sporting News, and you will also be able to find something else there: a mock bracket with my projected picks for the FCS playoffs.

Lafayette over Holy Cross
After a tough loss at Fordham, the Crusaders return home to take on a Lafayette team that is barely keeping things together after getting to their fifth-string runningback last week in a 34-7 win over hapless Bucknell. The Crusaders will be facing probably the best defense they’ve faced this year (led by Leopard defensive tackle Kyle Sprenkle), but Crusader quarterback Dominic Randolph will be ready to lead one of the best offenses in FCS. Something’s got to give – and I think it’s the Crusaders. Holy Cross, who hasn’t learned how to win in November, loses to the team who has.
“We Only Lose In the Playoffs In November” 25, “And We Need To Learn How To Do That” 24

Colgate over Georgetown
You've got to give credit to the Georgetown Athletic Department for trying. By making admission to the game free, they hope to draw more fans to see the Hoya seniors off on "Senior Day". Will it work? I wish I could say yes, but I can't.
Ready Raiders 35, "Give 'Em Hell, Hoyas" 7

Press Links
Morning Call: Threatt's Injury Ends QB Uncertainty
Express-Times: Hawks Want A Strong Finish
Brown & White: Hawks Prepared For Final Road Game

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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