Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Tuesday Newsday


FCS Coaches Poll
1 Jacksonville State (25) 8-1 649 1
2 McNeese State (1) 9-0 617 5
3 North Dakota State 7-2 598 5
4 Coastal Carolina 8-1 556 8
5 South Dakota State 7-2 543 11
6 Illinois State 7-2 499 2
7 William & Mary 7-2 473 12
8 Charleston Southern 8-1 433 13
9 Chattanooga 7-2 401 3
10 Eastern Washington 6-3 373 4
11 James Madison 7-2 352 14
12 Richmond 72 339 7
13 Harvard 8-0 308 15
14 North Carolina A&T 8-1 282 16
15 Southern Utah 7-2 281 18
16 Portland State 7-2 266 9
17 Fordham 8-2 253 17
18 Sam Houston State 6-3 250 9
19 Northern Iowa 5-4 212 20
20 The Citadel 7-2 168 22
21 Youngstown State 5-4 138 21
22 Montana 5-4 83 22
23 Bethune-Cookman 8-2 80 25
24 Dartmouth 7-1 49 NR
25 Northern Arizona 6-3 44 NR
Dropped from rankings: Eastern Kentucky, Montana State
Others receiving votes: Towson 43, Central Arkansas 41, Grambling State 35, UT Martin 33, Eastern Kentucky 18, Dayton, 11, Western Carolina 6, North Dakota 5, South Dakota 4, Montana State 2, Villanova 2, Indiana State 1, Eastern Illinois 1, Bryant 1
The Wise Guys have Dartmouth as an 18-point favorite over Brown. Elsewhere, they list .  . .

• Harvard at home by 17.5 points over Penn
• Columbia by 8 points at Cornell
• Princeton by 4 points at home against Yale
Curious how The Wise Guys have done with their early "line?"

Here's what TWG said on Tuesdays and what happened on Saturdays (or the occasional Friday ;-)

Georgetown
TWG - Dartmouth by 16.5
Result - Dartmouth wins by 21

Sacred Heart
TWG - Dartmouth by 14
Result - Dartmouth wins by 42

Penn
TWG - Dartmouth by 13.5
Result - Dartmouth wins by 21

Yale
TWG - Dartmouth by 12.5
Result - Dartmouth wins by 32

Central Connecticut
TWG - Dartmouth by 31
Result - Dartmouth wins by 27

Columbia
TWG - Dartmouth by 34.5
Result - Dartmouth wins by 4

Harvard
TWG - Harvard by 7.5
Result - Harvard wins by 1

Cornell
TWG - Dartmouth by 35
Result - Dartmouth wins by 18

Green Alert Take – What does it all mean? Beats me. In the interest of full disclosure (and you are going to laugh when I tell you this) there are times I have to find a game with a clear favorite to reinforce the idea that favorite is the one with the minus-sign before it. You are now free to laugh.
Pinball machine yardage and scoring has increased with the proliferation of no-huddle, hurry up offenses. Oklahoma defensive coordinator Glenn Spencer made some interesting points after his team's 42-29 win over TCU last week. From a NewsOK story after OSU gave up 663 yards of total offense:
“Some teams will play 55 snaps today,” Spencer said. “I think we defended 17 possessions, 110 (snaps), so we just played two ball games compared to what some people do. That's why the yardage thing is so irrelevant. People of influence have got to figure this out how to evaluate defense.”
Case in point: The SEC.
Alabama's defense held LSU to just 182 yards of total offense Saturday night in a nationally televised 30-16 victory. Come Tuesday night when the latest College Football Playoff rankings are released on ESPN, analysts will discuss what makes the Crimson Tide's defense one of the best in the country based on the performance.
But here's the thing about that game.
Alabama's defense allowed 1.33 points per possession, but LSU's offense ran only 45 plays on 12 drives.
A friend who played Sprint Football (nee Lightweight Football) at Princeton details another loss – this one of the heartbreaking variety – for his former team, which has lost more than 100 consecutive games. (That's true, by the way.) Find the story HERE.