The Good and the Bad

Well, I think I have good news and bad news. Well, I guess it’s not news, it’s just thoughts on where we are…

I know it’s discouraging to start 0-2, and it’s been quite some time since we’ve had that kind of start, 7 years to be exact, when the 2004 season opened with losses to section IX foes Sullivan West and Pine Plains. That was the crazy season when I lived in Cincinnati and actually travelled home for every single game, as my nephew was a senior that year.

Anyway, I do think we can take some heart in the progress that was made, and, looking at what Unatego and Liberty did to their other opponents, I think you could make a reasonable argument that those teams are pretty good. Unatego took it to Oxford in week 1 with a 41-21 drubbing. This past weekend Liberty crushed a Livingston Manor/Roscoe team (42-6, and I believe it was 36-0 at the half) that had previously scored a 35 point victory over another opponent.

I saw some nice progress in our blocking for at least a portion of the game, and the most encouraging thing to me was pass defense, as I don’t believe Unatego completed more than 1 or 2 passes after the 1^st quarter. I also thought we tackled much better….we did give up 2 back-breaking big plays, but we really didn’t get a good glove on in either case, whereas against Liberty we had lots of guys getting loose that we seemingly had a good grip on.

So, I think we’re getting better, and I really do believe there is some very nice quality there that can do some great things. Now for the bad news though. I really think the division looks very tough this year, and, given our 0-2 hole we’re in, we are really facing an uphill battle from this point in terms of getting a decent playoff seed (or even making the playoffs) and getting a winning record. I’m not saying either is out of reach by any means, but I really don’t see a single cupcake on our schedule to make us “feel better” for the rest of the season.

I’ll talk more about Oxford later, but they have a nice win over UVE to their credit. BG has also beaten UVE, and Holden looks like an animal, to go with a new QB/receiver combo that looks quite tough. I said at the end of last year that Deposit/Hancock had some fine junior athletes, and, despite a 1-win 2010 campaign, they scored a big victory over Eldred in week 1. Eldred was a 32 point winner in week 2. Harpursville has some nice kids, and was a 4 TD winner over class C Whitney Point in week 1. And of course we all know what Walton is capable of. So tell me when we get an off week?

Divisional play starts with Oxford this week, and despite their 20 point loss to a Unatego team we played quite evenly with, it looks to be a very tough matchup. First of all Oxford has just made things way tougher than anyone thought they would lately. They beat us in the last minute in 2007. In 2009 we beat them by 1 point after they had 2 late game drives stall on our 5 yard line. And last year we of course needed a 2 point conversion in overtime to come out with a 1 point victory. Secondly, they just have some people that we may not match up well with. RB Paul Wonka and WR Andrew Golden (both juniors incidentally) are both fine players. Wonka ran for 178 yards and a KO return TD against Unatego and 204 yards against UVE, and Golden gave us fits last year, including a 20 yard TD on 3^rd and 10 in overtime. The QB is new this year, and early on in the Unatego game he looked a bit like the AJ Burnett of QB’s, tossing several balls into the dirt to a seemingly open receiver. After he settled in he did look a bit better however, and hit Golden on a nice TD. He also did a bit better in the UVE game, going 5 for 10 for 95 yards.

There are definitely threats to the ‘Dogs. Delhi needs to sustain drives and score the points while controlling time of possession. Defensively we need to go to our strength, which is controlling the inside game. Get some swarms around Wonka, and hopefully get him a bit tired (he’s made 60+ runs in his 2 games already, it will be interesting to see how durable he is throughout the season, especially with Oxford’s small roster size), and turn the heat on Oxford QB Jody Smith, and hopefully force some errant passes…maybe take a pick or 2. We’ll need to really bring it this weekend if we want to reverse our course.

I’m sure this season will be exciting, let’s just hope we come together well enough to pull out some more close games like we have the past few years.

Let’s make some picks. I didn’t last week because the schedule was in such limbo, along with just about everyone’s lives. In week 1 I went a middling 17-6 (0.739). Not bad for week 1, not great for week 1. By comparison I was 0.840 in ’09 and 0.652 last year for the 1^st week. For this week, I’m going to pick…..BG over Harpursville, MW over Binghamton, Notre Dame over Odessa, Whitney Point over Watkins Glen, Walton over DepoHanPositCock, Union Springs over Newfield, Lansing over Newark Valley, Newburgh over Ithaca, Waverly over Dryden, Spencer over Edison (Edison is state ranked #19 after going 1-7 last year, go figure), Johnson City over Sus Valley, Forks over Chenango Valley, Windsor over UVE, Groton over Seton, UE over Horseheads, Elmira over Maine-Endwell, Greene over Unatego (Greene looks like the season’s surprise with a 21-0 win over Forks last week), Candor over Moravia, Norwich over Sidney, and Corning over Vestal.

Looks like some beautiful fall weather at DK field on Saturday!