October 26, 2005                   By Jonathon Hadley

 

How about a quick look at some 8-game stats……2005 – 278 points, 34 offensive TD’s, 115 points allowed. 2004 – 102 points, 15 offensive TD’s, 136 points allowed. Anyone wonder how you can go from 3-5 to 7-1? Not exactly rocket science – SCORE POINTS!!!! I wonder if they will teach Josh that in his sports management classes? OK, so let’s go to advanced sports management….how do you score points? Well, getting TD’s is one way. Why so many TD’s this year? One thing we haven’t had much of the previous few years…..the big play. Of Hood’s 15 TD’s this season, 9, NINE, NEUN, NUEVE, NEUF, nine, eh? (that’s Canadian) have come off of plays of 30 yards or more. Compare that with 2 in 2004. The other big factor? The rest of the starting backfield…..last year Mahler and Rockefeller had a combined 1 TD after 8 games. This year, O’Connell and Rockefeller together have 9. It’s a lot easier to get across that line when you have a couple other genuine threats around you. Rockefeller in particular has done a great job just in his fighting when he is in close – he seems to be able to find the line while struggling against tacklers. If we can start scoring on some pass plays we’ll be a TD scoring machine.

 

Sidney continues to look like a machine. I think Coach Matthews has done a great job in balancing that offense. In days past you were concerned about Dumond breaking a big one, or Chad Smith, or Ryan Erbe. Funny, we never did completely figure that double wing out, but now there are even so many more options. I thought Sidney did a very nice job at getting the ball to the right people at the right times against us. Matthews is learning little by little. I will be curious to see how he does if he gets in another situation like last year’s T-Burg game. He had a running game that was working fine – 8-10 yards per play. But he still insisted on forcing that passing game in there, and T-Burg came up with some key interceptions. I thought then that he still needs to learn the fine line between balance and going with something that is working that can win you the game.

 

I’m pretty confident Sidney will be the favorite in every game they play up until the state semis, if they make them. They are favored this week, they will be favored next week against Edison or us (yes, I’m looking ahead of this week’s game for Sidney, what do I care if they lose J), they will be favored if they play the section 3 rep (some good teams, but certainly no world beaters), but then comes LeRoy, and I think they are the single team in the state with the best shot at a state title. I think Sidney has more raw talent than LeRoy (and that’s saying a lot!), but LeRoy has some excellent experience in high level games, both with their coaches and their kids. That will be an intriguing game if it happens……I for one hope it doesn’t though!

 

It may or may not happen, but there is the chance for another interesting occurance – we could end up with every sectional finalist in B, C, and D being from east of I-81. I’m not sure, but I can’t believe that’s ever happened before. Conceivably we could end up with finals of Forks-Windsor, Sidney-Delhi, and Oxford-Deposit. Stupid trivia, I know, but I sometimes tend to brag up the east side of section 4. Note that classes AA and A don’t have a single school east of I-81.

 

For picks, I went 20-3 last week, which is 0.870. For the season I am 130-38, or 0.774, not quite to my goal of 0.800. I guess the regular season is still not over for many of the teams, so I’ll pick those and see if I can hit 0.800. Since not all of the matchups are out yet, I’ll wait till early Friday and put them into DogBlog. For sectional playoffs, here are my picks…..Vestal 28, Binghamton 6; Horseheads 20, Union Endicott 18; Corning East 30, Maine Endwell 12; Johnson City 22, Corning West 20; Forks 30, Norwich 20; Windsor 36, Owego 20; Sidney 42, Trumansburg 14; [I don’t pick DogFights!]; Oxford 46, Newfield 18; Deposit 20, Candor 6.