Quincy ended up taking care of ACU with ease, 66-13. There's really just too much talent for ACU to keep up with in that one. A couple other games that were close and interesting were GVSU/Humboldt and Northern State/Stonehill.

GVSU beat Humboldt in a pretty interesting 4th quarter with a final score of 27-18. There were a couple key moments that both happened pretty close together. A big safety ended up setting Humboldt up to get the ball back at midfield after the kick and only down 20-15. It was still very much a live game. They were driving and had a 2nd and 1 from the GVSU 7 yard line and looked like they might be able to take the lead. But the front seven of GVSU toughened up and held Humboldt to a field goal to make it 20-18. A crushing blow seconds later with a KR for a TD put the game at 27-18 and made it a two score deficit which really didn't leave much time on the clock for Humboldt to have a serious shot at a comeback. GVSU has snuck away with back to back victories that certainly could have had both ending with the opposite result. That has to feel good for realist. Meanwhile, tampa should feel very good about his team's competitive nature and though it's discouraging to let an opportunity to slip away, it's still a good sign for Humboldt's future.

You'd think you'd be pretty confident to enter the fourth quarter up 16-0 but not so much when an interception in your own territory ended your 3rd quarter, quickly followed by a TD and a two point conversion. Interceptions are certainly what did in Northern State while they ended up losing a heart breaker 19-16 against Stonehill. Four interceptions to be exact. It both ruined drives and set up an offense with good field position that otherwise wasn't able to do much throughout the course of the game. Give credit to the Stonehill defense in this one. Causing four turnovers and getting seven sacks is a good recipe to pull out a close, low scoring match. Tough loss for ranger, and an important win for thegreatjdp in order to have a quality chance at making the playoffs after starting 0-2 to a tough first two opponents.

Spotlight Game for Day 4
UMC -1.5 vs. SEO
I really think this game will come down to UMC having just a little more depth on defense. The teams are fairly evenly matched across the board except a clear advantage for SEO at RB and TE. I don't know if those two key positions will put them over the top or not but it'll be their best chance to take control of the game. SEO certainly wants to score quickly and try to keep the score high, I think that favors them. UMC will try to make it a defensive battle and break through SEO's defense with long drives led by the backfield. UMC has struggled in some games that I would have thought they'd be able to handle a bit more easily. This would be a really big win for SEO as there is another loseable game right after this one against ESUP. SEO had that tough loss against GVSU and the schedule they set up for OOC had so many close matchups that they could have realistically gone anywhere from 5-0 to 2-3. If they win tomorrow, even with a loss to ESUP they'd at least come out of OOC above .500. GL to both teams in what should be a tight game.

Other games to keep your eye on are ESUP vs. ACU in a rematch from last year, Mansfield vs. Truman State, GVSU vs. Kutztown, Concord vs. Findlay and Quincy vs. Ferris State. The closest of those games should be ESUP/ACU and Concord/Findlay. The others will most likely have some distance in between them but always fun to watch for upsets.

Final
SEO 31
UMC 28

For how incredibly exciting this one must have been for dukers in the last few minutes of the game, it had to have been equally cruel and heartbreaking for nacorwin. UMC couldn't have asked for a better first 10 minutes of this game. They stuffed SEO while on defense and while on offense they marched down the field with zero problems their first two drives and put 14 points on the board. The score at the end of the first half really didn't reflect how dominant UMC was and they ended up only up 14-6. The start of the second half was a complete 180 as SEO spent the first 6 minutes doing the same thing UMC did the first half and went up 20-14. From that point on it was a back and forth battle that had UMC scoring with just over 3 minutes left to take the lead 28-23. This gave SEO one last chance (seemingly their last chance*) for a late game TD drive. But four and out and UMC had the ball at the SEO 24 yard line. Now though UMC had two previous turnovers in the game that led to two field goals for SEO, it wasn't enough to bury them. However, a fumble on the first play was an absolute back breaker. Even if they don't end up moving the ball there, they can walk away with a likely field goal and a solid 8 point lead to at worst end up in overtime. But SEO recovered and had one real last chance. just over 2 minutes on the clock with a lengthy 72 yards to go. Not an easy task. The drive started fairly slow until a 19 yard scramble put SEO in UMC territory. With a couple timeouts burned they still had over a minute to play. A few solid plays in a row and they had 1st and 10 from the UMC 14 yard line with just under 30 seconds left. An incompletion followed by another and they had third and 10 with 7 seconds on the clock. And what do you know, a 14 yard connection as time runs out for the win. A subsequently meaningless two point conversion was good but the damage was done and a classic in the books. Tough loss for UMC and huge win for SEO.

In other games, ESUP was able to come back after a small halftime deficit to beat ACU and Findlay hung on to beat Concord fairly easily. Maybe the most surprising game was NCCU barely beating Indianapolis 31-28. They had a 31-14 lead at the half and Indianapolis with a very, very impressive defensive performance to shut down NCCU in the second half. Their last drive to cut the lead to three really just took a bit too long to be able to have a chance unless they were able to recover an onside kick, which they failed to do so. Nevertheless, quite the effort from sethstorer and an unexpected sweat for kevinbigham.

Out of the many, many games to choose from tomorrow, I think you have to go with Quincy vs. Indiana (PA), though on any other day, so many of these other matches could be spotlighted.

Quincy vs. Indiana (PA) (-1)
This is certainly one of the hardest games all year to pick a winner for. Ranked #1 and #2 on gdreports and #3 and #4 for my projections, these two will have a heck of a time thinking of the intricacies of game planning and what the best angles are to use against what will be a very formidable foe. Quincy is led by an all star QB and RB while going up against just a wrecking crew of a D-Line for Indiana and very solid LB and DB starters. The depth at LB and DB may be Indiana's biggest weakness on defense. They're still talented but I'm more concerned with how young they are. So if brygold can extend drives and burn a lot of clock, that may be the best way to put some points on the board. The problem with this is that one of the best ways to do that is to run the ball or at least have a balanced attack and that will hardly be easy against that D-Line. Flip it around to Indiana's offense and Quincy's D and you have increased talent everywhere. Indiana is sporting two phenomenal RBs and two eqaully good WRs. That is where it will be tough to stop this team, with just so many options of which player can beat you. It doesn't help Quincy that this O-Line is no joke. On the other hand, Quincy has an extremely good defense with outstanding LBs, two wonderful DBs and plenty of depth in the back seven to help them out. In the end I think I am choosing Indiana simply due to being more versatile and having a few more ways to beat you. But toss a coin and you'll be as good as me in predicting this one.

Other great games to watch for - Mansfield/Valdosta State, ESUP/SEO, Truman State/Carson-Newman, UMC/SDSU, GVSU/Northern State, Stonehill/Cheyney, Virginia State/Long Island, and Delta State, Humboldt State. Way too many games to even quickly go over. GL to all and I'm thinking of potentially doing something new tomorrow. Keep posted for potential further details.

Lyonzfan demolishes the Arch Enemy Brygold : 99 - 0 ! Go Lyonzfan !!!

Posted by mojolad on 4/16/2016 11:38:00 PM (view original):
Lyonzfan demolishes the Arch Enemy Brygold : 99 - 0 ! Go Lyonzfan !!!

I'll give ya a candy bar if that one happens, mojo.

Damn . And I was SO counting on a $100,000 Bar .
It is a Great Game at half; 14 - 14 .

Looks like mojo was only about a light year away from a candy bar. Maybe next time, buddy

The Quincy/Indiana game was all that you could ask for in terms of competitiveness and an evenly matched game between two stellar teams. They both took turns trading off their dominance in the first and second quarters as the box score read Indiana 14-0 in the first and Quincy 14-0 in the second. Tied up going into the half wasn't a surprise by any means. With only 8:52 left in the 4th quarter, Quincy got the ball back and it was tied at 17. You certainly wouldn't expect the remaining nine minutes to have a combined total of 35 points scored but these teams proved just how easily explosive they can get in a heartbeat. First it was Quincy, breaking off a 48 yard TD run that was actually a QB scramble. Indiana answered right back shortly there after with a 47 yard pass that set up an easy 3 yard TD toss. Quincy then quickly marched right back down the field in 8 plays to make it 31-24 with 4 minutes left. Then it was Indiana's turn to do the same in a similar fashion to tie things up at 31. This had the looks of a game that could easily end up going to OT but after three straight Quincy incompletions, Indiana got the ball back with 1:30 left on the clock still from their own 28. Still plenty of time to set up a game winning field goal. Except they chose to take 6 plays to find the back of the endzone instead. A great battle between two teams that if they played 100 times would probably walk away from it pretty close to 50-50.

Another game of the day with a PSAC representative, but this time it's two PSAC teams as we head into conference play.

Indiana (PA) (-13.5) vs. ESUP
Badaxe is certainly trying to expound upon last year's success and impressiveness and this will be the best test he'll have to prove just how "badaxe" he's become (I immediately apologize for that nerdiness, I just couldn't resist). These two offenses are similarly talented until you get to the WR and OL positions, where lyonzfan has a pretty sizable advantage. Where as on defense, Indiana has a decent advantage everywhere. Badaxe will need to do two things to have a chance in this game and the first and foremost will be to not turn the ball over. Losing that battle will pretty much guarantee a negative result. The other will be to control the tempo of the game that best suits ESUP. That's tough to say how that will be most effective but badaxe will certainly want to win the time of possession battle. In the end, I think Indiana (PA) will be just too much talent to overcome and it doesn't help that lyonzfan is as solid of a coach as he is. If this were real life, there would absolutely be an opportunity to catch Indiana sleeping in the first half after coming off a big win against Quincy but I don't quite think those elements exist within this game.

In other games, Indianapolis vs. Findlay could be a fight. I see Indianapolis coming out on top, especially after playing NCCU so closely, but you never know. Findlay has played decently thus far. Another game to watch is Miles vs. Saint Joseph's but considering I'm a part of that, I won't really get into it. I will say that I know husker is a great coach and I'll absolutely need to put on my best game planning hat to walk away with a win. I'm pretty scared about this one.

GL all! Let's hope we get some good games tomorrow.

Forget cold analysis. 2 of my favorite coaches. Best of Luck to both of em !

So here's the deal. I was planning on doing a post-OOC Team Grades portion of the blog where I would sum up teams' performances and diagnose how well they did and why or why not they succeeded. It's turning out I just don't have time to do that today like I thought I would. What do y'all think about me still doing it, just postponing it until Wednesday? I definitely wouldn't be able to get to it until then but by then there will have been three in conference games already played. Let me know, guys.

I would look forward to reading it... regardless of the date.

I agree with with metcalf. I look forward to whatever greatness you provide.

Game of the Day
Indiana (PA) vs ESUP

The first of many interesting contests in this conference. Two undefeated teams both coming off of wins against top competition. Badaxe orchestrated a win while having little success in the running game against SEO. That was against his trend this season. Running against lyonzfans club could again be very tough. Maybe ESUP can expose the freshman DB. Otherwise can't find any weakness. Indiana hasn't been slowed this season and last seasons NC looks to continue. Another good outing and ESUP will make a statement for NC consideration. Will Indiana expose ESUP as a pretender. These games in the PSAC have a way going opposite to what you think. With that said I am going to pick Indiana to win quite handily.

Indiana going down in close one when it clashes with Millersville. And Icki, if I am right I want that candy bar .