And I thought last week provided a bunch of dogs…After last week’s money grabs (Penn State, LSU, Connecticut, Maryland, Iowa to name a few), this week’s games provide us with quite the opposite end of the spectrum (App/Jacksonville, SC St/Benedict, UNAz/”NM Highlands”…). Consider this a “throw-away” week before the sexy matchups begin to hit next week. Cheers!
1. #33 Fordham (0-0) vs Rhode Island (1-0) – This is Fordham’s opener for 2008, while Rhode Island squeaked by mighty Monmouth last week (3-point HOME win). Other than Senior fullback Joe Casey, the Rams aren’t expected to have or do too much. Still, they are a member of the fantabulous and all-powerful (tic) CAA and should be expected to beat a Patriot League team, even if it is in the Bronx…even if FU was picked to repeat as PL champs…Right? Right? Right.
2. #44 Colgate (0-1) @ #51 Coastal Carolina (0-1) (SUNDAY) – Colgate was expected to be a middle-of-the-pack team in the Patriot League. But after last week’s home throttling at the hands of Big South newcomer Stony Brook, just what does that mean in the overall FCS landscape? Coastal is playing its first homer of the year after getting beheaded last week by Penn State. It’s unusual for a team to play consecutive non-conference games against the same conference (Big South). The difference here however, is that CCU is expected to contend for the BSC title, while last week’s throttler, Stony Brook, was to be a middle-tier BSC team. This game will go a long way in determining where the Patriot League sits on that FCS hierarchy.
3. #53 Stony Brook (1-0) @ #17 Elon (0-1) – Normally, I wouldn’t include either a highly ranked team or a Southern Conference matchup in the 5 games report, but since it’s the second week of the season we still do not know what we have and there’s not much to choose from. This game is going to answer a bunch of questions: In the opener, Richmond manhandled Elon. So, is Elon a contender or pretender? Was it a one-week phenomenon? After last week’s shellacking of Colgate, can the Wolves do it again and burst onto the national scene? A lot of reputations and conference pride on the line in this one. If the Phoenix lose this one,
look out below!4. Faulkner (0-0) @ Samford (1-0) – The Bulldogs struh-struh-struggled to beat a bad Division 2 team last week in the opener, and put themselves firmly on the 5-Games “Hit List” (Elon was on it their first SoCon season, and deserved it). This week, they pick it up a notch to take on a bad NAIA school that’s about to start is 2nd year of football. Sammy, I expect any Southern Conference team to beat a team like this by 6+ touchdowns. Anything less is an upset. Should you lose this one, very likely you’ll go Oh-fer the season. Play it close again, well it’ll be another long season. Let’s hope Iammarino is in attendance for this one.
5. #4 UMass (1-0) @ #38 Holy Cross (0-0) -- This game makes the cut for one simple reason: It was on here last year and UMass flat-out escaped with a 10-point home win. This time, the game is in Worchester and I’m certain the COTHC has had it circled for a very long time.
