CAA Predictions Week 5

[BDKJMU]

CAA game of the week (also the national game of the week for that matter):

UD @ JMU 20-17. Only one I am picking an exact score for. I've said enough about this game over on the UD @ JMU thread.

Nova @ W&M:
-If no Sczur & Grimes plays: Nova by 1-7.
-If no Sczur & no Grimes: Nova by 8-14.
-If Sczur & Grimes both play: Nova by 8-14
-If Sczur plays & no Grimes: Nova by 15-21.
Got it?
Nova won’t come out flat 2 weeks in a row, and W&M has struggled the last 2 weeks on the road to beat a 2nd yr program and a Maine team that was shutout at home by Albany and looks like will win only 3-4 games this season.

Coastal Carolina @ UR by 14-21. UR will be looking to bounce back at home vs a 1-3 CCU team. CCU so far:
-Lost @ WVU 31-0
-Lost @ Towson lost 47-45 5 OT
-Lost at home to GSU 43-26
-Won at home over Del State: 34-14

Brown @ URI by a 1-7 in the battle of the Ocean State. What is it that they battle for in RI?
2-0 Brown so far:
-Won at home over Stoney Brook won 33-30 2 OT
-Won at home over Harvard won 29-14

UNH @ Maine by 1-7. UNH won this one last yr by 3 in Durham. Tossup game to me. I'll go with the home team here, but UNH winning wouldn't surprise me. I said before the season started Maine would upset someone at home between W&M, UNH, Nova, and JMU. Well, they almost did it to W&M. Right now out of UNH, Nova, and JMU UNH looks like the most likely candidate. Their opening 33-3 win over CCSU looked pretty decent the 1st week, that is until CCSU got annihilated @ YSU 63-24. UNH has lost @ Pitt by 3 TDs, @ URI & beat a sub par Lehigh team by 3 TDs. @ Maine starts off a BRUTAL 6 game strectch for UNH: @ Maine, UR, @ JMU, UMass, bye, W&M, @ Nova. See them AT BEST 3-3 in that brutal stretch before ending with Towson to finish at best 6-5.

UMass @ Towson. UMass by 21-28. I assume UMass didn't bring close to their A game last week vs Stony Brook. A good team won't be flat 2 weeks in a row.

Week 4 CAA picks, my 1st week making CAA picks, was 6-1 (missed Columbia over Towson).

[Grizalltheway]

I doubt Towson-UMass will be that close.

[BDKJMU]

I doubt Towson-UMass will be that close.

28-35 isn't exactly close...

[Grizalltheway]

So if UMass scores a TD in the last ten seconds to win 35-28, the game isn't close?

[LastMinuteman]

Towson-UMass is at Towson, for what it is worth. UMass is not a good road team.

[tribe_pride]

So if UMass scores a TD in the last ten seconds to win 35-28, the game isn't close?

By 28-35, he meant they would win by 4 or 5 TDs. Only game where he predicted the score was the JMU game.

[BDKJMU]

Towson-UMass is at Towson, for what it is worth. UMass is not a good road team.

My bad. Fixed it. Damn. I must be getting dyslexic reading the CAA schedule. Umass certainly looked like a good road team in the Big House, but ok, since its at Towson and not UMass, I switched it to UMass by 21-28.

[BDKJMU]

So if UMass scores a TD in the last ten seconds to win 35-28, the game isn't close?

By 28-35, he meant they would win by 4 or 5 TDs. Only game where he predicted the score was the JMU game.

Yep. I should have been more clear that the UD @ JMU game was the only one I was giving a specific score. The others I was just giving a range like by 7-14 points, or 21-28 points, etc. Fixed it.

[kdinva]

Delaware 21; JMU 17
UR 27, CCU 17
UMass 35; Towson 16
Maine 23; UNH 20
Villanova 26; W&M 24
Brown 19; URI 14

[Dukie95]

UD @ JMU: JMU's defense is for real. Against VT, JMU's offense looked better than it really is because they unveiled that pistol formation that VT just didn't know how to defend. Unless Mickey kept his playbook close to the vest against Liberty, our offense just isn't good.

Hard to get a read on how good UD really is, because their schedule has been rather weak. In any case, It doesn't really require a quality defense to keep JMU's offense in check, so advantage Hens.

UD 17
JMU 10

Nova at W&M: So, there are some injury question marks on both sides. The biggest injury story isn't Szczur, it's Grimes. Even if Szczur's out, Nova wins this game. If Grimes is in, it's at least competitive.

Nova 27
W&M 13

CCU @ UR: I saw the Elon/UR game on the interwebs and I didn't think either team looked good. I'm not at all surprised by what has happed to both teams since that game. UR is definitely down this year, but playing at home, they should still get by Coastal in a close one.

Ballchins 23
Ticks 27

Brown @ URI: Sorry, really don't care

Brown something
URI Something +3.

UMass @ Towson: Towson has a new AD and a new attitude, things are going to start turning around and they're going to start surprising some people...HA! no, not really..it's Towson.

UMass 35
Towson 7

[UD1Hens]

Hard to get a read on how good UD really is, because their schedule has been rather weak. In any case, It doesn't really require a quality defense to keep JMU's offense in check, so advantage Hens.

That's the funny thing...in the days leading up to the #9 S. Dakota St and at #5 Richmond game we expected those to be challenging games that we would learn a lot about the team. However both of those teams were not as strong as anticipated. Not to sound dumb but the Duquesne game was the biggest challenge defensively it seemed. Although they only put up 6 points, they were in our redzone a bunch of times that resulted in turnover/downs.

After the JMU game we will obviously know if UD has a special team. Back to back trips to VA don't usually result in 2 wins.

[00bluehen]

Daily bit of minutiae: Brown and URI battle for the Governor's Cup. I like the 1-7 spread with URI the victor. Brown's a fair squad, so maybe this--coupled with their win over UNH--signals slightly better times in Kingston.

Other daily bit of minutiae: Sagarin's ratings of schedule strength show JMU's at 167 and UD's at 185 (or thereabouts...the relative strengths are within 30 spots of each other). I found that interesting.

Truth be told, it's the D's performance against Duquesne that's got me worried about JMU. The NEC Dukes were able to move, and control, the ball very well in the first half. If our defense is on the field as much as they were in the first half of the DU game, we're in trouble. The other worrisome thing for me is how our defense has not performed well against plays based on misdirection (the "ghost" play at UR, DU's playaction game early). JMU won't be able to manhandle our defense the way they have in past years...once it gets past that, their O becomes heavily misdirection/read based, and I'm not sure that's a good matchup for the UD defense. Guess we'll see!

[00bluehen]

Hard to get a read on how good UD really is, because their schedule has been rather weak. In any case, It doesn't really require a quality defense to keep JMU's offense in check, so advantage Hens.

Sandbagger! We all know that JMU found their alternative playbook in the waterboy's bag at halftime of the UD game last year. This was after weeks of a similarly horrendous offensive output. Your offense can be extremely dangerous when your coaches allow it to be. The challenge for UD is going to be knowing that the vanilla BS you guys used against Liberty ain't your offense, and that they can't just commit to stopping the belly read/option.

[LeadBolt]

I'll go with:

JMU - They will handle the UD defense in a close one
W&M - OK, I'm a homer, but the guys have been looking ahead to this one since Dec. Injuries will actually determine.
UR - Stronger team
URI - things are on the upswing
Maine - if they can cut down on penalties
UMass - They will dominate the line of scrimmage

[Dukie95]

The challenge for UD is going to be knowing that the vanilla BS you guys used against Liberty ain't your offense, and that they can't just commit to stopping the belly read/option.

Well, as I said earlier...we just don't know. Was that our real offense against Liberty? If it was, we're in trouble. If it wasn't, well, no one knows what to expect.

We do know that against Morehead they used a simple playbook that they only worked on during that week for that game only...did they do the same against Liberty? Well, they did have two weeks to get it together...so...

[89Hen]

Delaware 27 - JMU 17
Richmond 31 - Coastal 10
UMass 42 - Towson 7
UNH 35 - Maine 17
Villanova 27 - W&M 20
URI 28 - Brown 24

[Grizalltheway]

By 28-35, he meant they would win by 4 or 5 TDs. Only game where he predicted the score was the JMU game.

Yep. I should have been more clear that the UD @ JMU game was the only one I was giving a specific score. The others I was just giving a range like by 7-14 points, or 21-28 points, etc. Fixed it.

Woops I get it now.

[State Line Liquors]

Delaware 70; JMU 70 - The game goes a billion overtimes, the rules of football are changed, Mickey has no clothes left to throw on the field, KC's sunglasses act as kryptonite when the sun sets. Coaches meet at midfield and decide it makes sense just to go home and be happy with a good game. Delaware wins by 3 with the score somewhere in the 20s

UR 35, CCU 7 - Richmond found something in their running game last week.

UMass 24; Towson 7 - UMass controls LOS and clock. Towson places a call to Gordie Combs after the game for suggestions on how to lose better

Maine 3; UNH 14 - How many times are you other people going to actually keep picking Maine? First they were going to shock the league, now they're 1-3 with their only win against Monmouth.

Villanova 26; W&M 26.5 - I think we all may need to DVR this one and come back next week and have a real conversation about whether this Nova team is really as good this year as we're giving them credit for. The Tribe have a new QB that they've got some confidence in.

Brown 9; URI 6 - URI QB Steve Probst puts in a call to distant cousin Jeff Probst of Survivor hosting fame about a potential career switch. Do they have any positions for someone in lighting for next season, Survivor: Riker's Island? The Governor of Rhode Island leaves after the 3rd quarter and has 'his people' call to ask for his cup back.

[GannonFan]

My take:

Delaware 21 James Madison 10: The vibe around this Delaware team is just all good right now - lots of seniors on both sides of the ball, the OL has really grown up, Devlin is fine in spite of the wrist injury, and most importantly, the emergence of AP at RB. And the team hasn't gotten ahead of themselves (the advantage of two down years previously) and I think they match up great against JMU. Don't get me wrong, I think JMU's a fine team, but they don't scare you offensively as long as you avoid the big play. And UD's offense will bring a balance that JMU hasn't seen since Va Tech, and unlike that game, UD isn't going to take JMU for granted. Look for a pretty quick game as both teams will run a whole lot, and points will be at a premium. With all else equal, I like the balanced offense and I go with UD.

Coastal Carolina 10 Richmond 35: Richmond managed to hang with UD for a half before wilting, and I don't think they'll have that problem this week as they venture OOC. Richmond looks better than I thought they would be this year with all the graduation losses, but I worry how they'll do against the heavies in the CAA. Time will tell.

Brown 28 Rhode Island 35: For as bad as URI has been, this has actually been a good rivalry with each team having some good wins. Having beaten UNH earlier, I'm going to go with URI - I don't think they're very good, but if they can pull a rabbit out of the hat like they did against UNH then they can beat someone like Brown in a rivalry game.

villanova 17 William and Mary 14: If Szczur was definitely playing then I'd give nova another 10 points. Without him, nova is just a good team, not a national title team, and they could struggle with a W&M team that's much better than the Penn team nova struggled with last week. The problem for W&M is that they can't just rely on a strong running game to be their offense like last year, and the QB play hasn't been good enough to carry the load (hasn't been bad, just not good enough). Since Szcsur doesn't play defense, nova will still be solid there, and I think they keep their mojo for another week with a good CAA road win.

New Hampshire 28 Maine 24: IMO, two teams that came into the season with a lot more expectations and both that are struggling to live up to them. I would normally favor the home team in this matchup, but I just can't see Maine being able to seal the deal and hold on for a win, especially after letting W&M off the hook last week. For UNH, I think that URI loss wasn't just an anamoly but a red flag - and I think the next 3 weeks of Richmond, JMU, and UMass could be a season killer.

UMass 42 Towson 10: UMass can name the score in this one. Man, Andy, how long, if ever, before Towson gets any better?

[89Hen]

Richmond found something in their running game last week.

Do you realize they had 144 yards rushing and 67 of those yards came on the three fake reverses that Smith ran up the middle? Stop that play and they get nothing.

[andy7171]

Man, Andy, how long, if ever, before Towson gets any better?

These are still Gordy's players. Ambrose's guys are watching and getting stronger. I still have faith in him turning it around.



Last weekend was painful.

[State Line Liquors]

Richmond found something in their running game last week.

Do you realize they had 144 yards rushing and 67 of those yards came on the three fake reverses that Smith ran up the middle? Stop that play and they get nothing.

Is that more an indictment of us or Richmond?

If it's an indictment of Richmond, I didn't realize there was a criteria involved in which rushing plays counted towards the total rushing yardage accumulated.

If it's an indictment of Delaware, then I hope they've reviewed the tape and made the adjustments neccesary. I'm pretty sure JMU will just take the yardage and not give a crap how they got it.

[BDKJMU]

The challenge for UD is going to be knowing that the vanilla BS you guys used against Liberty ain't your offense, and that they can't just commit to stopping the belly read/option.

Well, as I said earlier...we just don't know. Was that our real offense against Liberty? If it was, we're in trouble. If it wasn't, well, no one knows what to expect.

We do know that against Morehead they used a simple playbook that they only worked on during that week for that game only...did they do the same against Liberty? Well, they did have two weeks to get it together...so...

The playbook might have been part of it. Main thing its called not showing up. Showing up flat. The defense was a little flat for one half, and the offense was flat for the whole game. After the VT win, this was bound to happen.
-Offense brought their C game vs Liberty. They are hearing it all week. I'm confident they'll bring their A game against UD.
-Drew was brilliant against VT. He sucked against Liberty. I'm confident we'll see the Drew against UD we saw 3 weeks ago.

[Mvemjsunpx]

Delaware @ JMU
Villanova @ William & Mary
CCU @ Richmond
Brown @ Rhode Island
New Hampshire @ Maine
UMass @ Towson

[billsheets]

Delaware 24 james madison 14. Villanova 28 william@mary 21. Richmond 35 coastal carolina 14. Umass 31 towson 20. New hampshire 27 maine 10. Rhode island 23 brown 17