Please remember those in your prayers who passed away violently on this day in 2001 and their families.
Click on the arrow below to hear last Saturdays’ radio interview with Pete Spadora on “Spadora on Sports” on WNER 1430AM. It includes a little preview of the game we will be attending this Saturday when Washington State visits Rutgers at 3:30 pm EST for Game # 487.
Congratulations to LB Cole Farrand, son of George Farrand, a fellow classmate from Boonton (NJ) High school. A graduate of the University of Maryland, Cole signed as a free agent with then New York Giants and is assigned to the team’s practice squad. Cole achieved a most likely “first” during his college football career. In 2013, Cole tallied 23 tackles in the Terps game against Clemson and was named ACC Defensive Player of the Week. A year later, he wrapped up 19 times against the Indiana Hoosiers to be named The Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week. There can’t be too many others who have garnered such an honor in two different major conferences. Good luck to him in his pro career. We hope to see him get into some action when he’s called on if he gets a chance later this season….
Former Maryland LB Cole Farrand is now a New York Giant.
When the season opens, we like to see what FCS teams pull off the upsets over the big boys. One victim was the PAC 12 team we will see come east this weekend. The Washington State Cougars fell to FCS Portland State, 24-17. QB Luke Falk competed 27 of 41 passes for 289 yards and two TDS in their losing cause. He will have a chance to increase those numbers against a Rutgers secondary decimated by players kicked out of school for criminal charges…Another team we will see play this season that fell to an FCS foe was Army who will be hosting our Game 500. They lost to Fordham, 37-35. Ram RB Chase Edmonds picked up where he left off last year rushing for 250 yards and three TDs. Our scouting reports say that Army QB Ahmad Bradshaw ran the triple option very well and throws a really nice pass. However, the Army defense needs a lot of improvement…South Dakota State knocked off the hapless Kansas Jayhawks, 41-38. The ‘hawks visit Rutgers in two weeks probably compliments of NJ native Charlie Weis who was let go as HC of KU after being bounced out of Notre Dame…Utah State who we will see play at Air Force later this season, edged Southern Utah, 12-9. This is somewhat of a shocker as the Aggies are expected to challenge for the Mountain West this season with the return of Chuckie Keeton to QB. He only threw for 110 yards against Thunderbirds. A late punt return for 88 yards gave the Aggies the win…
Fordham’s Chase Edmonds gallops 91 yards on a touchdown jaunt last season against New Hampshire.
FCS North Dakota defeated Wyoming, 24-13. Most ironic about this game is that Cowboy HC Craig Bohl is in his second season at Laramie after leading North Dakota state to three consecutive FCS championships. However, the NDSU Bison, members of the Missouri Valley Conference, and the Fighting Sioux of the Big Sky Conference, have not been able to resume their 110-game series since they last met in 2003. That was Bohl’s first season as HC of the Bison. The Sioux knocked off the Bison in that game, 28-21. If Bohl was looking to even up his personal record with UND, it evidently backfired…Speaking of the four-time current defending FCS National Champ, North Dakota State, they fell in their first game of the season on August 29 to Montana, also a Big Sky member, 38-35. A week later, the upset by the Grizzlies was somewhat tarnished as they fell at home to Cal Poly, 20-19….Check out the FCS second week ratings. Twelve of the Top 25 teams have 0-1 records courtesy of the FBS including teams ranked Nos. 2-5. No. 1 Coastal Carolina topped Furman, 38-35. Maybe it shows that you should pick on people your own size. We still love going to FCS games though… Further breaking down the FCS, Historically Black Colleges (HBCs) aren’t what they used to be when it comes to being competitive in college football. Great pro players such as Walter Payton, Buck Buchanon, Steve McNair, and Jerry Rice played their collegiate ball at Jackson State, Grambling, Alcorn State, and Mississippi Valley State respectively. This past week, their four alma maters combined with six other HBCs – Alabama A&M, Bethune-Cookman, Howard, Morgan State, Norfolk, and Savannah – all opened against FBS competition. The combined scores of these ten games: FBS 615 – HBCs 77. Scouting and media exposure as well as the great talents among the black athletes they used to be able to recruit have escalated most up to the FBS level. Those gems previously “hidden” and competing for the HBCs are now playing among all the best of the FBS and other FCS teams…The two newest entries into the FCS opened their inaugural season last Saturday against one another. Kennesaw State (Georgia) defeated East Tennessee State (last season played was in 1999), 56-16, at Steve Spurrier Field at Kermit Tipton Stadium in Johnson City, Tennessee. KSU is a member of the Big South Conference, and ETSU will join the southern conference next season…The latest and only new team to join the FBS, the Charlotte 49ers, won its first FBS game ever with a 23-20 win over second year program Georgia State. GSU’s Panthers evidently played better than when we saw them lose big last year to another inaugural FBS team, Appalachian State, 44-0. We will add the 49ers as our 129th team on October 17 when they play at Old Dominion in Norfolk. The Monarchs won their opener defeating everyone’s favorite patsy Eastern Michigan, 38-34…
The Appy State O-line provided the push all day to total 469 rushing yards against Georgia State last season.
In D3, Mount Union started its season with a typically lopsided win over Bethany, 47-0. Juniata College, the alma mater, knocked off Grove City, 26-13. Wisconsin Whitewater, defending National Champ opens this weekend against a new program, Belhaven, in Jackson, Mississippi…Two years ago, Dave Headden and I started off our season seeing Norwich Academy play RPI in Troy, NY. A friend of my family’s, Jimmy LaBell, was playing LB for Norwich. Dave’s late father and older brothers all graduated from RPI. The RPI kicker for the Engineers, Andrew Franks, graduated this spring and will be the starting kicker for the Miami Dolphins this weekend. We can’t wait to see what he does at the highest level. D3football.com reported about his efforts during the current pre-season:” Franks was a perfect 3-for-3 on field goals, the longest at 51 yards, and 4-for-4 on extra points. He put eight of his 10 kickoffs in the end zone for touchbacks. Franks was a two-time first-team D3football.com All-America selection.” Fantasy football pick? This definitely has to be fantasy football for a Biomedical Engineering major from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute…Had we followed D3football.com’s proposed road trip to see four games during Week One, we would have seen some pretty good games: Coast Guard 34 – Anna Maria 6; Worcester Poly 31 – MIT 28; SUNY Maritime 30 – Maine Maritime 0; and Moravian 21 – King’s 17. Had we followed our own advice to change that third game, we’d have seen Cortland defeat the Heidelberg Student Princes, 26-24!…
Hail Juniata, Alma mater!
Former Wisconsin Whitewater HC Lance Leipold with six national championships in D3 over the last nine years, coached his Buffalo Bulls to his first FBS victory impressively over FCS Albany, 51-14. This Saturday, the Bulls will play his first FBS competition ever when they go to Happy Valley to play Penn State…Of the 27 teams on our schedule this year, they started 17-9. Two games included the four teams we saw play one another, and Toledo’s game versus Stony Brook was cancelled due to severe weather…Navy’s QB Keenan Reynolds added one TD in pursuit on Montee Ball’s record of 500 career points in the Mids 48-10 rout of Colgate… Duke won handily over Tulane. Junior QB Thomas Sirk threw for 289 yards and two TDs for the win…Colorado lost its opener in Hawaii. Michigan fell to Utah in Jim Harbaugh’s debut. Michigan State defeated Western Michigan, 38-24 in a game between two teams we will see play later this year. MSU will visit Rutgers, and WMU will visit Toledo the night before we go to see Ohio State at Michigan.
We stay local to see RU face WAZU this week. Will Kyle Flood be running the team for the rest of this season?