Lineup updates

Jermaine Roberts is expected to play Saturday. Torin McCullough might be limited again, but should be back to 100 percent for the Harmony Classic. All other hands sound like they will be on deck. There are some typical bumps and bruises, but everyone else is scheduled to play, according to the report I just got.

As for the QBs: Aubrey will start, Hunter will come in around the third or fourth series, and the Blue Devils will go with the hot hand after that.

No football coverage?

This week for example we had a preview of the game, the game story, a follow story, the football team topped the weekly notebook I write, and then a preview of the next game is coming.
That's a heck of a lot more than a story a week, and I didn't even mention the blogging.

Soccer plays more games, that's why you see them in the paper a lot. But no one else does anywhere near the coverage of the football team the Herald does.

By the way, your men's soccer team (which gets more people at the games than you might think) is on the verge of another national ranking, and the women beat one of the best teams in the country last week. If you're not going to the games, you should be.

Ok, I'll get off my soapbox now except to say this: Everyone upset about the Courant's coverage (and they go by where they'll get the most readers through the whole state, not just around here) should buy the Herald.

Men's Soccer Preview

http://www.newbritainherald.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20100574&BRD=1641&PAG=461&dept_id=17739&rfi=6

I'll have a much more detailed look at the team after I see them in person later this week. But they start tonight at Holy Cross.

New rankings

No. Dakota St. is 1st in the new FCS coaches poll and 2nd in the Sports Network poll.
In the TSN poll Albany got 2 votes while Stony Brook got 4 and Delaware State 87. All are unranked.
The coaches gave Fordham 35 votes and Stony Brook 1.

Quick apology to Bryant University

I'm breaking the habit of calling them Bryant College. So if I did that this week, I'm sorry. By 2012 I'll have it right.

Thoughts on Game 1

Yuck and whew. Special teams saved the day on this one.

Where to start? Ok, the part everyone always asks me about first. I wouldn't be surprised to see both QBs play again Saturday. I think Mac found himself in a dogfight he wasn't expecting and had to ditch the experiment plans to try and win the game, so he went with what he knew.

And, at the risk of sounding like I'm rooting, I thought Aubrey was OK. Three years of knowing Mac leads me to believe you'll never see a true spread offense at CCSU (sorry Hud), so I'm not even sure anymore that the QB is that big a deal. However, I will say that Hunter shouldn't be beaten up based on his numbers. He played one real series, and everyone in the building (including the Bryant defense) knew he was in to pass the ball, so it's hard to judge him on one game.

My biggest concern isn't the QB, it's the offensive line. Mac entered the game with a ton of faith in them, and they did a good job run blocking. But to let the QB go down 4 times just doesn't cut it.

The defense has to improve. That type of performance (I don't question their effort) will lead to 70 points for NDSU on Saturday.

My biggest concern is the big mistakes. You can't get that penalty before the half, and I don't think I've ever seen a high school team punt without a punter. I don't know whose fault that one was, but it seems to me that there should be someone in charge of checking that everyone's ready.

Still I see some positives. Mallory was outstanding and the team showed some spunk by rallying. Maybe this was the gut-check they needed to put the odd training camp behind them and band together.

If I'm Mac, I walk in Monday morning, show the Georgia Southern film, then say (insert name here) is the quarterback, everyone is going to play, we're all going to pitch in and we're going to win.

But as I always say, I'm not a coach.