Around the South midseason awards
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Best Team: Millsaps. The Majors have shaken off last season’s disappointing loss to Trinity with nine straight wins and have emerged as a top ten team. They could challenge teams like Mary Hardin-Baylor, Muhlenberg or Wesley as the top team in the entire NCAA South Region come playoff time. Their average margin of victory had been 31.5 points a game.
Biggest Surprise: LaGrange. The program in just its third season has gone 6-1 after losing its first 20 games. The Panthers are challenging for a title in their first season in the Saint Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference and are a dark horse to take home one of the three Pool B bids.
Biggest Disappointment: Mississippi College. The Choctaws had designs on challenging UMHB and Hardin-Simmons for the American Southwest Conference title this season. However, a 42-6 loss to Millsaps in their opener was followed a season-ending injury to quarterback Adam Shaffer in Week 2. Desmond Mays has emerged as one of the top backs in the ASC and freshman quarterback Tommy Reyer has performed above expectations, but Choctaw fans must still be wondering what could have been, especially after a tough 26-14 loss to a beat up Crusader team this past week.
Best Offensive Player: Juan Joseph, Millsaps. The senior has passed for 1842 yards, while completing 65 percent of his passes with 21 touchdowns and just three interceptions. Oh yeah, and he’s also the Majors leading rusher with 200 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
Best Defensive Player: Desmond Hendricks, Rhodes. The senior linebacker leads the SCAC in sacks (7.5), tackles for losses (14.5) and forced fumbles (3.) Rhodes defense has allowed just 246 yards a game (15th in D-III), including just 74 rushing yards per contest (16thin D-III.) Where would the Lynx be with a little more offense? They rank 217th in the nation in total offense with under 250 yards per game.
Best Coach: Jimmie Keeling, Hardin-Simmons. Keeling has led the Cowboys through a tough non conference and ASC schedule with only a two-point loss to UMHB. HSU is possibly just a pair of missed extra points away from an unbeaten record. The Cowboys have bounced back from the loss with strong performances against Howard Payne (60-13) and East Texas Baptist (40-12.) By the way, Keeling will coach his 500th game this Saturday against Sul Ross State.
Best Rookie: Tough call here but I have to go with Sul Ross State freshman Jermaine Swearington is second in the ASC in rushing averaging 111 yards a game and tied for the ASC lead with eight touchdowns. Centre quarterback Tyler Osterman and Mississippi College’s Tommy Reyer get honorable mention.
Best Game: UMHB 20, HSU 18, The Crusaders built a 20-6 lead by the start of the fourth quarter behind quarterback Josh Saenz’s 162 rushing yards. But the Cowboys scored the next two touchdowns; however two missed PAT attempts forced HSU to go for two and the tie with just under two minutes to go in the game. They didn’t make it. The result gave the Crusaders the inside track to the ACS title.
Around the SCAC
It could be a trap week for Trinity (6-0, 3-0 SCAC) as they travel to Sewanee (2-5, 1-4) after beating rival DePauw 45-32 and before hosting Millsaps next week in a game that will most likely decide the SCAC title. The Trinity Tigers hold a 17-4 advantage all-time and would look to have an easy time against a Sewanee team that has lost four straight and five of their last six. (Boy, there are a lot of Tigers in this conference.)
But despite the losses Sewanee has been able to stay fairly close in most of their games by winning the turnover battle (+ 9 for the year.) They are also currently third in the conference in scoring defense (18.6 allowed per game.) If they can get a little more from their offense (just over 260 yards a game) this weekend, maybe they can catch Trinity looking ahead.
Speaking of looking ahead, Millsaps will have the week off after defeating Sewanee 38-17. The Majors should be rested and well-prepared for their trip to San Antonio on November 1.With all the extra time to prepare, do you think they’ll spend any time working against a play where the other team throws a bunch of laterals? Just a thought, most likely they’ll want to leave no doubt this time.
Austin (4-3, 2-2), Centre (3-3, 2-2) and Rhodes (3-3, 1-2) will be looking to challenge DePauw for that third spot behind the conference powers are the season winds down.
Colorado College (0-5, 0-4) is still looking for its first win at it travels to DePauw this weekend.
Poll Position
The top teams from Around the South made significant jumps in the D3football.com Top 25 this week. While Mary Hardin-Baylor remained nestled in the No. 3 spot behind Mount Union and UW-Whitewater, Millsaps jumped four spots from No. 12 to eighth. In fact, the Majors leapfrogged both Wesley and Cortland State. (Southwestern bias, I guess ...)
Hardin-Simmons also made a big jump from 16 to 12 after drubbing Howard Payne 60-13. And also jumping four spots was Trinity, which entered the top 15 at No. 14 after its shootout with DePauw.
Two teams that have yet to receive any votes in the poll are SLIAC contenders Huntingdon (6-0) and LaGrange (6-1.) Right now, both are suffering from the perception of a weak schedule, since moving into the conference as football-only members Neither is likely to get votes unless Huntingdon can defeat 18th-ranked Hampden-Sydney (7-0) on Nov. 8 this season. (Both teams are receiving votes in the other poll, which site rules prevent me from mentioning. Okay it’s more of a guideline.) A win over an established conference champion would also boost either team’s Pool B chances.
Around the SLIAC
Huntingdon (6-0, 4-0 SLIAC) is still the SLIAC front-runner heading into the season’s final four weeks. First, however, the Hawks must dispatch Westminster (3-3, 3-1 SLIAC.) The Blue Jays could still force a three-way tie in the conference if they can beat Huntingdon on Saturday and the Hawks beat LaGrange on the season’s final weekend.
Despite being outgained 518-255, Westminster trailed LaGrange (6-1, 4-0) just 20-14 early in the fourth quarter on Saturday before the Panthers scored the next 17 points to pull away 37-20. So it appears that the Blue Jays, who fell to the Hawks 42-27 in last season’s finale, could have the ability to spring a few surprises in this weekend’s match up.
Another surprise at Westminster is linebacker Bob Schembre. The 5-8 linebacker, who wears number 51, happens to be 51 years old. Listed as a junior, the 200-pounder even made a tackle in the Blue Jays victory over Principia a few weeks ago. Schembre has two sons that attend Westminster.
LaGrange appears to have smooth sailing into the Nov. 15 match up against Huntingdon. The Panthers travel to Principia (0-7, 0-4 SLIAC) this week before hosting Eureka (3-3, 2-2 SLIAC) on Nov. 1. LaGrange will then have the advantage of an off week on Nov. 8 which gives them extra time to prepare for a team that beat them 43-0 last year in Georgia.
Eureka (3-3, 2-2) posted a 47-19 win against Principia in interim head coach Matt Smiley’s first game after replacing Dan Sullivan, who resigned last week citing family concerns. The Red Devils scored four fourth quarter touchdowns to break open a 21-12 early in the fourth quarter. In all they racked up 699 yards of total offense. Quarterback Nick Lindsey passed for 363 yards and four touchdowns, while running for another 45.
Around the ASC
Front runner UMHB heads out west this weekend to take on Southern Oregon after a knocking off Mississippi College 26-14 last weekend. The Crusaders remain in control of their own destiny if they win out.
Hardin-Simmons posted its most impressive win of the season with a 60-13 pasting of Howard Payne. The appear to be getting better each week and have a strong case for a Pool C at large bid if the win out.
The rest of the teams, beside McMurry, are fighting for the middle of the pack status. The East Texas Baptist-Mississippi College game will help determine who jumps into that third spot. This is a spot the Choctaws have been familiar with the past couple years and the Tigers trying to get back to that territory.
Around the South Top Five
1. Millsaps (7-0, 5-0 SCAC) Beat Sewanee 38-17
2. Mary Hardin-Baylor (6-0, 5-0 ASC) Beat Mississippi College 26-14
3. Hardin-Simmons (6-1, 4-1 ASC) Beat Howard Payne 60-13
4. Trinity (6-0, 3-0 SCAC) Beat DePauw 45-32
5. Huntingdon (6-0, 4-0 SLIAC) Beat Blackburn 45-0
On the radar: DePauw (4-2, 3-2 SCAC), LaGrange (6-1, 4-0 SLIAC), East Texas Baptist (3-3, 3-2 ASC), Mississippi College (2-4, 2-2 ASC)
Send your comments to jcbowen@lf.k12.de.us, or a personal message to Conrad on the Post Patterns message boards. I am off to Florida this weekend to broadcast Wesley’s game against Webber International this weekend.