D3football.com - Upstate New York Notes by Mike Warwick

The 13 Upstate New York schools competing for spots in the expanded NCAA playoffs include the five football-playing members of the Upstate Collegiate Athletic Association (Hobart, Rensselaer, Rochester, St. Lawrence and Union), seven independents (Alfred, Brockport, Buffalo State, Cortland, Hartwick, Ithaca and St. John Fisher) and Hamilton, which is a member of the New England Small College Athletic Conference.

All 13 teams will be contending for the nine NCAA playoff bids allotted to independents and members of non-automatic qualifying conferences (neither the UCAA nor the NESCAC are among the 15 conferences whose champions receive automatic bids).

The region has been well-represented in postseason play, with Buffalo State, Cortland, Ithaca and Union all playing in the NCAA playoffs in the past five years. Last year Buffalo State upset Springfield to reach the NCAA quarterfinals, while Ithaca beat first-time playoff participant Hartwick in the ECAC playoffs.

ALFRED’s veteran team (featuring 10 returning starters on defense) will be playing on a new surface this fall --Merrill Field -also home to the soccer and lacrosse teams - is now equipped with the AstroTurf 12 system, which was installed the summer of 1999. The previous system, Omniturf, was laid in the summer of 1987. The Saxon secondary should be one of the team’s strengths. Junior strong safety Brian Keefer earned spots on the Hewlett-Packard All-America, ECAC Upstate NY and Football Gazette East Region All-Star teams. Senior cornerback Andy Genung intercepted six passes in 1999 and ranked second in Upstate New York in that category. Junior George Eason, who is slated to start at tailback this fall, earned all-region honors as a fullback and as a return specialist last season.

BROCKPORT will be looking to continue its late-season momentum -- the Golden Eagles closed 1998 with three straight wins, including NCAA playoff-bound College of New Jersey. When Brockport opens its season against New Jersey City, the game will mark offensive coordinator Neil Hickoff’s first time on the sidelines since leading Carlisle (Pa.) to an 11-0 record 18 years ago. One of the seniors on that team was Rocco Salomone, now the Golden Eagles’ head coach. Junior offensive tackle Josh Warner, a 6-7, 300-pound ECAC and East Region all-star, is the younger brother of Buffalo State assistant coach Mark Warner, who played professionally with Dallas.

BUFFALO STATE returns 14 starters (six offensive, eight defensive) from last year’s 9-3 team. Senior quarterback Chris Henry and senior linebacker Jon Crumley head the list; Henry threw for a school-record 2,092 yards and Crumley recorded 109 tackles (two short of the Bengal record). Dan Lauta, a 1998 All-American, is currently in training camp with the New York Giants. The Bengals added Pennsylvania powers Allegheny and Washington & Jefferson to a schedule that already includes 1998 postseason participants Ithaca and Rowan and Division I-AA Robert Morris. Under coach Jerry Boyes, Buffalo State has gone 71-23 (.755) over the past nine seasons and reached the NCAA playoffs six times in seven years.

CORTLAND STATE enjoyed one of the program’s top offensive seasons in 1998 (setting a school record with 2,905 passing yards -- over 500 more than the old mark) and two of the top performers return this fall. Senior quarterback Jeff Humble threw for 2,271 yards and 18 touchdowns. Senior wide receiver Brian Girardi set a school record with nine touchdown catches and led Upstate NY with 61 receptions. Defensively, the Red Dragons return All-American Russ Alger. The senior lineman set a school record with 14 sacks last season. The schedule Cortland played last season wasn’t just the toughest in the nation, it may have been the toughest any Division III team has ever played -- since the NCAA’s 1985 expansion to 16 playoff teams, no other school had played four NCAA qualifiers in the same season (Cortland played Buffalo State, College of New Jersey, Rowan and Springfield) and the Red Dragons also faced ECAC Northwest champion Ithaca. TCNJ has been replaced on this year’s schedule by Washington & Jefferson.

HARTWICK lost 13 starters from last fall’s 9-2 team that made the program’s first postseason appearance. Topping the list of veterans is junior tight end Greg Balcavage, a preseason all-region tight end and the team’s top two rushers -- sophomore Adam Zulauf and junior Mike Onorato. Sophomore Ryan Johnson caught a team-high 38 passes in 1998; Hartwick loses two other components of its high-powered passing attack: quarterback Kyle Tipson and all-American wide receiver Kirk Aikens. Senior Jeff Caraher (56 tackles) and junior Freddie Sarus (37 tackles).

At the rate HOBART is going, the Statesmen should win at least seven games this season -- the program has improved its winning percentage every year since 1994 from a .300 mark that year (3-7) to a .667 mark (6-3) last fall. Rob Gould returns after rushing for 1,369 yards and 15 touchdowns a year ago. Hobart must replace all-conference players like linebacker Tim O’Brien, offensive lineman Tim Zee and defensive lineman and punter Jim Martineck. The Statesmen also lost offensive coordinator Chris Phelps, now the head coach at Siena.

ITHACA returns 12 starters from last year's 9-2 team that won the ECAC Northwest championship. The Bombers' streak of 28 straight winning seasons is the eighth-longest active streak in any division of college football. Four players with starting experience return on the offensive line; that unit featured just one returning starter last fall -- guard Adam Grossman -- but the Bombers allowed just 11 sacks, while attempting over 30 passes per game. Grossman, now a junior, is an All-America candidate after starting every game the past two years; during that time Ithaca has set more than a dozen school records. Last fall Ithaca received seven 100-yard rushing games, including three in a 60-0 win against St. Lawrence. Senior running backs Ryan Carpenter and Nick Dibble combined for 1,199 yards and 15 touchdowns last fall. Senior split end Abe Ceesay, returns needing 15 catches to become the school's career leader. Last fall he caught 46 passes for 660 yards and two touchdowns. Senior linebacker Rich Pasquale (71 tackles) and junior cornerback Ron Amato (team-high five interceptions) are the top returning players defensively.

RENSSELAER has won the past two UCAA titles, and will be looking for a ninth consecutive winning season. The Engineers have reached the ECAC playoffs four times in that stretch. Senior Pat Casey is one of three players returning to Rensselaer’s offensive line, one of the team’s strongest areas last year. Six other starters are back on offense and eight are back on defense, headed by linebacker Matt Vittengl. All-American running back Krishaun Gilmore is the biggest graduation loss.

ROCHESTER will pin much of its hope on junior quarterback Jeff Piscitelli who ran for 417 yards and six TDs, then passed for 1,020 yards and six more touchdowns as a sophomore starter and posted the highest efficiency rating (104.53) for a Rochester quarterback in nine years. He threw for three TDs and ran for one in a season-ending 26-21 victory against Union that knocked the Dutchmen out of playoff contention. Rochester returns the top three receivers from a team that set six single-season passing records in 1998. Sophomore Anthony Yandek (31-428, 13.8 avg., 3 TD), senior Pat Caulfield (31-289, 9.3 avg., 2 TD), and senior Anthony Giamattei (25-374, 15.0 avg., 2 TD) will be the focal point of the offense. Junior linebacker Lance Ramer earned All-UAA and All-UCAA honors last year (101 tackles, five sacks, three INTs,). Senior defensive back Jayme Hiratzka (38 tackles, one INT, 5 PBU) returned both a blocked punt and an interception for TDs last year.

UNION, which finished 6-3 last year, returns all but two starters on offense and all but four on defense. The Dutchmen had an all-freshman offensive backfield last year, including quarterback Ben Gilbert, the ECAC Upstate NY Rookie of the Year quarterback Ben Gilbert. Union comes into the season with the 10th-best winning percentage in Division III during the decade of the 1990s. The Dutchmen have a nine-year record of 73-16-0 for a winning percentage of .820.

Mike can be reached at mwarwick@ithaca.edu.

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