Arrrgh. We still passionately loathe you, Seth Meyers

This is about Hofstra's football nightmare, not one endured by Fake Seth Meyers. Sigh.

If you’re like me (I’m sorry) then you spent your childhood wolfing down the Matt Christopher sports books and learning that hard work and humility triumphed over the bad guys every single time. The Christopher books eventually beget various good-guys-win books purchased via the East School book club which eventually beget a real-life appreciation of the underdog.

I didn’t see the U.S. Olympic ice hockey team shock the big, bad Russians in 1980—actually, nobody saw it live, imagine that—but I remember walking around school chanting “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” One of the great memories of my youth is begging and pleading my parents to let me stay up and watch the 1983 NCAA Tournament championship game between North Carolina State and Houston, won, of course, at the buzzer by N.C. State when Lorenzo Charles dunked Dereck Whittenburg’s air ball. Two years later, Villanova truly scored one for good over evil by shocking Georgetown with The Perfect Game.

Of course, as you get older, you realize that life isn’t as neat and tidy as it is in fiction and that the bad guys quite often win. And if you didn’t know this, dear Hofstra fan, you sure as hell learned it in 2006.

(Of course, if you’re a fan of the Tampa Bay Rays, you’re thinking today that reality does match fiction. But you’re probably also a front-runner. Once baseball season is over, you can start watching the Tennessee Titans!)

The point of all this: We were reminded again this weekend, at Defiantly Dutch HQ, that the bad guys win most of the time as injury-wracked Flying Dutchmen football team lost to Maine 41-40 in double overtime (recap from the Bangor newspaper), Northwestern destroyed Purdue 48-26 and moved into the top 25 in the coaches poll and Big Fat Stupidhead Seth Meyers continued to raise his profile on a suddenly resurgent Saturday Night Live.

It’s not right, you know. Hofstra should have begun its inspiring, let’s-do-it-in-spite-of-Fake-Seth-Meyers run to the I-AA national championship by knocking off Maine, especially after the Flying Dutchmen fell behind 13-0 less than three minutes into the game and came back to take a 17-13 lead before a spate of injuries—including the worst-case yet almost unavoidable scenario involving Cory Christopher—forced Dave Cohen to rebuild the offense on the fly.

Christopher, who had taken every snap this season because his only backups were freshmen Steve Probst and Joe Sidaris, both of whom Dave Cohen hoped to redshirt, was hurt in the second quarter and replaced by Probst (who can probably now look forward to a redshirt season in 2009). Running backs Brock Jackolski, the freshman whiz kid, and Justine Buries, the grad student and former New Mexico State player, were also hurt.

Yet Probst (135 yards and three TDs passing, 63 yards rushing) directed a game-tying drive early in the fourth quarter and the Flying Dutchmen created a miracle turnover in the final minute—freshman Chris Edmond, who made a team-high 13 tackles, stripped Maine quarterback Mike Brusko of the ball at the six-yard-line following an 18-yard gain and Ray McDonough recovered it—to force overtime.

Probst threw two TDs in overtime, but Roger Williams missed the PAT following the second score and Maine scored on the first play of its second possession and nailed the subsequent PAT to win it for the Black Bears.

The loss was doubly disappointing for the Flying Dutchmen because a win would have catapulted them into a tie atop the CAA North with New Hampshire. Of course, there are no playoff berths for winning one half of the CAA. Nor do I have any misconceptions of Hofstra’s season lasting beyond Nov. 22, especially with three top 20 teams still awaiting the Flying Dutchmen in November. But still, to be in first place in the North more than halfway through the season—and with a winnable game against reeling Delaware coming up Saturday—would have been a pleasant surprise given the given the rebuilding nature of this season.

The rebuilding just got a little steeper, as well, if Christopher is out for an extended period of time. While it was encouraging to see (or, in this case, read) Probst acquit himself well off the bench, Dave Cohen and offensive coordinator David Patenaude have a pretty big challenge in figuring out what to do over the final five games.

The Flying Dutchmen haven’t really established an identity on offense. The only player to carry the ball more than 20 times in a game has been Christopher, and we all saw how that worked out. Yet the staff has been reluctant to overwork Jackolski (understandable, since he appeared headed for a redshirt year himself two months ago) and Everett Benjamin, who played well after moving to tailback from fullback Saturday and scored the go-ahead TD in the second OT, has exceeded 11 carries just three times in his first 19 collegiate games.

Cohen surely doesn’t want to burn another redshirt, so the goal should be to keep Probst upright (and, perhaps, to scour campus to see if someone wants to walk on and hand the ball off if something happens to Probst) and hope that he develops chemistry in a hurry with receivers Ottis Lewis and Anthony Nelson, who caught 11 of Probst’s 14 completions.

It probably won’t result in a return to the Gardi-era shootouts, or allow us to get the last laugh at Fake Seth Meyers. But at this point, the goal for the Flying Dutchmen should be to get into 2009 in one piece—or as close to it as possible.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.

To the extreme I rock this blog like a vandal

If you were in high school in 1990, you are singing the song right now. You know it. And you also owned the tape or CD at some point. Admit it. I am.

A friend of mine in Boston, Chris Price, writes a cool column about the New England Patriots every Monday titled “Ten Things We Learned Yesterday.” I’m going to pull a Vanilla Ice here and borrow liberally from Chris (his column goes “ding ding ding dingy ding-ding, mine goes “ding ding ding ding dingy ding-ding”—special thanks to Loyal Reader Jill for still knowing this off the top of her head and sending me this link for confirmation) with “Three Things We Learned Saturday,” when the Flying Dutchmen outlasted Bucknell 45-31 (recap is from the Bucknell-area newspaper).

1.) Hofstra can score at will against I-AA opponents with less than the maximum 63 scholarships.

2.) Hofstra is considerably less successful scoring, at all, against opponents with 63 or more scholarships.

3.) There are no more games against opponents with less than 63 scholarships and six games left against teams with 63 scholarships.

Therefore, 1+2+3 = Saturday may be as good as it gets for Hofstra the rest of the year.

(BTW, since I’ve already sunk lower than I ever thought possible with the Vanilla Ice recollections, I may as well say hearing “Ice Ice Baby” always reminds me of Columbus Day weekend and my senior year of high school, because I remember going to the local dance club Sunday night and hearing “Ice Ice Baby”—which was more popular than you can possibly imagine before we all learned what a fraud Vanilla Ice was—seemingly played every 15 minutes. “Ice Ice Baby” was also the senior song for the class of ’91 at Torrington High School. Oh look at that, I’ve sunk lower. Let’s move on.)

Not that I’m trying to be negative here. If this is going to be a rebuilding season—and it was shaping up that way even before starting quarterback Bryan Savage suffered a season-ending back injury prior to the UConn game and starting running back Larry Gaskins left school after it—then a game like the one Hofstra enjoyed Saturday, when it scored the most points in the Dave Cohen era, is vital for confidence in the short-term and success in the long-term.

It further provides a foundation for the 19 underclassmen who started against Bucknell, including the 1-2 punch of Brock Jackolski (170 yards and three touchdowns on nine carries, 18 yards on three catches and 107 yards on three kickoff returns) and Cory Christopher (148 yards passing and one touchdown, 54 yards rushing and two touchdowns).

But the last time the Flying Dutchmen set a Cohen-era record for most points in a game (43 against Stony Brook Sept. 26), they set the program’s record for biggest whuppin’ ever a mere six days later in a 56-0 loss to James Madison. So what can we expect next week after this latest record-setting outburst?

Probably not a 63-0 loss to Maine, but Hofstra’s challenges will likely go beyond merely getting to middle-of-nowhere Orono. (I say that to see if my two friends in Maine are really reading the blog, muahaha) The Black Bears aren’t nearly as formidable a foe as top-ranked James Madison, but they were impressive in using a 17-point fourth quarter to stun no. 24 Delaware, 27-10, in front of a crowd that included Delaware grad and vice presidential candidate Joe Biden (Hey Joe, does the Hofstra Arena look familiar? It should. Here are reminders here and here. Yes, I am now trash-talking a potential vice president.). Especially since the game is in Maine—not Hempstead, as Newsday thinks.

The Flying Dutchmen are explosive against lower-tier opponents but minimalistic against those stocked with scholarships. Hofstra scored 42 points against UConn, Albany (which, as you know, has one scholarship), Rhode Island and James Madison. That’s less than half as many points, in twice as many games, as they’ve scored against Stony Brook and Bucknell. And the inexperience on both sides of the ball is surely more apparent against better competition.

Don’t get used to the Gardi-type offensive outburst and winning margin the Flying Dutchmen enjoyed against Stony Brook and Bucknell. But maybe those experiences lead to another Gardi-type run at the playoffs next year.

***

A few other Hofstra- and CAA-related bits and bytes:

—How come nobody told me admission to the Bucknell game was free? And forget about Hofstra being inspired to do the same: Attendance Saturday was 2,444, well less than half of the average attendance thus far this season at Shuart Stadium (5,639).

—Amazingly, Stony Brook is STILL on pace to score negative points this weekend. Check out my buddy Chris Lang’s coverage of Liberty’s shutout of the Seawolves.

—Anyone see the last-second, tie-breaking 69-yard punt return for a touchdown by James Madison’s Scotty McGee top SportsCenter’s plays of the day Saturday? (Bonus: The Hofstra-Bucknell score appears along the bottom of the screen late in the clip) McGee’s dramatic score capped a 10-point comeback in the final 3:21 as the Dukes edged no. 5 Richmond 38-31.

—I added to and re-organized the links on the right hand side of the page. As always, please patronize my friends by clicking on their websites and blogs. But please don’t patronize them like bunny rabbits.

—Here's an extra reminder to make sure you check out and bookmark The Blog Formerly Known As CAA: Life as a Mid Major. Michael Litos, whose work at CAA:LAMM set a sky-high standard for the rest of us and whose uncanny good timing is the envy of authors everywhere, relaunched and renamed the blog over the weekend. Thanks to Mike for the kind email and for including DD among his links. Very cool.

—And really, we should bring today’s blog full circle: His credibility long destroyed, Vanilla Ice destroys the master copy of “Ice Ice Baby”—as well as much of the MTV studio—in this awesomely hilarious 1999 clip. Check out the eclectic mix of commentators on the set, including CAA grad Jon Stewart and Chris “Why did only Will Ferrell recover from A Night At The Roxbury?” Kattan.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.

Brother, Where You Bound?

(This is almost certainly the only Supertramp reference I will ever make. Unless It's Raining Again next time I blog)

Thirteen days after they got a little too nostalgic for comfort against Albany, the Flying Dutchmen face another program with a familiar background Friday when they visit Stony Brook in what promises to be a soggy affair.

(Sidebar: Of course, I realize the current Dutchmen have no connection to Hofstra’s Division III or non-scholarship I-AA days. In fact, the star freshman running back was born, I kid you not, the same day Hofstra beat Stony Brook 48-0 in 1990. That was during my first month of my senior year of high school. I think I was listening to this. I am so very depressed now. Let’s move on.)

Anyway, the good news from the creative math department: Hofstra has won its last four football games against Stony Brook by an average of more than 27 points!

And now the bad news from the old-school math department: The Flying Dutchmen’s margin of victory, in order, since the series resumed in 2004: 40, 55, 9, 5.

So, you know, the trends aren’t exactly in Hofstra’s favor as it prepares for the now-annual No-Win Situation Bowl (not presented by State Farm). The Dutchmen are supposed to win, because beating the Seawolves (am I the only one tempted to type Patriots when referring to Stony Brook? And is there a blog out there called Persistently Patriotic?) is the one thing that links Hofstra football eras.

The Dutchmen were 7-0 against Stony Brook from 1984-90, when both schools were in Division III. And they’re 4-0 since the series resumed in 2004, five years after Stony Brook made the leap to I-AA. Overall, Hofstra has outscored Stony Brook 349-87.

A loss to Stony Brook would be more difficult to absorb than the loss to Albany, and not only because Hofstra’s supposed to be long past the days of losing to programs with less than 63 scholarships. A win for the Seawolves would be historic and, perhaps, a building block as they look to emerge from the shadow of big brother.

Stony Brook moved from Division III to Division I in 1999 and legitimized itself by moving into the America East following Hofstra’s defection in 2001. Like Hofstra, Stony Brook eased into I-AA football as a non-scholarship program before gradually phasing in the full allotment of scholarships.

Athletic director Jim Fiore, who played on the Flying Dutchmen’s final D-III team in 1990, dreams of the day when little brother is the top D-I program on Long Island. Anyone who saw last season’s incredibly physical Hofstra-Stony Brook men’s basketball game at the Arena—in which the Seawolves held off a late rally to earn just their fourth win in the 21-game series—knows it’s not just the decision-makers who want to beat Hofstra.

Fiore is not shy about talking about his plans for global—or at least regional—domination in the America East. It’s already outgrown the Northeast Conference in football and Fiore won’t rule out an eventual move to Division I-A. And basketball coach Steve Pikell has spoken of turning Stony Brook into a George Washington-type powerhouse.

There’s nothing wrong with dreaming big, but evidence suggests Fiore’s trying to run a marathon with a program that’s barely begun to crawl. (And with Stony Brook president Shirley Strum Kenny planning to retire at the end of the school year, it’s fair to wonder if he’ll even get a chance to finish the race under the new head honcho)

The men’s basketball program is 20-66 under Pikell and has yet to make a dent in the America East, which is one of the lowest-ranked conferences in the country. The football team plays at an impressive stadium and has a pretty loyal following on eastern Long Island, but its average crowd last year was just 4,601. On the field, the Seawolves opened the season with a 42-26 win over Colgate, but have scored fewer points in each of their three subsequent losses.

Hey, I like that trend. It says Hofstra will win, even if it’s 6-3, and fend off little brother for at least another season. Weather-permitting, the wife and I will be there to watch. I’ll be the guy yelling about Jimmy Jones.

We just witnessed a miracle and I want you to [TV edit] acknowledge it!

I was a sophomore in high school the first time I figured my procrastination had done me in. I had a research paper due in English class on a Wednesday, and as that week began I realized I was completely screwed. The research wasn’t done, the writing wasn’t done and none of it was close to done. And worst of all, there was no way to keep this from my mom, who had to decipher my chicken scratchings and type the paper for me on a typewriter (click the links, kids, so you can appreciate how good you’ve got it).

I staved her off for a while on Tuesday, but it was getting to be the time of night where I could no longer tell her it was coming soon. Pretty soon she’d realize it wasn’t done and pretty soon she’d realize she’d be up all night first helping me finish the paper and then typing it. And it would get ugly. Real ugly. Ugly as in my dad’s going to tell me he’s disappointed I’m making my mom cry ugly.

Then the news came: Power outage at the school. No school Wednesday.

I felt a sense of abject relief I never knew possible. There was no way out, yet I’d escaped. I was headed for certain doom, yet Clarence and Miriam apparently took time out from saving buses full of bickering, Christmas caroling kids to spare me a big fat F and a summer-long grounding. I was lost in the middle of the desert and I magically found a Comfort Inn.

I mention this nearly 20-year-old memory not to upset my mother but because I figure the Flying Dutchmen felt a similar sense of pardoned-at-11:59-p.m. relief right around 4 pm Saturday, when Rhode Island kicker Louis Feinstein pulled a John Carney (the one with the Saints, not the 76-year-old man who keeps nailing field goals for the Giants) and replaced Hofstra’s Brian Hanly as the sickest man in America by missing a PAT that would have given the Rams a one-point lead with less than a minute to play.

Of course, maybe the Dutchmen would have won anyway thanks to quarterback Cory Christopher, who, for the second straight week, directed an Elway-esque length-of-the-field march to put Hofstra in position to win the game. This time, walk-on kicker Roger Williams booted a 38-yard field goal with three seconds left and then made the game-ending tackle on the subsequent kickoff to end a frightfully good Cal-Stanford impersonation—albeit without the band on the field—at the Hofstra 20-yard-line to seal a thrilling 23-20 win.

However it happened—a Jules-esque miracle or an Elway-esque drive—it had to happen, because after 59 minutes and 13 seconds Saturday, it was abundantly clear that Hofstra could not afford to lose to Rhode Island. Losing to Albany seven days earlier was disappointing because the Flying Dutchmen should be long past the days of losing to a non-scholarship program (sorry…one-scholarship program).

But a loss Saturday would have been demoralizing because it would have been the most obvious sign yet that it’s just not meant to be this season. Sure, it’s easy for those of us over here to say stuff like that, and football coaches thrive on getting their players to forget the past and ignore the long-term view in favor of focusing only on the next game on the schedule.

Still, to lose that game in the last minute would have been crushing. For much of Saturday, it looked as if Hofstra had completely rebuilt itself in the seven days following the Albany upset. Rhode Island racked up 43 points and 517 yards the week before, yet a defense that had trouble wrapping up Albany’s Dave McCarty quieted the Rams following a quick first score (it’s rare you can truthfully use the phrase “before the fans even settled into their seats,” but the Rams drove 73 yards in 97 seconds and were up 7-0 as my wife and I were still filing in), forced three turnovers and, at one point, held them to one first down or less on seven straight drives.

The Flying Dutchmen dominated the Rams in just about every offensive category, including total yards (476-341) and time of possession (37:22-22:58), rushing yards (211-93) and first downs (25-15). Hofstra held the ball for at least nine minutes in each of the last three quarters.

A month ago, Christopher was slotted for backup duty and Brock Jackolski was headed for a redshirt, but they once again proved eminently qualified for their starring roles by combining for 531 all-purpose yards.

Even the special teams emerged, albeit after halftime: The struggling Hanly, who missed a PAT and a field goal before suggesting to Dave Cohen at intermission that he be benched in favor of Williams, threw a perfect touchdown pass to Ottis Lewis off a fake field goal attempt early in the third quarter.

Alas, that was called back due to penalty, and as the fourth quarter progressed it appeared as if Hofstra would be done in by ill-timed mistakes and failures to capitalize. Jackolski’s 64-yard run gave the Dutchmen, up 17-14, a first down at the one with less than six minutes left. But Hofstra gained no yardage on first or second down and Christopher was sacked on third down, forcing the Dutchmen to use their last timeout (they called three timeouts in a span of three minutes in the fourth) and to send Williams out to kick a 33-yard field goal.

A personal foul on the kickoff gave Rhode Island a first down at its 46, and Anthony Ferrer rambled 21 yards on fourth-and-one to give the Rams a first down at the one with 51 seconds left. He scored on the next play, setting up the Miracle on FieldTurf.

Never mind how crushing it would have been to lose on a day when Hofstra did so much right. It would have been soul-sucking, too, to lose on a Homecoming straight out of central casting. Back in my day, Homecoming was played in monsoons (anyone else remember how Homecoming ’95 was nearly postponed because of torrential rain and lightning?) and in front of sparse crowds.

So I didn’t recognize what we saw at Hofstra Saturday: Brilliant skies, folks tapping kegs, tailgating and playing touch football in the parking lots and several thousand fans actually standing, screaming and hugging one another in the game’s final seconds. Who are you and what have you done with my apathetic Hofstra?

I long ago gave up on the idea that Hofstra could ever build a fan base on the momentum generated by its sports teams. But still…it was nice to see. And it’s a lot easier to lure a giant chunk of the 6,107 who showed up Saturday—and that was a legitimate number—back to the Stadium in five weeks fresh off a dramatic win rather than an agonizing loss.

As for the football team itself: The schedule is still brutal—the Dutchmen, who visit Stony Brook Friday, still have to face five of the top 12 teams in the current I-AA poll, including top-ranked James Madison Oct. 4—and who knows what kind of shape Hofstra will be in by the time it hosts Delaware Oct. 25. But a last-minute power outage—pardon me, miracle—means the worst-case scenario isn’t as bad as it looked a week ago.

Jerry Beach can be reached at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.

Albany is who we used to be! And we let them off the hook!

(Hi. I'm former Red Sox first baseman/outfielder David McCarty. That kid from Albany may think he's pretty good, but has he ever hit a game-winning homer at Fenway, mopped up in a big league game and won a World Series ring, all in the same season? I didn't think so)

Did that game Saturday night look a little familiar?

Did you sense Albany, already bursting with the belief they could knock off a Big Bad School With A Full Allotment Of Scholarships, gaining confidence that it could accomplish the seemingly with every possession?

Did you look across the field at the Albany cheering section as Hofstra methodically drove down the field in the final five minutes of regulation and remember the rapid-fire thought process: “We’ve come too far to lose this game can’t lose this game that ride home is gonna suck can’t lose this game oh God this is gonna hurt can’t imagine losing this game…”

And did you watch the Great Danes spill on to the field after David McCarty—who apparently missed the memo that guys sporting uniform no. 3 are no longer allowed to run wild at Shuart Stadium—barged in for the game-winning touchdown in overtime and recall the abject joy of watching David slay Goliath?

I was going to say Albany’s 22-16 win—the Great Danes’ first win over Hofstra since the days of Breakfast Club, Pretty In Pink, even St. Elmo’s Fire—represented the completion of Hofstra’s 180-degree turn from the pursuer to the pursued, but cracking open the media guide revealed the Flying Dutchmen lost to Big South schools Elon and Liberty, neither of whom had 63 scholarships, in 2002.

And let’s face it: Hofstra’s not exactly a Goliath this season. Nor was this exactly Michigan-Appalachian State—Hofstra was a three-point favorite against a team gave UMass all it could handle last week.

Still, it’s odd to see things from the other side. But that’s progress, right? I mean, you can’t be the lovable underdog forever. Even these guys eventually got past it.

But this was a game Hofstra could not afford to lose, and it had nothing to do with 63 vs. 30. It had everything to do with alternately managing the game to win it…and doing everything possible to fritter it away.

Hofstra ran more than three times as many plays as Albany in the fourth quarter (29-9), held the ball for 36:41 and converted eight of 16 third- or fourth-down conversions. Yet despite running 18 more plays, the Flying Dutchmen outgained the Great Danes by just 95 yards. Hofstra squandered seven points on busted field goals and extra points and, after going for it on fourth down and scoring a touchdown in the first quarter, employed a game plan conservative enough to make Herm Edwards look like Air Coryell.

Hard to blame Dave Cohen for playing for the field goal in the final minute of regulation, but after two blocked kicks, why did he think kicking a field goal in overtime was a good idea? I’m sure Cohen is saying all the right, albeit boring-as-a-tour-of-a-box-factory things about it’s only one game, there’s nine to go, gotta forget about this one and look ahead to this week, etc etc. But human nature suggests it’s a lot easier to leave behind a game in which you leave seven points on the field and win by one rather than losing the same contest in overtime.

In addition, a win Saturday was essential because it would have felt like a nice building block, particularly given the encouraging performances of new starting QB Cory Christopher and freshman RB Brock Jackolski.

Christopher racked up more than 300 yards of total offense, seemed to be the only player the coaching staff trusted for much of the second half—he carried the ball on four straight plays and five of seven during a drive spanning the third and fourth quarters—and looked like a leader, especially on the methodical 19-play drive that looked as if it would result in a game-winning field goal. If you’ve got a quarterback who doesn’t panic and can make something out of nothing a few times a day, you’re ahead of the game.

And Jackolski, whom the staff planned to redshirt until recently, and showed flashes of that no. 1 back ability with three kickoff returns for 78 yards and a three-yard touchdown run.

Even with Christopher and Jackolski playing well, it was clear Saturday Hofstra has a lot of work to do as the CAA season approaches. But the task doesn’t look quite as imposing when the record is 1-1 instead of 0-2.

Now? Conservative probably won’t work against Rhode Island, which scored at will in a loss to New Hampshire Saturday. And with a month-long road trip after that, it’s threatening to get late early. And can you imagine being 0-3 going into Stony Brook a week from Friday? That’ll be a game the Dutchmen really can’t afford to lose.

And if you’re looking for another bad sign? In 2002, the Flying Dutchmen went 2-10. Gulp.