Point/Counterpoint

Next time, Michael Litos and I will argue whether or not Bag O' Glass is a perfectly safe Christmas gift for the kiddies.

Lots of preview material to wade through today, but let’s begin by looking back. CAA blogger extraordinaire Michael Litos invited me to his site to debate Antoine Agudio—specifically whether or not his one-dimensional play was a help or a hindrance to the Flying Dutchmen last year as well as whether or not his presence will be missed this year.

Click here to see how heated it got and to see which one of us resorted to Dan Aykroyd-esque name-calling. Actually, it didn’t get heated at all, and I think we agree that the Dutchmen will be a lot better and a lot more versatile this year. We just have different opinions on how that reflects upon Agudio.

I won’t rehash here my defense of Agudio’s performance last year, but I don’t think he should be punished, for lack of a better word, for who he is and for being the centerpiece of a rebuilding team. With four new starters taking the court on a nearly nightly basis, the Flying Dutchmen weren’t going to be very good last year, unless Agudio managed to become a regular double-double threat, a la Loren Stokes and Carlos Rivera. Would that have been nice? Sure. But you can’t expect Agudio to suddenly transform into somebody else in his senior season.

It’s the flipside of the 2000-01 team, which lost Speedy Claxton yet improved from 24-7 to 26-5, enjoyed the nation’s longest winning streak and was far more competitive against UCLA in the NCAA Tournament than the Claxton-led team was against Oklahoma State in the big dance a year earlier. Hofstra wasn’t better because Claxton was gone. It was better because the starting lineup still featured four experienced and tournament-tested seniors (Jason Hernandez, Greg Springfield, Roberto Gittens and Norman Richardson)—pretty much the exact opposite of what the Flying Dutchmen had to deal with last season.

Anyway, feel free to chime in on Agudio by commenting here or sending me an email (defiantlydutch@yahoo.com). Big thanks to Mike for the invite as well as for linking the post that got us debating in the first place. And if you found your way here via Mike’s site, welcome...and make yourself comfortable. We’re having some fun here.

***

Found three more previews over the weekend. And I’ll begin with The Sports Network, which, when it comes to predicting college basketball, is pretty good at producing a Division I-AA football poll.

I don’t want to sound like That Guy, the one who parses every word written about his favorite team and figures you must hate me if you don’t expect much out of said squad. I’d have a lot of enemies if that was the case, since Hofstra is picked above sixth in only one of the 10 polls I’ve seen thus far.

But I honestly have no idea what Mike Castiglione was thinking picking Hofstra dead friggin’ last. I don’t expect those who think a Dutch Treat is a casual date and not the home of hideously marked up six-packs of soda to be as optimistic or as obsessive as me. And the CAA is so deep that it’s tough to differentiate between four and 12, as I’m learning as I ponder the predictions I’ll post Friday (blatant plug).

But still…12th? I might chalk it up to the aforementioned balance of the CAA—hey, somebody has to be picked last—if Castiglione didn’t begin the Hofstra blub by stating “Without question, the Pride are entering head first into a rebuilding year.” Uhh, that was last year. When the Flying Dutchmen had four new starters.

Four sentences later, Castiglione mentions the “…plenty of question marks” Hofstra has, “…despite the return of four starters.” Well, what is it? It can’t be a rebuilding year with four returning starters, unless you’re New Jersey Tech. (Along those lines, one of these is not like the other, not like the other)

Anyway, that’s my rant about The Sports Network. I also found CAA predictions from the websites Collegehoops.net and Hoopville.net, the latter of which provides a particularly exhaustive take on the conference. Which poll was the one to end VCU’s quest for the unanimous no. 1 spot?

Below are the updated overall rankings, followed by the three newest polls.

1.) VCU (9) 12
2.) Northeastern (1) 31
2.) Old Dominion 31
4.) George Mason 41
5.) Delaware 53
6.) Georgia State 59
7.) Hofstra 75
8.) James Madison 87
9.) UNC-Wilmington 88
10.) William & Mary 91
11.) Towson 101
12.) Drexel 108
First-place votes in parenthesis
Polls compiled thus far: CAA, Blue Ribbon, Sporting News, Lindy’s, Athlon, The Sports Xchange, CBSSports.com, The Sports Network, Collegehoops.net, Hoopville

The Sports Network

1.) VCU
2.) Old Dominion
3.) Northeastern
4.) George Mason
5.) Delaware
6.) William & Mary
7.) UNC-Wilmington
8.) Georgia State
9.) James Madison
10.) Drexel
11.) Towson
12.) Hofstra

Collegehoops.net

1.) VCU
2.) Northeastern
3.) Old Dominion
4.) George Mason
5.) Georgia State
6.) Hofstra
7.) Delaware
8.) UNC-Wilmington
9.) William & Mary
10.) Drexel
11.) James Madison
12.) Towson

Hoopville.net

1.) Northeastern
2.) Old Dominion
3.) VCU
4.) Georgia State
5.) Delaware
6.) Towson
7.) George Mason
8.) UNC-Wilmington
9.) Hofstra
10.) James Madison
11.) William & Mary
12.) Drexel

Some quick notes about how the new additions (not New Edition, that would just be weird) affected the overall rankings:

—Hofstra was at Georgia State’s heels for sixth after seven polls, but the Flying Dutchmen are entrenched in seventh after being picked 12th, sixth and ninth. The count so far is three seventh-place votes, two sixth-place votes, two ninth-place votes, one fourth-place vote, one eighth-place vote and one 12th-place vote.

—Northeastern moves up for the second straight period after becoming the first team other than VCU to garner a first-place vote, though it should be noted that the author of the Hoopville preview, Jay Pearlman, is a former radio analyst for Northeastern. The Huskies received a first-, second- and third-place vote to move into a tie for second with Old Dominion, the latter of which has been picked below third just once.

—The only other change in the overall poll: UNC-Wilmington broke its tie for ninth with William & Mary, which is now 10th.

—Mason received its lowest vote yet in the Hoopville poll while Towson received its highest vote.

—VCU has been picked first in nine polls, Delaware has been picked fifth in eight polls, Mason has been picked fourth in six polls and James Madison has been picked ninth in six polls.

That’s all for today. Three days until hoops season starts. Make sure to check back between now and then as I’ve got a couple pretty cool things in the pipeline.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.

Worst...Season...Ever?

What would Comic Book Guy think, if he was a Hofstra grad?

“This is the worst ten dollars I’ve ever spent,” my wife said sometime in the second quarter Saturday as we huddled underneath an umbrella that was too small to shield us both and too wet to be of much help anyway. Someday someone is going to invent an umbrella that either absorbs all the water it collects without becoming too heavy or dispenses it so that it makes everyone else around you wet instead of dripping on your legs and making you even colder. Sure it might annoy my neighbors, but hey, more room for me.

Where was I? Oh yes. I think her words were an example of this, because I know she spent 10 dollars in far worse ways on campus in the mid-90s. I’m sure she consumed rock-hard Hofstra burgers older than the Bits and Bytes cats. And I remember ordering one truly awful meal from Campus Pizza that turned us off that otherwise sensational restaurant.

But in the context of the moment, I really couldn’t blame her. It was cold, it was wet—thanks again, local weathermen, for your super awesome accurate forecast; I guess when you said “50% chance of rain” you left off the second zero, or meant a 50% chance that we wouldn’t be able to get home without an ark, keep up the good work!—and the Flying Dutchmen football team was just getting hammered by Richmond. I mean, there-should-be-a-mercy-rule hammered. I mean, Tex Cobb-by-Larry Holmes hammered.

At halftime, Richmond running back Josh Vaughan—who played last season behind new Cardinals starting running back Tim Hightower—had 166 yards rushing. Hofstra had 71 yards. Total.

It got a little better in the second half, when Hofstra scored a pair of touchdowns without us in attendance to turn a potentially historic bludgeoning into a mere 34-14 rout. (The link is from Newsday, here’s the recap from the Richmond Times-Dispatch) But it was still the fourth straight loss for the Flying Dutchmen, the third straight by at least 17 points and the latest bit of evidence that this is shaping up as one of the worst seasons in the 68-year history of the program.

The current skid is only the third time the Flying Dutchmen have lost at least three consecutive games by 17 or more points. The 1974 team lost four in a row by at least that margin on its way to a 1-9-1 finish, a mere 25 years after the 1949 club lost three in a row by at least 17 points during a 1-5-1 season.

Of course, upgrades to the program and the caliber of competition make it impossible to compare 2008 to 1974 or 1949 or even 1981, when the Dutchmen lost four in a row by at least 14 points. Nor can we hold this team to the standard of the peak Gardi-era teams, because those years are gone and may never return.

But we can compare this team to some recent editions—like the 2003 team, which went 2-10 but lost four games by a touchdown or less. The Dutchmen lost 23 games between 2004 and 2007, but only five by 17 or more. The 2006 team went 2-9 and lost its last seven games—but none by more than 11 points and only two by more than seven points.

Is this year’s lack of competitiveness a result of a perfect storm of inexperience and injury? If so, maybe Saturday was rock bottom. Newsday reports Dave Cohen will return next season, much to the chagrin of the angry fans who want Hofstra to fire him, and Cohen sounded embarrassed by how Richmond dwarfed the Dutchmen in all facets of the game.

But what if the 4-11 record since a 6-0 start last year the sign of something worse—symbolic of the continued decline of a program that was never a moneymaker even during its prime years but one whose standing within the athletic department never waned with a school president and athletic director who played for the program?

We won’t begin to find out until next year. In the meantime, take solace in two things: Four days until basketball starts. And no matter how bad the football team is faring, it’s still better off than Iona!

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.

Soccer, The Hardy Boys and a whole lot in between

Do you think the Hardy Boys could have gotten to the bottom of the 2006 NCAA Tournament scam? I do.

Big night tonight for the soccer teams at Hofstra as the Flying Dutchwomen advanced to the CAA championship game by upsetting top-seeded William & Mary, 3-2. The Dutchwomen will play for their third league title (and NCAA Tournament berth) in the last four years Sunday when they take on sixth-seeded Northeastern, which also pulled off an upset Friday by knocking off second-seeded James Madison. Hofstra lost to Northeastern, 2-1, eight days ago.

The men’s soccer team, meanwhile, reached the CAA tournament by edging regular season champ UNC-Wilmington, 1-0, in overtime. The Flying Dutchmen, whose streak of three straight CAA crowns and NCAA bids was snapped last year, will be the sixth and final seed and will play third-seeded George Mason in the first round of the tourney Tuesday.

A couple other links and some reader emails before the weekend:

—With the men’s and women’s basketball teams scheduled to begin play a week from tonight, the Hofstra sports information department has posted the previews for each squad. These, presumably, will run at the front of the media guides. (Oh boy oh boy oh boy, it’s almost time for the men’s basketball media guide…like Christmas six weeks early. I wish I was kidding)

The Richmond Times-Dispatch previews tomorrow’s Richmond-Hofstra football game. The Spiders (great nickname, unless you found nothing entertaining about this movie) likely need to win out in order to reach the I-AA playoffs, so coach Mike London is saying all the right things about how his club can’t overlook the reeling Flying Dutchmen, who have lost three straight games and might be 0-4 in the CAA if not for a missed Rhode Island PAT in the last minute and a subsequent Cory Christopher-led drive for a game-winning field goal Sept. 20.

Dave Cohen, meanwhile, has two assistants who used to be on the Spiders’ staff, and he’s saying all the right things about how Richmond is borderline unbeatable. “I’m asking ‘Well, are these guys as good as they look?’” Cohen told the Times-Dispatch. “And the answer continues to be ‘Yes. Yes, yes, yes.’ So it’s not helping my confidence.”

Mine, either, I guess. I’d be happy if Chris Lang’s prediction in the Lynchburg News & Advance is accurate.

(This seems like as good a place as any to mention I’ve always been partial to Richmond since its men’s basketball team became the first no. 15 seed to ever beat a no. 2 when the Spiders knocked off Syracuse and sourpuss Jim Boehiem in 1991. Good times)

—Michael Litos had some CAA men’s hoops news this afternoon, including the suspension of three Towson players. That’s not a good sign of things to come for the Tigers: The Flying Dutchmen opened the 2002-03 season without Rick Apodaca and Wendell Gibson, each of whom were suspended 14 games for smoking marijuana, and went 2-12 in those games on their way to an 8-21 finish. It seemed like a ludicrous overreaction then and it seems like a ludicrous overreaction now, but what do I know?

Now for some mail from my Loyal Readers. Rob writes in to correct my Freak Formal post from a week ago. He says it was his ankle, not his knee, that he wrecked playing football before the Freak in 1994. Defiantly Dutch apologizes for the error and also for forgetting to mention that Rob went as Kurt Cobain, complete with a T-shirt that read “Corporate Magazines Suck.” Awesome. The things that grow fuzzy with time.

Publisher Cat notes an interesting Associated Press story about the sports world’s reaction to the election of Barack Obama and wondered if Hofstra can “…line up a non-league game against Oregon State at the site of the third debate?”

Oregon State, of course, is coached by Obama’s brother-in-law, Craig Robinson. The Flying Dutchmen have never played Oregon State—not even during the long road trip that was the 1992-93 season, more on that shortly—and have played only four games (none at home, of course) against Pac-10 foes. Hofstra is 0-2 against both California and UCLA, the latter of whom knocked the Dutchmen off in the 2001 NCAA Tournament.

Somewhere here I have a photo of the scoreboard that shows Hofstra leading at the eight-minute TV timeout in the second half. At that point, my future wife and I were wondering just how the hell we were going to afford staying two nights in North Carolina. Turned out the Dutchmen didn’t score another point and we had nothing to worry about, except a really long ride home. Let’s move on.

In addition, a game against Oregon State would be doubly historic since, according to a perusal of Hofstra media guides, only one Hofstra squad has ever played Oregon State in anything: The volleyball team fell to Oregon State in three games in 1992.

Next up is Gonzo Hofstra Fan, who reminds me of my first-ever visit to Hofstra by agreeing that a Final Four run will draw more future students than a presidential debate:

"When I was deciding between Hofstra and other LI schools such as Adelphia and Post, one of the biggest factors in steering me to HU was the fact that someday I hoped I would be able to watch my alma mater in the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament, an opportunity I wouldn’t have had at any other LI school at the time. [Yeah, I’m so old that Stony Brook was still D-3 back then]"

Depressing. So am I. Gonzo’s email is particularly timely because I’m pretty sure it was this weekend 16 years ago—it was either the first or second weekend of November—when my parents and I took our first-ever trip to Hofstra for the fall open house. At that point, I was still pretty unsure where I wanted to transfer to after I finished community college back home.

Hofstra was the first D-I school we visited. It was one of those sparkling fall days that made the campus look particularly graceful. Dempster Hall blew my mind. Hofstra had me hook, line and sinker by lunch.

I remember walking out of the Student Center and looking at the clock when my dad asked if I was so quiet because I was unhappy.

“Not at all,” I said. “I think this is the one.”

“Good,” he said. “Me too.”

We cancelled a trip the next weekend to Adelphi and I applied to Hofstra, which somehow accepted me. Of course, had I recognized at the time that being an independent—which Hofstra was in basketball that season—was almost as bad as not being in Division I at all, I might have done something different. Like apply to UConn. Shudder. It’s easy to be a fan there.

We’ll close out the mailbag with Cake Sitter—don’t ask, I can assure you that you do not have the stomach for an explanation of that nickname—who was frightened to learn read that he and I both devoured Matt Christopher books as kids. He also writes to inform us how “…amazing [it is] that Matt Christopher…is still writing children’s sports books, despite having departed this mortal coil 11 years ago. I’m very much alive and can only imagine ever thinking about approaching his prolific output.”

Matt Christopher’s work, both during and after his time on this planet, is impressive. According to some quick math at his official website, he’s penned 136 books. No idea how many have been penned by his estate since his death, but I can’t imagine the ratio of his books/estate books is as lopsided as that of V.C. Andrews, the gothic author who wrote eight books before her death in 1986 yet whose estate has written 60 books under her name since.

But neither Christopher nor Andrews can even approach the output of Franklin W. Dixon, who, according to Wikipedia (which is never wrong), has authored a mind-boggling 435 Hardy Boys books, including the first real book I ever read. Not bad for someone who, to borrow Cake Sitter’s phrase, departed this mortal coil 31 years ago.

Unlike Matt Christopher and V.C. Andrews, there never was a Franklin W. Dixon, who was the pseudonym originated by the Stratemeyer Syndicate in the late 1920s. McFarlane was the first of many Franklin W. Dixons. By the way, did you know the W. stands for win? I kid you not. Edward Stratemeyer wanted every pseudonym to have some sort of inspirational meaning. Hence Nancy Drew author Carolyn Keene, Bobbsey Twins author Laura Lee Hope and Tom Swift author Victor Appleton.

I’ve had this information in my head for more than 20 years and now, finally, I’m able to use it on a blog about Hofstra sports! God bless the Internet.

Email Jerry about Hofstra sports as well as the Hardy Boys at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.

More Polls, More Pecora, Mason Prediction

Long before CBS Sports had a website, it had the best pregame, post-church football show on the planet.

While we all wait on Missouri to officially put the 2008 presidential election in the books (who’s counting the votes there, me?), we can report that another big precinct has cast its ballot in a race that’s projected to have a lot less suspense than Obama-McCain.

CBSSports.com has posted its CAA predictions and guess what? VCU is picked no. 1. Just as with The Sports Xchange rankings earlier in the week, I’ll post the updated overall poll before revealing the CBS rankings.

1.) VCU (7) 7
2.) Old Dominion 24
3.) Northeastern 25
4.) George Mason 26
5.) Delaware 36
6.) Georgia State 45
7.) Hofstra 48
8.) James Madison 57
9.) William & Mary 65
9.) UNC-Wilmington 65
11.) Towson 72
12.) Drexel 76
First-place votes in parenthesis
Polls compiled thus far: CAA, Blue Ribbon, Sporting News, Lindy’s, Athlon, The Sports Xchange, CBSSports.com

And the CBSSports.com predictions:

1.) VCU
2.) Northeastern
3.) Old Dominion
4.) George Mason
5.) Georgia State
6.) Delaware
7.) Hofstra
8.) UNC-Wilmington
9.) James Madison
10.) Drexel
11.) William & Mary
12.) Towson

As usual, some quick notes about how the CBSSports.com poll influences the overall rankings:

—Hofstra’s seventh-place vote is its third. The Flying Dutchmen have also been picked once apiece for fourth, sixth, eighth and ninth. I guess that’s how I get thanked for giving CBSSports.com my fantasy sports business since 2000. Harumph.

—Northeastern getting a second-place vote from CBS was enough to vault the Huskies past Mason for third. The only other position shift occurred with UNC-Wilmington moving into a tie for ninth with William & Mary (for the second time this campaign) thanks to its eighth-place vote.

—Now that Delaware has been picked somewhere other than fifth, VCU is the only team selected in the same spot in every poll.

—James Madison has been picked ninth in five polls. Old Dominion (third) and George Mason (fourth) have each been picked in the same spot in four polls.

A couple other bits and bytes:

—Tom Pecora was on Chris Russo’s show, Mad Dog Unleashed, on Sirius/XM earlier this evening. No Hofstra-specific stuff, but some fascination information about Operation Hardwood, which Pecora participated in back in August. Pecora talked about the soldiers the group met as well as a flight into Baghdad that was so hot (130 degrees) and rocky every coach brought a religious artifact with him. The 10 coaches on the trip also shared five bunk beds.

If I can find a link on the Sirius site, I’ll post it. (I’ll also take this opportunity to mention that satellite radio is the best thing since oxygen, and that once you try it, you’ll never go back to the crap that is terrestrial radio) Never a huge fan of Mike and the Mad Dog, but when it comes to rooting for the divorcees, I’ll go with Mad Dog eight days a week. Huge thanks to Loyal Reader Matt for calling to alert us to his appearance and props to Mad Dog for not forgetting Pecora even though he’s gone national.

—Also huge thanks to Michael Litos for the kind plug on his blog Wednesday. He has a post today about George Mason’s exhibition loss Wednesday to Division III Randolph Macon, a school I previously knew about only thanks to this Red Sox minor league pitcher. It’s amusing to read how good Macon is supposed to be in this game story on Mason’s official site. I realize getting a chuckle out of Mason falling to a D-III team is risky karma, since the Flying Dutchmen actually play a game that counts against a D-III school, but, well, it’s my blog and I’ll laugh if I want to.

And as Litos pointed out last week, it’s very early—so early it’s not even early yet—so it’s folly to get too wrapped up in pre-season workouts and exhibitions. But losing to Macon, even in an exhibition, reminds me why I’ve been skeptical that Mason can finish in the top four. (See if you can write Macon beats Mason five times fast)

It’s nothing personal (no, I swear), but losing two veteran leaders plus trying to work a quartet of hotly hyped newcomers into the mix sounds like a chemistry disaster waiting to happen. I’ll grant that Mason will be better at the end of the year than the beginning, but in a loaded conference, I’m not sure that’s going to be enough to earn a first-round bye come the first weekend of March.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.

Barack Obama wins the Presidency, does not host victory party at Hofstra USA

This is actually a picture of the Multipurpose Room. I learned over the last several hours that you can find a picture of everything on the Internet except an exterior shot of Hofstra USA. Hey Sully Ray, don’t you have some Hofstra USA shots in an attic somewhere?

No doubt buoyed by his performance at the Hofstra debate three weeks ago, Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States last night when he trounced John McCain, 349-147, with Georgia, Missouri and North Carolina still undecided. In McCain’s defense, he was down to his third-string quarterback.

Alas, Obama displayed his appreciation for Hofstra’s pivotal role in his triumph (no, not the Triumph) by hosting his victory party in Chicago, his so-called hometown. Pfffft. I promise you that when I’m elected president, I’m going to make my acceptance speech at Hofstra USA and then we’re gonna have a big buffet meal at The Lion’s Den.

What a night though. A historic and—here comes a pun!—prideful evening no matter which side of the aisle on which you reside. Need a few hours—or all day—to decompress, so we’ll be back later today or tomorrow with some sports-related stuff.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.

Early poll results are in!

Will McCain and Obama exchange long protein strings today?

(Probably would have been cooler if I’d waited until today to unveil the results of the first five polls, too. Oh well.)

Recently got my hands on the USA Today Sports Weekly college basketball preview. Don’t be fooled by it, though: The capsules, like a whole lot of Sports Weekly, are produced by The Sports Xchange. Why I’m annoyed by Sports Weekly’s reliance on wire copy is a blog topic for another time, I suppose.

And since Nate Silver was apparently a little busy (that’s for my buddy Elise), I took the time to crunch the numbers myself. Fifteen seconds later, I came up with this! (In interest of increasing the suspense, I’ll actually post the TSX predictions second)

1.) VCU (6) 6
2.) Old Dominion 21
3.) George Mason 22
4.) Northeastern 23
5.) Delaware 30
6.) Georgia State 40
7.) Hofstra 41
8.) James Madison 48
9.) William & Mary 54
10.) UNC-Wilmington 57
11.) Towson 60
12.) Drexel 66
First-place votes in parenthesis
Polls compiled thus far: CAA, Blue Ribbon, Sporting News, Lindy’s, Athlon, The Sports Xchange

And the TSX poll:

1.) VCU
2.) George Mason
3.) Old Dominion
4.) Hofstra
5.) Delaware
6.) Northeastern
7.) Georgia State
8.) William & Mary
9.) James Madison
10.) Towson
11.) UNC-Wilmington
12.) Drexel

A few quick notes on the TSX rankings and how they affected the overall polling:

—First and foremost, fourth is by the most optimistic prediction for Hofstra thus far. It wasn’t enough to improve the Flying Dutchmen’s overall rank, but it did move them within a point of Georgia State for sixth.

—The 2-3-4 logjam was jostled as Northeastern falls from second to fourth, ODU moves from third to second and Mason moves from fourth to third. All three schools are ranked in the top four in every poll but one. Other than that trio of movers, everyone remained in the same spot as before aside from the William & Mary/JMU tie being broken.

—Six polls in the books and there’s two unanimous picks: VCU first and Delaware fifth. Let’s hope Hofstra is the Dewey to VCU’s Truman come March.

That’s all for today. If you haven’t done so yet, get out and vote. After all, Hofstra magnanimously and selflessly spent millions of dollars and thousands of hours over the past year to educate you about how important it is to cast a ballot. If you fail to vote, the whole year will have been for naught.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.

We got the CAA spinnin’ right in our hands…

In this very special episode of Growing Pains, the Seavers learn the true meaning of Christmas...and get season tickets to see the Flying Dutchmen basketball team at the PFC.

This story from the Nashua Telegraph contains the type of straight-to-the-point lede (it’s spelled correctly, in the journalistic sense) that is necessary in today’s attention span-starved society. After all, people just don’t have the time or the patience to read a guy go on and on and on with a preamble that leads up to the crux of the story, even if said preamble is entertaining and well-constructed. People just want the facts. That’s all they want. All they have time for. Let me know what happened so I can get on with the rest of my clicking around the Interwebs.

Still here? Thanks.

Winning ugly covers up a lot of blemishes. (That recap is from the Union Leader newspaper) Losing ugly makes for a long ride home. And the Flying Dutchmen lost ugly Saturday in falling to ninth-ranked New Hampshire, 45-25, in bucolic Durham, NH. (I have no idea if Durham is bucolic. But my family regularly vacationed in New Hampshire when I was a kid and everything I’ve seen in the Granite State defines bucolic)

You know a loss is ugly when the lede (there’s that word again!) of the gamer by the Hofstra sports information department points out the record kickoff return yardage racked up by Aaron Weaver (he had 254 yards, one more than Mark Cox had in a 1990 game). If the Dutchmen won a shootout, that factoid would be buried. Since they didn’t, well, you’ve got to find positives somewhere.

At first glance, the return yardage isn’t even the most noticeable Hofstra advantage in the boxscore. The Flying Dutchmen actually recorded twice as many first downs as New Hampshire (24-12), outgained the Wildcats 339-278 and dominated time of possession (42:07-17:53). But as the lopsided final score indicated, those were empty advantages.

Hofstra had to run almost twice as many plays as New Hampshire (92-48) in order to outgain the Wildcats by 61 yards. The average gain per play was a paltry 3.7, more than two yards less than the Wildcats’ average. The Flying Dutchmen committed seven turnovers, including a record-tying five interceptions by freshman quarterback Steve Probst, two of which were returned for touchdowns.

Of New Hampshire’s five touchdown drives, four took 69 seconds or less. And it could have been worse: The Wildcats scored on just two of the five drives they began immediately after Hofstra turnovers.

Of course, it also could have been better: New Hampshire’s first four drives ended with a fumble, a punt (off a three-and-out), a turnover on downs and an interception in the end zone. And Hofstra had the chance to wear out the Wildcats by running 17 straight plays from scrimmage and 30 of 33 players in a stretch spanning the first and second quarters. The Flying Dutchmen, down 7-3 early in the second quarter, were also stymied on a fake field goal attempt inside the New Hampshire 10-yard-line.

That’s pretty much the summary of the season right there: A lot of growing pains with some hints of better days ahead. All but 38 yards (17 yards rushing and receiving by Ray Bennett and 21 yards receiving by Phil Riley) were accounted for by underclassmen. And four of the top five Dutchmen tacklers Saturday are underclassmen.

The trials will likely continue Saturday, when Richmond—ranked seventh in last week’s coaches poll and eighth in the writers’ poll—comes to town fresh off what amounts to two bye weeks: A 48-0 win over non-scholarship Georgetown followed by an open date (and that’s what a “bye week” is, a bye is awarded only in the postseason). Haven’t been to Shuart Stadium since Homecoming—doesn’t it feel as if that happened a lot more than six weeks ago?—and the hopeful short-term optimism that was present back then has long evaporated. But perhaps we’ll see some of those flickers of long-term promise.

***
A couple other interesting football links:

—The Richmond Times-Dispatch does not think Virginia Commonwealth should add a football team, and it’s got nothing to do with the already unwieldy nature of CAA football (14 teams once Georgia State and Old Dominion join).

—Are the final two games of Iona’s season the final games in the program’s history? An interesting story from the Lynchburg News & Advance about the possibility that Liberty will have to scramble to replace Iona on its 2009 schedule. The Gaels, a victim of the demise of MAAC football—the conference disbanded after six schools discontinued their programs and two more jumped to another conference—are an independent this year and have yet to beat a I-AA team.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.