Villanova @ App State

[mountain_man]

You can take the Payton ballots and throw them in the trash. Sczur is the best player in the land my friends.

Two years in a row.

Last year, no. This year, absolutely.

[clenz]

Amazing how much time nova had to throw - never got real pressure on the QB all day. About halfway through the first quarter it was like the UNI/Lehigh game all over again - I watched that one hoping to play UNI because they were so bad. Appy is a very good team, but I would've loved for Devlin to have all day to throw against them too. Oh well.

Thats because you had the best o-lineman and o-line in the CAA, and probably all of I-AA, up front:
LT #71 Sr Ijalana 6'4/320- all world
LG #67 Sr Clouser 6'2/305 1st team All CAA
C #50 So Shirey 6'2/290 3rd team All CAA
RG #75 rFr Bucci 6'5/345
RT #79 So Ekweozor 6'5/320

Thats about an avg of 6'3.5"/316. Nova runs more to the left hand side behind those 2 seniors, and get the majority of the yardage behind those 2. Even a lot of their yardage that comes off the right hand side comes when they move Ijalana and Clouser to the right, or move Ijalana to the right going unbalanced right.

I just watched the line of scrimmage when Nova had the ball, and I saw alot of ASU front 7 getting either pushed off the line of scrimmaged, sealed, or pancaked, blowing open holes, esp by #71. When they dominate like that, Whitney, Ball and Babarro are going to look really good, and a healthy Sczur is going to have a field day.

I've said it before and I'll say again - a good o-line can make average skill players (QB, RB, and WR) look like All American's. I'm not saying Nova doesn't have good skill players, but having that o-line makes them better than they are.

To use a cliche - a team is only as strong as it's weakest link. For Nova what is the weak link right now on offense?

Teams like UNI who have some of the best skill players in the country but have an o-line with no experience (even at an average of 6'5 310) will suffer bad losses.

[93henfan]

Two years in a row.

Last year, no. This year, absolutely.

So who did you think was more valuable to their team last year?

[Fact]

i don't even know if Villanova has a weak link on offense.. the weak link of the team period is the pass rush

[Fact]

Last year, no. This year, absolutely.

So who did you think was more valuable to their team last year?

it's the most outstanding player, and i don't know if you can argue against armanti edwards.

[93henfan]

So who did you think was more valuable to their team last year?

it's the most outstanding player, and i don't know if you can argue against armanti edwards.

If I could have had either on my team, I'd have taken Szczur last year. Granted, we already had a good QB. Some teams would have killed for AE.

[BDKJMU]

it's the most outstanding player, and i don't know if you can argue against armanti edwards.

If I could have had either on my team, I'd have taken Szczur last year. Granted, we already had a good QB. Some teams would have killed for AE.

Thats because you already had Devlin at QB..

[kdinva]

Had VU been healthy all season, they may have had a 10-1 regular season...........will be a fun game at EWU next weekend.

[RichSpiders]

Nice job Nova .. CAA baby!

[Ivytalk]

Congrats to the Cats. They can smell another title.

[ASUG8]

No offense to Whitney, but VU doesn't need him. #4 is the man. I'm not much on predicting games, but VU repeats as national champs. Congrats Wildcats - you beat us all over the field.

[Appaholic]

Congrats Nova! You were clearly a better team & would have been top seed with a full year of #4. But it wasn't just him - the Oline & Dline were awesome as well. After seeing them today & also watching Ga South & Delaware, I don't see how Nova doesn't repeat. However, I have not watched EWU this year, so that's suspect. But Nova, at full strength, is the class of FCS IMO.

[BDKJMU]

Had VU been healthy all season, they may have had a 10-1 regular season...........will be a fun game at EWU next weekend.

As I said before, maybe. But W&M was up on them 31-10 middle of the 4th before Nova scored 2 TDs 2nd half of 4th to make it look closer 31-24. As I said before, W&M still likely wins that game even if Nova had a healthy Szczur & Nova finishes 9-2/7-1

[proasu89]

Outplayed and outcoached today. Tough to watch but the best team won. Thanks to all of our seniors who gave their all for Appalachian State the last 4 years.

[Pwns]

Wasn't able to watch the game since I was in Spartanburg. How on Earth did App. State outgain Nova, have a turnover marigin of just -1, and lose by 28?

[BearIt]

No offense to Whitney, but VU doesn't need him. #4 is the man. I'm not much on predicting games, but VU repeats as national champs. Congrats Wildcats - you beat us all over the field.

You need some one to lob up those ugly, lame ducks to the wide open reciever because every one bit on the run.

[Mvemjsunpx]

Wasn't able to watch the game since I was in Spartanburg. How on Earth did App. State outgain Nova, have a turnover marigin of just -1, and lose by 28?

They lost by 18, not 28.

I was also wondering the same thing about why they lost so bad. I'm guessing it's because App tried for it on fourth down 9 times(!) and only got 4 of them.

[danefan]

Wasn't able to watch the game since I was in Spartanburg. How on Earth did App. State outgain Nova, have a turnover marigin of just -1, and lose by 28?

They lost by 18, not 28.

I was also wondering the same thing about why they lost so bad. I'm guessing it's because App tried for it on fourth down 9 times(!) and only got 4 of them.

I watched the whole game.
App State lost because they got manhandled up front on both sides of the ball. They also lost because Presley had an off day (kid's got a cannon, but wasn't accurate at all yesterday).

But most accurately - they lost because they couldn't deal with Sczur (104 rushing (3 TDs), 58 passing (1 TD) and 45 receiving (1 TD).

[Skjellyfetti]

App State lost because they got manhandled up front on both sides of the ball. They also lost because Presley had an off day (kid's got a cannon, but wasn't accurate at all yesterday).

But most accurately - they lost because they couldn't deal with Sczur (104 rushing (3 TDs), 58 passing (1 TD) and 45 receiving (1 TD).

This is an accurate recap.

[SunCoastBlueHen]

I think ASU played well and made a nice showing considering they were playing a top tier CAA team.

[T-Dog]

The turnovers killed us. Nova was beating us up on the lines, but we had our chances. After Nova fumbled the kickoff return with 10 minutes to go, if we get that first down and a touchdown, I honestly believe we win the game.

We got out-coached big time is this game.

[AssKickinChicken]

Villanova was by far the better team. ASU hit Nova for two big plays totaling 120 yrds early on before the Nova defense settled in. Once VU's defense became acclimated ASU was done. ASU's defense was no match for the Nova power running game (285 yrds) while the ASU running game was completely shut down. ASU had 100 rushing yrds but half of that came on one play in their first series, after that their running game was pretty much non existent. I took a lot of heat when I predicted early on;

by AssKickinChicken » Sun Oct 10, 2010 8:55 am

ASU has played two decent opponents (UTC & Elon) and given up 500 yrds of offense to both.

ASU may be currently unbeaten and ranked #1, but they can forget Frisco and maybe even the SoCon title unless that tissue thin defense improves a whole lot before the Furman, GSU, Wofford run

but it seems I was correct, as ASU met two teams who played really tough defense, GSU & Villanova and lost to both.

[ttgwm02]

Not really fair to use the WM score in this thread. WM was night and day this season. Games where they were on (Villanova, Richmond, second half ODU, second half Maine, fourth quarter Delaware) they were a juggernaut. Like Nova and Delaware WM has a number of players that would start right away at a lot of FBS schools; their o-line is smaller but very athletic. At the same time WM laid an egg against some times this year (nearly losing to Maine, and the run defense was atrocious against JMU and Georgia Southern). That was the thing about WM. We never had consistent quarterback play, we had lots of injuries. It was like Forest Gump's box of chocolates, you never knew what you were going to get.

[AshevilleApp]

Been away from a computer for a couple of days. Congratulations Villanova on a much deserved win.

[ASUG8]

Villanova was by far the better team. ASU hit Nova for two big plays totaling 120 yrds early on before the Nova defense settled in. Once VU's defense became acclimated ASU was done. ASU's defense was no match for the Nova power running game (285 yrds) while the ASU running game was completely shut down. ASU had 100 rushing yrds but half of that came on one play in their first series, after that their running game was pretty much non existent. I took a lot of heat when I predicted early on;

by AssKickinChicken » Sun Oct 10, 2010 8:55 am

ASU has played two decent opponents (UTC & Elon) and given up 500 yrds of offense to both.

ASU may be currently unbeaten and ranked #1, but they can forget Frisco and maybe even the SoCon title unless that tissue thin defense improves a whole lot before the Furman, GSU, Wofford run

but it seems I was correct, as ASU met two teams who played really tough defense, GSU & Villanova and lost to both.

Yeah, you're the Kirk Herbstreit of CS.......