Bye Weeks

With an uneven number of teams in the NE-10, one team has been forced to schedule a non-conference game or take the week off from games each of the nine weeks of the league schedule. But those off-weeks have seemed to help the teams when they return to face NE-10 competition.

New Haven was the first team to take the NE-10 bye and they nearly defeated D1 FCS member William & Mary. When they returned to NE-10 competition, they defeated Assumption 21-7. This past weekend, AIC returned from a bye week and defeated Merrimack 38-34.

In fact, teams are 6-1 the week coming off of the bye week in the NE-10. The only team that lost is Pace whom fell to Assumption 41-10 on October 8th after having the previous weekend off. Three teams were able to schedule non-conference games in the bye (New Haven, St. Anselm & Stonehill) while the other six took the week off from games to rest.

Southern Connecticut had last weekend off and will finish the season with a visit from Merrimack. The trend bodes well for the Owls that they should be able to bounce back from the week off but we will see this weekend.

The only team that will not have a chance to play after a bye week is Bentley. Their bye week comes this weekend in the final regular season weekend of the year. Since they are not going to make the playoffs, their season is over.

Go for Two

When I was scanning the Merrimack/AIC box score, one thing stood out to me. There were 10 touchdowns scored in the game and on eight of them, a two point conversion was attempted. AIC went for two after all of their scores and Merrimack went for two on three of their five scores.

The Yellow Jackets were pretty successful on their two point attempts as they scored on four of the five conversions. The Warriors were only successful on one of their three attempts and kicked an extra point on the other two scores.

For AIC, it was the difference in the game as both teams scored five touchdowns apiece.

Finishing strong

Stonehill is doing their usual end of season run as they have played very well the past couple of weeks. The Skyhawks put together a balanced offensive attack and shut down the St. Anselm offense in their 35-7 victory last weekend.

Since head coach Rob Talley took over the program in 2007, Stonehill is 6-2 in the month of November with the lone losses to AIC in the final game of 2007 and to Bentley to close out last season. This weekend, they will look to continue their November success as they travel to Assumption.

Finish

New Haven played their final home regular season game of the year and took care of business with their 63-6 victory over Pace. It started on the opening kickoff as Mike DeCaro returned it for a touchdown and the Chargers never looked back.

The talk this week will be the rematch with St. Anselm who knocked them out of the playoffs in 2010. The Chargers have done a great job all season long answering the questions about last year's game and have used it as motivation for this season.

Head coach Peter Rossomando has gotten his team to understand the importance of every game and every opponent, no matter home or away. He has done a masterful job this season and will get a lot of votes for coach of the year in the league and the region.

One Final Weekend

After 10 weekends of football, we are down to the final regular season game. And it appears that the NE-10 will play beyond the regular season for the first time in three seasons.

New Haven is one of two undefeated teams against D2 competition in SR1 (Winston-Salem the other) and closing in on hosting a playoff game, even potentially getting a bye in the first round. The last time that New Haven made the playoffs was 1997 and they made a run to the championship game.

Southern Connecticut is also on the cusp of the playoffs for the first time in three years as they are the last NE-10 to qualify for the postseason in 2008 when they fell to West Chester. They need to win over Merrimack and wait out the other results next weekend to see if they will play beyond this weekend. They were ranked seventh in the latest standings of 10/31/11 and might benefit from all of the teams losing ahead of them last weekend despite their bye week.

It is also the final weekend that the seniors will play a college football game. We are losing a good group of seniors who have excelled the past four years. They have sat through countless film sessions with coaches and ran even more sprints during the off-season and practice. It is the last time that they will suit up to play a competitive football game before they move on to other things after graduation.

Guys like Marc Wilson of St. Anselm and James Suozzo of Merrimack made immediate impacts on the league four years ago when they stepped on the field for the first time. Some others like Bryant Johnson of Bentley and Rashaad Slowley of Southern Connecticut learned from upperclassmen ahead of them before making their mark on the field.

It will be an emotional weekend for all of the players who are playing their final game of the season. Congratulations to all of the players for a great season and to the seniors for all of their hard work over the past four years.