CAA Report Card

[UncleSam]

Villanova
Played just well enough to win, but they will have to step it up quite a bit next week vs UNH. Nova's offense was about what I expected vs a Holy Cross team that had very mediocre defense credentials, but the Nova defense which is one of the better in the CAA, certainly didn't play anywhere near as well as expected. Holy Cross racked up nearly 400 yrds of total offense, 350 of it in the air, credit to Holy Cross there, but Nova will have to play much better than that to advance vs UNH next week. Grade: C-

UNH
Excellent all around performance at McNeese St. Played well enough to take and maintain a 1st half lead, but really stepped it up in the 2d half, both offensively and defensively to win going away. Tolman had an excellent game, as did the UNH defense, which is better than most fans realize. Grade: A

William & Mary
The most dominating performance of the 1st round. The Tribe started slowly offensively, but their 'O' began to roll in the 2d half. As for the defense, which is the best in the FCS, they played as advertised and totally shut down what had been an exposive Weber St offense. W&M's offense was very well balanced, over 400 yrds, pretty evenly didvided between run/pass. A dominate performance. Grade: A+

Richmond
The Houdini like Spiders escaped again. Richmond was been dodging bullets all year, UD, JMU, W&M and now Elon, but the Spiders seem to nearly always find ways to win those tough games, just as they did yesterday. UR's offense sputtered all day in the red zone and Ward probaly had his worst passing performance of the year, but still UR found a way to win. Richmond's offense will have to perform much better next week, if not the Spiders will be watching the Semi's on TV. Grade C

[paward]

Can we get a curve to B-.

[JMU-MRD-DAD]

Can we get a curve to B-.

Sorry...no curve allowed.

There were too many mistakes today and DROPPED passes. I thought UR could have put ELon away in the first half but left the door open and could have been very easily eliminated yesterday.

Ward should have thrown the ball away a couple of times but ended up throwing the pick. Those plays did happen at the other end of the field from my view so maybe it was Elon's D.

I was rather impressed with Elon's performance and their fans.

Good luck in the next round when App St invades Richmond!!!

[Big Al]

'Nova won't survive UNH and W&M will fall to SIU. I won't call Richmond v. ASU.

This is what passes for head & shoulders above all the other leagues? A less-than-dominating performance against Holy Cross and thumping the last team in? The only truly impressive outcome that I see is UNH. I think they might just have the tools to take it all this year.


Villanova
Played just well enough to win, but they will have to step it up quite a bit next week vs UNH. Nova's offense was about what I expected vs a Holy Cross team that had very mediocre defense credentials, but the Nova defense which is one of the better in the CAA, certainly didn't play anywhere near as well as expected. Holy Cross racked up nearly 400 yrds of total offense, 350 of it in the air, credit to Holy Cross there, but Nova will have to play much better than that to advance vs UNH next week. Grade: C-

UNH
Excellent all around performance at McNeese St. Played well enough to take and maintain a 1st half lead, but really stepped it up in the 2d half, both offensively and defensively to win going away. Tolman had an excellent game, as did the UNH defense, which is better than most fans realize. Grade: A

William & Mary
The most dominating performance of the 1st round. The Tribe started slowly offensively, but their 'O' began to roll in the 2d half. As for the defense, which is the best in the FCS, they played as advertised and totally shut down what had been an exposive Weber St offense. W&M's offense was very well balanced, over 400 yrds, pretty evenly didvided between run/pass. A dominate performance. Grade: A+

Richmond
The Houdini like Spiders escaped again. Richmond was been dodging bullets all year, UD, JMU, W&M and now Elon, but the Spiders seem to nearly always find ways to win those tough games, just as they did yesterday. UR's offense sputtered all day in the red zone and Ward probaly had his worst passing performance of the year, but still UR found a way to win. Richmond's offense will have to perform much better next week, if not the Spiders will be watching the Semi's on TV. Grade C

[Tribe07]

Frankly Big Al, I think any of the 4 CAA teams left could win it all. They all have the tools, who will catch the breaks?

[State Line Liquors]

Can we get a curve to B-.

Blame W&M. They blew up any opportunity for the instructor to look the other way. xsmiley_wix

[Husky4Life]

This is what passes for head & shoulders above all the other leagues? A less-than-dominating performance against Holy Cross and thumping the last team in? The only truly impressive outcome that I see is UNH. I think they might just have the tools to take it all this year.

38-0 over WSU isn't dominating? It's the playoffs, both teams come to play. Winning and advancing is never easy. What's head & shoulders above the rest is 4 CAA teams are still around.

[GannonFan]

'Nova won't survive UNH and W&M will fall to SIU. I won't call Richmond v. ASU.

This is what passes for head & shoulders above all the other leagues? A less-than-dominating performance against Holy Cross and thumping the last team in? The only truly impressive outcome that I see is UNH. I think they might just have the tools to take it all this year.

Isn't this the second straight year that half of the quarterfinal field is made up of CAA teams? That in and of itself if pretty impressive.

[89Hen]

'Nova won't survive UNH and W&M will fall to SIU.
xeyebrowx I disagree on both.

[Tod]

Seems like a pretty good report card to me. I do wonder; do the close games by 'Nova and Richmond show vulnerability at this level, or were the teams they played just better than expected?

W&M - No worries, did absolutely everything right.

UNH - Better than I thought. As good as they've been all year, there is at least the potential that they are peaking at the perfect time, taking a very good team to the "great" level.

Can't wait for Saturday. xthumbsupx

[jlcharles]

Like I said in the game thread, Randolph is the best QB I've seen this year. The kid is a flat out stud and should be on an NFL roster next year. (He is a senior right?)

Holy Cross was way better than anyone gave them credit for. The Nova defense will give up passing yards. Everyone knows that. But they will also pounce on any mistake you make. Devlin threw for over 400, but also had 3 INTs. I don't think they were all his fault, but the point is, they capitalized on mistakes. Randolph didn't make a mistake throwing the ball. He was outstanding.

[Fear the Bird]

It's funny how the Midwest and West Coast teams always accuse of "East Coast Bias" when comparing conferences and rankings, but now when the CAA takes care of business when it matters most, they didn't do it impressively enough.

[GannonFan]

Seems like a pretty good report card to me. I do wonder; do the close games by 'Nova and Richmond show vulnerability at this level, or were the teams they played just better than expected?

W&M - No worries, did absolutely everything right.

UNH - Better than I thought. As good as they've been all year, there is at least the potential that they are peaking at the perfect time, taking a very good team to the "great" level.

Can't wait for Saturday. xthumbsupx

nova can be passed on - the question is, are there any teams left that can generate a passing attack good enough to do so and do they have a defense to go along with that. Holy Cross had the passing attack, but didn't have the defense - nova putting up 38 points is a lot for them.

As for Richmond, eh, they've played close games all year - they won a 1 point game against UD when they blocked a UD chip shot FG at the end - they beat JMU by 4 when JMU fumbled inside UR's 5 yard line in the final minute - and they beat fellow quarterfinalist in W&M by 3 points. Heck, their only loss was the 1 point loss to again, fellow quarterfinalist nova, and that was the result of Richmond missing an extra point and missing a game winning FG as the clock expired. Richmond may not win pretty at times, but they have an uncanny ability to win often.

I like Richmond beating Appy St (again, uncanny ability to just win) next week and W&M beating SIU (I think W&M's d-line wins the strength on strength matchup against SIU's running game) - hard to read on the nova/UNH game, but nova probably gets the edge being at home and UNH travelling for the 2nd week in a row.

[soccerguy315]

look... people are not claiming that Richmond is better than ASU, or W&M is better than SIU. No one is claiming that the best teams in other conferences cannot matchup with the best teams in the CAA.

People are claiming that, AS A WHOLE, having 4 teams in the final 8 is very impressive, and much better than any other conference.