Game 12 of the Night

And then there were 11.  Just eleven 11-0 teams left.  Playoff picture is coming into focus.  Many times, I have read where coaches don't understand how the playoff brackets were determined.  For those that don't know, the top 32 teams in the WIS rankings make it in.  From there, the teams are disperse back and forth.  For example, 1-North, 2-South, 3-East, 4-West, then going back 5-West, 6-East, 7-South, and 8-North.  This pattern continues all the way to the end.  Unfortunately, it does cause many conference teams to get place in the same brackets.  

Now for the Game of the Night, we are going back to the Keystone State and an interesting battle for the PSAC Western division title.  It is #34 Slippery Rock at #31 Edinboro.  Both teams are 5-1 in conference play and the winner will face West Chester for the conference title in two days.

At Slippery Rock, Coach Mojolad is in his first season.  Slippery Rock is currently 8-3 and have won the games they should and lost the ones against teams they are ready to compete with yet.  Coach Mojolad has quite a history of winning wherever he's at as his 43 National Championships attest to.  Surprisingly, he has coached in Rockne for 42 seasons, but has yet to win a title here.  It looks like he plans to focus on Notre Dame as his offensive formation; although he has Pro-Set, Trips, and Wishbone available.  Defense is across the board too with 3-4 follow by 4-3 and Nickel.  Since he has taken over a SIM, it is a smart move to take advantage of the SIM players formation IQ they have during this transition stage.

Coach Vhoward415 is continuing his rebuilt at Edinboro.  He is in his fourth season after taking over a program ran by Sim for the previous 29 seasons.  Like the other coach, Coach Vhoward415 has won multiple (12) titles, but none in Rockne.  Also of note, he has 19,821 career victories.  He runs Trips on offense and 4-3 on defense.  Edinboro is 9-2 on the season and has two human-coached teams left.  

Both teams need this win to have any hope of making it into the playoffs.  What will be tough is for the winner of tonight's game to make the playoff since they face an almost certain loss to West Chester.  Coach and the team will definitely be sweatin it out until the brackets are announce.   Although my personal history tells me not to go against Coach Mojolad, he is just too early into his rebuild for me.  Edinboro 32, Slippery Rock 21.