CAAZone Congratulates The All-CAA Conference Players

2011 CAA Football Major Awards (as voted on by the head coaches) OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF

2011 CAA Football Championship – Who Wants It?

Towson, Maine and New Hampshire are the front-runners, JMU and ODU have a shot!  

CAAZone Mid Season Football Awards

Where does time go?  It’s hard to believe we are already at the halfway point

Preview: URI Rams Aim for First Conference Win vs. ODU

The University of Rhode Island football program was one of the founding members of the

CAA Dominates FCS Polls – Not So Fast My Friends!

2011 FCS Now Poll Week Three (First-place votes in parentheses)  1. Georgia Southern (39) 2.

Week 3 CAA Football Video Highlights

James Madison 27 Liberty 24 Massachusetts 36 Rhode Island 27 Delaware 45 Delaware State 0

Towson, VCU, JMU Refuse to Stand Pat. Well, Towson Sorta’ Does…

Three quick hitters as we get life back together: Towson has hired Pat Skerry as its new coach, replacing Pat Kennedy. Skerry was an assistant at Pitt this past year. Skerry has crossed paths with CAA teams frequently in his past. He was an assistant at three schools who are popular nonconference foes–Providence (2008-2010), Rhode Island (2005-2008), and College of Charleston (2003-2005). Skerry has also been on the bench at Nor’easter (1998-2000) and William & Mary (2000-2003). Skerry was the head coach at division 3 Curry College in Massachusetts from 1996-98. *** The JMU Board of Visitors approved a new arena to be constructed in 2014 as part of its six year capital outlay plan. Estimated cost: $87.5 million. According to Mark Selig at the DNR: “In July, 2010, JMU athletic director Jeff Bourne said the school would spend $5 million to renovate the Convocation Center – including a new video scoreboard and new lighting. That plan appears to now be on hold.” I agree. *** Finally, in a news item slightly more shocking than the sun coming up tomorrow, Shaka Smart has reached a contract extension at VCU. The administration is holding off on contract terms, but my keen grasp of the situation allows me to say that Smart will earn “more money for a greater number of years.”

It’s the son of CBI Craziness!

CBI Craziness: The only thing less obscure than the final season of The Drew Carey Show ! Because it worked so well last time! That’s right, like episodes of The Drew Carey Show airing on ABC in the summer of 2004, you can’t kill CBI Craziness (subhead: The world’s biggest—and only—CBI pool!), you can just hope it airs in obscurity! I really wasn’t going to unveil a second edition of CBI Craziness, because, duh, I hoped Hofstra would be playing in another tournament and last year’s CBI experience was such a lousy one for the Flying Dutchmen and their 17 fans who went to the game against IUPUI that I didn’t even officially congratulate our winner. But that lucky man, VCUPav, asked me last night (surely in jest) if he could defend his title and that was all I needed to get the band back and do it again! Rules are simple, or as simple as can be for a tournament that is freaking reseeded for the semifinals and whose champion is determined in a best-of-three series. Check out the CBI bracket here and pick ONLY the first two rounds and your champion today. We will pick the semifinals and finals once those matchups are announced. So your picks should look something like this: FIRST ROUND James Madison over Davidson Creighton over San Jose State Montana over Duquesne Weber State over Oregon Boise State over Austin Peay Hofstra over Evansville Rhode Island over Miami (OH) St. Bonaventure over Central Florida SECOND ROUND James Madison over Creighton Weber State over Montana Hofstra over Boise State Rhode Island over St. Bonaventure CHAMPION Hofstra (duh) Scoring system: One point per correct first round game, two points per correct second round game, four points per correct semifinal game and eight points for picking the champion. If your ORIGINAL pick as champion wins it all, you get a 16-point bonus. Oh boy! Tiebreakers are simple: Pick the number of games in the CBI championship series as well as predict the CAA’s record in the NCAA Tournament. As always, send me your picks via email (defiantlydutch@yahoo.com) or by DM on Twitter (@defiantlydutch). And as always, the winner gets two Hofstra football season tickets, as well as another prize I may or may not ever find and may or may not ever mail out! If you’re uncertain about whether or not to join, consider the plight of VCUPav. He participated last year and now his favorite team is in the NCAA Tournament! PEOPLE REALLY WIN AT DEFIANTLY DUTCH! Deadline is tonight at 8 p.m. Yeah I know the first games are at 7 p.m. Like the tournament we are betting on, this is not very well-organized at all. Tell your friends! Let’s get more than the 26 people we had last year! And ignore them when they laugh at you. Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch .

From afar, Pecora proud of seniors

The coach who brought Charles Jenkins, Greg Washington and Brad Kelleher to Hofstra will be a couple dozen miles west of Hofstra Arena this afternoon, when the trio of seniors are honored and Jenkins’ jersey is retired in Senior Day festivities prior to the Flying Dutchmen’s game against Delaware. But even as Tom Pecora strolls the Fordham sideline at the Meadowlands Arena (hey, I can call it what I want!), he’ll still be thinking about Jenkins, Washington and Kelleher and hoping their final home game is one to remember. “Those guys are a special bunch of kids, I’m thrilled for them—I rooted for them throughout the season,” Pecora said Friday afternoon. “They’re quality kids. They’ve always taken care of things academically. They were good leaders and in good times or bad, they were always there for us. They’ve been great.” Pecora will always be linked with Jenkins, who became the latest symbol of Pecora’s ability to uncover under-recruited gems, but Pecora went through plenty as well with Washington and Kelleher, each of whom endured a season (or more) on the bench thanks to the unpredictable shenanigans of the NCAA. Washington was declared ineligible by the NCAA just before his true freshman season in 2006-07 , though he was allowed to redshirt and play four years, while Pecora passionately defended Kelleher and criticized the NCAA when Kelleher ended up missing all of last year (and the first eight games of this year) because his parents didn’t properly fill out a permission slip in fifth grade, or something like that. “You think about the nonsense that Greg Washington goes through his first year—he never wavered in his love for Hofstra, he was always there, he never backed down and always wanted to be a part of what we were doing,” Pecora said. “And he won a lot of ballgames for us in very quiet, subtle ways. He blocked a lot of shots, he’s the all-time shot blocker. “Kelleher I think the bad thing is just the residue of having to sit and not play for a year-and-a-half caught up to him and I think that’s why, to this point, he hasn’t had the kind of great seasons we thought he could have. But that’s life and I have no doubt that he’s going to go on and have a great pro career in Australia or in Europe.” With Fordham taking on Rhode Island at the exact same time Hofstra is facing Delaware today, Pecora’s staff won’t be represented for Jenkins’ jersey retirement like it was Jan. 29, when Fordham’s game against St. Bonaventure ended in time for David Duke and Mike Kelly to get to the Arena and see Jenkins break Antoine Agudio’s career scoring record. Kelly said that afternoon he might never again coach a player who had Jenkins’ combination of ability, work ethic, humility and personality, and Pecora agreed Friday Jenkins was a rare talent. “I think we’ve had similar personalities, but not in an elite player, you know what I mean?” Pecora said. “I think it’s a special blend, to be that personable and that approachable and that genuinely concerned about other people and still be an elite athlete, because everyone’s kissing your tail all the time. I think one of the reasons for that is Charles wasn’t a kid who had been getting his butt kissed since he was in ninth grade. He came up under the radar—when he was at Springfield Gardens, a lot of people still didn’t believe in his game. I think by [attention] coming later to him a little bit later, it allowed him to develop more as a person and not just be Charles Jenkins the basketball player.” Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch .

Richmond survives Rhode Island, 15-6, on Senior Day

The Richmond defense kept the Spiders’ playoff hopes alive as the Spiders defeated the University of Rhode Island Rams, 15-6, in a key conference matchup.