How The NCR DIAA Playoff Picture Looks Now
How The NCR DIAA Playoff Picture Looks Now
NCR's DIAA playoff roster is clearing up.
Here's who made what seed:
The Liberty Conference champion is Boston College, with UMass runner-up. Both will be in the quarterfinals November 18 with BC hosting and, likely, UMass on the road.
Virginia Tech secured the MARC title over West Chester.
Behind three tries from fullback Ben Hondros and with tries from lock Jacob Moss, flyhalf Will Richey, wing Matt McKenna, center Matt Huelsman, and Logan Mooney off the bench, they pulled away from West Chester 50-22. Hunter Danesi, who plays almost everywhere in the pack and helps coach the team with Richey, played tighthead prop this time around and slotted three conversions because he is clearly a renaissance man.
Danesi had praise for try-scorer Ben Hondros earlier this season, saying: "Hondros takes great command of the field ... and and has produced a lot of highlight reel plays offensively."
Like with the Liberty, the two finalists will be in the playoffs, with Tech, winners of the NCR DIAA playoffs the last two years, hosting, and West Chester probably on the road, although the quarters might be at a neutral location if the travel is too much.
We will find out the MAC champion next week (we're down to four teams there), while the SCRC winner will be duked out between Kentucky and Tennessee after both won this weekend.
Kentucky was anticipating a big, powerful Alabama side and they got it.
"We were able to manage their scrum and maul well enough," said UK Head Coach Sam Enari, "but offensively Kentucky started flat."
The Wildcats scored within four minutes with Holden Hahn going over and Jack Phillips kicking the conversion. But, said Enari, the Kentucky team "then seemed happy to practice defense most of the rest of match."
The teams traded points back and forth after that and it was 13-10 midway through. But tries from Charlie Baer and Luke Keough put the game away for Kentucky. Phillips converted both to go with his two penalty goals for 12 points on the day.
"Missed opportunities from Alabama, and a stalwart defense but a largely stale offense from UK," said Enari.
There are two other spots put aside for a play-in, with NC State, the top DIAA team from the Southern Conference, playing a play-in team. Who that play-in team might be is up to question. Could it be Maryland, which beat Princeton to take 3rd in the MARC. It could be Binghamton, which was supposed to play in the Liberty 3rd-place game, but when Columbia forfeited, they were supposed to play Dartmouth. But Dartmouth passed on the game, and instead they ended up playing Fordham, losing 29-15. But Fordham is a D1 team, and were talking about DIAA, and this result is potentially good enough to secure a play-in maybe. We are reliably informed, however, that it's Maryland at NC State November 11, which, in terms of geography of nothing else, makes sense.
There is also a play-in spot in the quarterfinals, but that will likely be claimed by either the SCRC runner-up or the MAC runner-up.
