Nov. 12, 2009

Johns Hopkins-McDaneil Football Notes in PDF Format

The Game: Johns Hopkins (7-2, 6-1 Centennial) closes the regular season at long-time rival McDaniel (5-4, 3-4 CC). This week's game will be the 88th all-time meeting between the two schools.

Last Week: Johns Hopkins set up this week's showdown with McDaniel with a 51-13 victory at home against Franklin & Marshall last Saturday. McDaniel assured itself of no worse than a .500 record with a thrilling 22-20 win at Gettysburg.

The Coaches: Johns Hopkins is coached by Jim Margraff `82, who is in his 20th season as the head coach at Homewood. Margraff is JHU's all-time leader in games won (126) and coached (203) and enters this week's game with a career record of 126-74-3 (.628). He has more than twice as many wins as any other coach in school history (Ray Van Orman is second with 60 wins) and stands alone with Morgan State's Eddie Hurt as the only college football coaches in Maryland state history to win 125 or more games. Hurt won 174 games from 1929-59.
McDaniel is coached by Tim Keating, who enters this week's game against Johns Hopkins with an all-time record of 103-69-3 in 17 seasons as the head coach of the Green Terror and 129-92-3 in 22 seasons as a college head coach.

Captain, My Captain: In a vote of the returning players on the 2009 team, seniors Andrew Kase, Tim Miller, Glenn Rocca and Colin Wixted were selected as captains for the season. Kase is in his second season as a captain, while this is the first year as a captain for Miller, Rocca and Wixted.

A First for the State of Maryland: This week's game between Johns Hopkins and McDaniel will mark the first time in the history of college football in the state of Maryland that two coaches with more than 100 wins at their respective in-state schools will face each other. Jim Margraff and Tim Keating rank second and fifth, respectively, in state history in coaching victories.

Win Number 125 ...: The win against Juniata was the 125th victory for Jim Margraff as the head coach at Johns Hopkins. In just 20 seasons, Margraff has accounted for more than 27% of the all-time victories in school history (126 of 460/.274).

JHU Grabs 100th CC Win: Johns Hopkins earned the 100th Centennial Conference vicotry in school history with the 58-7 win at Juniata on October 31. Including last week's win over F&M, the Blue Jays now stand at 101-81-3 all-time in CC play. Only Dickinson (115) and F&M (102) have more all-time Centennial Conference victories than the Blue Jays.

Home(wood) Field Advantage: Johns Hopkins is 8-3 at Homewood Field since the start of the 2008 season.

More Home(wood) Field Advantage: JHU stands 41 games over .500 in home games under Jim Margraff. The Blue Jays are now 71-30-1 (.701) at Homewood under Margraff.

Road Warriors: The Blue Jays posted a 4-1 record on the road last season and JHU is 11-3 since the start of the 2007 season on the road. JHU is 33-12 on the road since the start of the 2001 season.

Odds are 50-50: The 58 points Johns Hopkins scored against Juniata on October 31 marked the first time since September 29, 2000 that JHU has scored 50 or more points. JHU totaled 54 that night in a 54-13 win against Gettysburg.. The 58 are the most by the Blue Jays since September 19, 1997, when they beat Swarthmore, 73-0. JHU followed that with a 51-point outburst against F&M last week. This marked the first time since 1967 and just the second time in school history that Hopkins has scored 50 or more points in back-to-back games.
In addition, the 109 points Johns Hopkins has scored in the last two weeks are the second-most ever in a two-game span in school history.

Running Game Rolling: Johns Hopkins pounded out a season-high 319 rushing yards and six rushing touchdowns at Juniata (10-31) and followed that with 287 yards and five touchdowns in last week's win against Franklin & Marshall (11-7). JHU's totals against Juniata are seasons highs, as was JHU's 8.0 yards per rushing attempt. This was the 23rd time Johns Hopkins has rushed for 300 or more yards in a game since 1955 and the ninth time under head coach Jim Margraff. The 319 rushing yards are the most for the Blue Jays since November 6, 2004, when they totaled 330 in a 38-14 win against 11th-ranked Hampden-Sydney.

Noting the JHU Rushing Attack:
• JHU is averaging 7.05 yards per rushing attempt in the last two games (86-606). For the year, the Blue Jays are averaging 4.7 yards per attempt as a team.
• The Blue Jays' 23 rushing touchdowns this season are the most for JHU since 1968, when the Blue Jays tied the school record for rushing touchdowns with 25 (record originally set in 1959).

200 and 200: Johns Hopkins totaled 216 rushing yards and 243 passing yards in a 41-23 win over Gettysburg on September 18 and 287 yards rushing and 220 yards passing against Franklin & Marshall. JHU has now totaled 200 or more yards rushing and passing yards in the same game 25 times since 1955. 13 of those 25 have come since Jim Margraff took over as the Blue Jays' coach in 1990. JHU is 11-2 when rushing and passing for 200 or more yards under Margraff and 23-2 overall in such games.

Streaking: Since the start of the 2002 season the Blue Jays sport a 60-24 (.714) record. Taking it back farther the Blue Jays are 66-27 (.710) since the start of the 2001 season and 71-32 (.689) since the beginning of the 2000 season. The 71 wins the Blue Jays have amassed this decade are already the most wins in a decade in school history. The previous record of 55 wins came in the 1990s. To put this in perspective, Johns Hopkins had never won more than seven games in a season prior to this decade. In this decade, the Blue Jays averaged more than seven wins per season (7.1).

Kase Tops 1,000, 4,000: Senior Andrew Kase reached a pair of milestones and broke two more school records in last week's win over Franklin & Marshall as he rushed 34 times for 198 yards and three touchdowns. The 198 yards pushed his season total to 1,178 yards and his career total to 4,132 yards. He now has three of the five all-time 1,000-yard rushing seasons in school history and he is just the seventh player in Centennial Conference history to reach 4,000 career rushing yards. Kase also broke his own single-season school reocrds for rushing touchdowns (18) and points scored (115) with his three touchdowns against the Diplomats.

Putting it in Perspective: When reviewing the Johns Hopkins record book, Andrew Kase's career numbers stand out in nearly every category. Here is a look at some of Kase's numbers:

Andrew Kase's ...
... 35 rushing touchdows in the last two years alone are 10 more than any other player in school history.
... 2,813 rushing yards in the last two years alone are more than any other player in school history.
... 23 career 100-yard games are as many as the next two players in school history have combined.
... three 1,000-yard seasons are one more than every other running back in school hsitory has combined for.

Select Company: In addition to his exploits on the JHU and Centennial Conference record books, senior Andrew Kase also become just the fourth collegiate running back in Maryland state history to top 4,000 career rushing yards with his effort last week against Franklin & Marshall. Below is a look the top rushers in state history:

1. Eric Frees (McDaniel) 1988-91 / 5,281
2. Napoleon McCallum (Navy) 1981-85 / 4,179
3. Lamont Jordan (Maryland) 1997-2000 / 4,147
4. Andrew Kase (Johns Hopkins) Active / 4,132
5. Levi Shade (Salisbury) 1973-76 / 3,649
6. Tony Ellis (Salisbury) 1998-02 / 3,621
7. Jason Corle (Towson) 1996-99 / 3,601

A Glimpse of the Future: Freshman Jonathan Rigaud and sophomores Lyndon O'Connor and Nick Fazio combined for 134 rushing yards and 183 all-purpose yards in the win at Juniata.
Rigaud had a career-high 78 yards rushing, 51 of which came on one play. The 51-yard run is the longest by a Johns Hopkins player since O'Connor had a 69-yard run against Dickinson last season. O'Connor totaled 19 yards on six carries and added two receptions for 49 yards, including a career-long 35-yard catch on second-and-24 from the Juniata 49.
Fazio added 37 yards rushing and one touchdown on eight carries as the trio gave a glimpse of what life without Andrew Kase will be like next season. For the year, the trio has 362 yards rushing and three touchdowns and is averaging 5.8 yards per carry.

Schweyer Makes His Mark: Freshman Adam Schweyer enjoyed a solid game at Juniata as he blocked a punt that he scooped up and returned 13 yards for a touchdown, intercepted a pass that he returned 46 yards to set up a fourth quarter touchdown and posted three tackles on special teams. His 46-yard interception return is the longest by a Johns Hopkins player since September 3, 2005, when Dan Requena took one back 53 yards against Rochester.

Tomlin Rolling: Sophomore quarterback Hewitt Tomlin continues to rank among the Centennial Conference passing leaders with one weeke remaining in the regular season.
Tomlin is currently 153-of-242 for 1,785 yards with 13 touchdowns against six interceptions on the year. He ranks third in the league in pass efficiency (137.95), second in completion percentage (.632) and fifth in TD passes and passing yards per game (198.3).
Tomlin had his school-record-tying streak of 200-yard passing games snapped at four in the loss against Ursinus and ranks sixth in school history in career completions (307) and passing yards (3,632), seventh in attempts (517) and 10th in touchdown passes (22). He is also fourth with 11, 200-yard passing games to his credit and has a 14-4 record in his 18 career starts.

Choose Your Poison: A big part of the Johns Hopkins offense this season is a deep and talented receiving corps that counts three players with 25 or more receptions and seven different players with nine catches or more. Most impressively, the top six pass-catchers are all due to return next season.
Junior Dan Crowley counts a team-high 39 receptions for a team-best 580 yards and four touchdowns to his credit, while sophomore Sam Wernick ranks second in receptions (36) despite missing the first game of the season. Rounding out the trio is junior Tucker Michels, who has 27 receptions for 431 yards and three scores.

Leading the Way: Johns Hopkins ranks second in the Centennial Conference in scoring offense (32.9), third in rushing offense (185.9), fifth in passing offense (205.3) and third in total offense (391.2). While the players who carry, throw and catch the ball get most of the attention, the Blue Jay offense is led in large part by a seasoned offensive line.
Seniors Mike Stoffel, Tim Miller and Anthony Catanzano, junior Ryan Lino and sophomore Ed Rodger are the primary starters on the line, with senior John Fox and sophomore Doug Drummond also seeing regular action. The unit has allowed just two sacks on 257 pass attempts this season. The two sacks JHU has allowed are tied for the second-fewest in the nation.

Defense Rolling: The Blue Jay defense enters this week's game against McDaniel ranked first in the Centennial Conference in scoring defense (16.9), total defense (267.1), rushing defense (79.1), sacks (32), interceptions (19) and forced turnovers (27). Below are some notes about the recent performance of the Johns Hopkins defense:
• JHU has allowed a total of just 48 points in the last four games
• Ursinus, Juniata and F&M combined for a total of 24 rushing yards against the Blue Jays. F&M was held to -20 rushing yards, while Juniata was held to 0.
• The Blue Jays have totaled 21 sacks in their last three games with at least six in each of those three games.
• Johns Hopkins has forced two or more turnvoers in each of the last 10 games dating back to last season.

An Opportunistic Bunch: Johns Hopkins has forced 27 turnovers in nine games this season and ranks first in the Centennial Conference in turnover margin (+1.62/game). JHU's 19 INTs in nine games are six more than the Blue Jays came up with last year in 11 games. JHU forced six turnovers (4 INTs, 2 FR) against Juniata and two against F&M (2 INTs) and the Blue Jays have forced at least two turnovers in all nine games this season. No other team in the Centennial has forced at least two turnovers in every game this season. Dating back to last season, JHU has forced two or more turnovers in 10 straight games and at least one turnover in 12 straight games.

Sophomore Sensations: A quick glance at the JHU tackle charts reveals that the top three tacklers and five of the top seven are sophomores. Sophomore Mike Milano currently leads the Blue Jays in tackles with 59 and is followed closely by classmates Ryan Piatek (55) and Tyler Brown (54), In addition, Sam Eagleson (41) and Kale Sweeney (34) rank sixth and seventh, respectively, in tackles.

In the Zone: Johns Hopkins has scored on 37-of-41 trips to the red zone this season (.902) and 27 of those 37 scores are touchdowns.

Seven's Heaven: Since the beginning of the 2003 season the Blue Jays are 51-16 when scoring more than seven points and 0-6 when they have been held to seven points or less.

It's All Academic: Johns Hopkins placed a district-high seven players on the 2009 ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District Team. Seniors Steve Levinson (DL), Mike Stoffel (OL), Anthony Catanzano (OL) and Glenn Rocca (DL) and sophomore Sam Wernick made the first team, while junior Max Islinger (P) and sophomore Ryan Piatek (LB) earned second team honors. The five first team honorees are now on the ballot for national Academic All-America honors with that team slated to be announced on November 24.
Johns Hopkins has earned 36 CoSIDA Academic All-District selections since 2003. JHU's 36 selections in that time are three more the other CC football-playing schools have combined for (33). Taking it back even farther, Johns Hopkins has earned 62 CoSIDA Academic All-District selections since 1991. During that time the other CC football-playing schools have combined for 63 selections. Johns Hopkins has had at least three players earn CoSIDA Academic All-District honors every year since 2001.

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