With lacrosse season officially over thanks to the women’s team’s second-round NCAA tournament exit, MultiSport Facility has already begun shifting gears. And perhaps with good reason: Georgetown football, which started four different quarterbacks en route to a disappointing 5-6 record in 2012, might very well need to start early this year.
Two days after the NFL draft, Georgetown senior linebacker Robert McCabe earned his own call to the professional football ranks Monday, signing as a free agent for the Miami Dolphins. McCabe, the Hoya defense’s unquestioned leader and standout, will receive an opportunity to become just the second Georgetown player in the modern era to play in the NFL, joining 2003 alumnus Alex Buzbee, who made the Washington Redskins’ roster in 2007.
Despite the Blue and Gray’s paltry 5-6 record and 2-3 mark in the Patriot League in the 2012 season, McCabe excelled in his senior year, posting 159 tackles, 14.5 tackles for loss and 5.5 sacks en route to being named the Patriot League defensive player of the year and a finalist for the Football Championship Series national defensive player of the year. His All-American performance put NFL scouts on watch, prompting Miami to sign him as one of four FCS players given a tryout for the team. Although the deal was announced Monday, McCabe said that he actually signed on Saturday.
Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis was as passionate about the game of football as they come. Lewis’ passion was rewarded this Sunday with a Super Bowl title to finish out his career.
Caleb Moore, an athlete just like Lewis, was just as enthusiastic about his sport of snowmobiling. Tragically, Moore’s career ended in his untimely death on Thursday after a January 24th crash at the freestyle snowmobiling event at the Winter X Games in Aspen.
With so much recent talk about player safety in football, I think that Moore’s death, only the second in the 17-year history of the X Games, can shed some light on the ongoing debate as well as provide an interesting comparison between the two sports in terms of safety.
The 2012 season certainly did not go the way that Head Coach Kevin Kelly and the Georgetown football team would have liked, as a 24-0 rout Saturday at the hands of Holy Cross on Senior Day resulted in a highly disappointing sub-.500 record. Tuesday, though, brought a bit of light to what had been a dark year.
Senior linebacker and captain Robert McCabe, the Patriot League announced today, has been named the league’s defensive player of the year, validating his selection as the preseason pick for the award last summer. McCabe — who was also named to the all-Patriot League first team for the second consecutive year — led the entire Football Championship Subdivision in tackles per game and total tackles, with his mark of 159 in the latter category a whopping 28 more than the next-highest player on the list.
The honor was a fitting end to what was a record-breaking senior season for the Pennsylvanian, who broke both the Georgetown single-season and career tackle records in decisive fashion this fall. McCabe is the second straight member of the Blue and Gray to earn defensive player of the year honors, following in the footsteps of since-graduated defensive end Andrew Schaetzke.
Schaetzke was a finalist for the Buck Buchanan Award last year as the FCS’s top defensive player, and McCabe should have a good shot at bringing that hardware home to the Hilltop in January. An effusive Kelly, for one, sounds like he wouldn’t be at all surprised if that possibility were to come to fruition.
1. Colgate (7-3, 5-0 Patriot League, Previous Ranking: 2nd)
In last week’s unofficial Patriot League championship game, Colgate upset Lehigh, 35-24, clinching the regular season title and a spot in the 24-team FCS playoffs. The Raiders started the season just 1-3, but they have since won six straight games with an average margin of victory of more than 18 points. In this past weekend’s victory, Colgate outscored Lehigh 21-0 in the second half, thanks in large part to Patriot League offensive player of the week Gavin McCarney — the senior quarterback had 24 carries for 121 yards and three touchdowns in addition to 180 yards through the air. Colgate had second-half scoring drives of 80, 94, and 62 yards and had possession of the ball for a whopping 43:51. They’ll close out their season against Fordham on Saturday.
2. Lehigh (9-1, 3-1, 1st)
Despite last weekend’s loss, the Mountain Hawks are ranked No. 12 in the nation and should still receive an at-large bid to the playoffs. Five of Lehigh’s nine wins so far this season have come by three points or less, so perhaps their first loss of the season had been brewing for some time. Lehigh had a 16-game conference winning streak broken last weekend, but they will look to begin a new one on Saturday at Lafayette.
The Georgetown football team (5-5, 2-2 Patriot League) crawled its way back to .500 after winning a 10-3 defensive slugfest Saturday afternoon against Bucknell (2-8, 0-5 Patriot League) at MultiSport Facility.
Freshman quarterback Kyle Nolan went down on the team’s second series and was replaced by sophomore Stephen Skon. The Long Island gunslinger did enough to earn a win, completing 19 of 29 passes for 231 yards, with one touchdown and an interception.
“Our kids came with a great and aggressive attitude today,” Head Coach Kevin Kelly. “I’m really proud of our guys — their back was to the wall, and they fought back.”
GU looked like the fresher and stronger of the two sides from the onset. The defense, in what became a consistent pattern, forced a three-and-out and a quick punt on Bucknell’s opening drive.
A strong return by sophomore wide receiver Kevin Macari then set the Hoyas up with prime field position at the Bison 32-yard line. Taking advantage of a roughing-the-passer penalty, the Blue and Gray were set up with 1st & goal, but Nolan could not find the end zone. Nonetheless, a 20-yard Matt Maczura field goal was good, putting Georgetown up 3-0 almost right away.