Sept. 23, 2009

Johns Hopkins-Moravian Football Notes in PDF Format Additional Information Available in This Format

The Game: Johns Hopkins (2-1, 1-0 Centennial) hosts Moravian (1-2, 1-0 CC) in the third game of a three-game home stand.

Last Week: Johns Hopkins picked up its second straight win and seventh in its last eight regular season games with a 41-23 victory over Gettysburg. Moravian fell for the second time on the young season as Lebanon Valley eased past the Greyhounds, 32-3.

Poll Position: Johns Hopkins is listed as receiving votes in this week's AFCA Division III Coaches' Poll (23 points). This is the first time since the final poll of the 2005 season that JHU has received votes in the poll. Since the formation of the AFCA Poll in 1999, there have been 106 weekly polls. Johns Hopkins has been ranked in the top 25 for a total of 17 weeks and been listed as receiving votes 32 times (including this week) for 49 total appearances in the 106 weekly polls.

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 (121) and coached (197) and enters this week's game with a career record of 121-73-3 (.622). He has more than twice as many wins as any other coach in school history (Ray Van Orman is second with 60 wins).
Moravian is coached by Scott Dapp, who enters this week's game against Johns Hopkins with an all-time record of 136-93-1 (.593) in 23 seasons with the Greyhounds.

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.

Centennial Openers: Johns Hopkins improved to 17-10 (.630) in Centennial openers with last week's win over Gettysburg. The Blue Jays, who are 16-4 in CC lid-lifters under Jim Margraff, are tied with Franklin & Marshall for the most victories in Centennial-openers (league formed in 1983).

September Reign: Johns Hopkins is 26-11 in the month of September since the start of the 2000 season and 37-16 since the start of the 1995 season.

Home(wood) Field Advantage: Johns Hopkins improved to 6-2 at Homewood Field since the start of the 2008 season with last week's win over Gettysburg.

More Home(wood) Field Advantage: JHU improved its record to 40 games over .500 in Centennial Conference homes games under Jim Margraff with last week's win over Gettysburg. The Blue Jays are now 69-29-1 (.702) in CC games at Homewood under Margraff.

Road Warriors: The Blue Jays posted a 4-1 record on the road last season and JHU is 8-3 since the start of the 2007 season on the road. JHU is 30-12 on the road since the start of the 2001 season.

Escape Artists: Johns Hopkins used a one-yard touchdown run by Andrew Kase with 49 seconds remaining to pull out the 35-31 win over Randolph-Macon on September 12. It's the first time Johns Hopkins has won a game in the final minute since October 6, 2007, when Alex Lachman nailed a 40-yard field goal as time expired to lift the Blue Jays past Dickinson, 20-17.

Streaking: Since the start of the 2002 season the Blue Jays sport a 55-23 (.705) record. Taking it back farther the Blue Jays are 61-26 (.701) since the start of the 2001 season and 66-31 (.680) since the beginning of the 2000 season. The 66 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.

200 and 200: Johns Hopkins totaled 216 rushing yards and 243 passing yards in last week's win over Gettysburg. That effort marked the 24th time since 1955 that JHU has totaled 200 or more yards rushing and passing in the same game. Exactly half of those 24 have come since Jim Margraff took over as the Blue Jays' coach in 1990. JHU is 10-2 when rushing and passing for 200 or more yards under Margraff and 22-2 overall in such games.

35 or More: The Blue Jays have scored 35 or more points in each of the last two games (35 vs. Randolph-Macon and 41 vs. Gettysburg). This is just the second time since the start of the 2001 season that JHU has turned this trick (39 vs. RMC and 49 vs. Gettysburg / 2008). JHU hasn't scored 35 or more points in three straight games since 2000, when the Blue Jays did it against Swarthmore (35), King's Point (42) and Gettysburg (54).

Kase Honored: Johns Hopkins senior running back Andrew Kase was named the Centennial Conference Co-Offensive Player of the Week for his efforts in last week's win against Gettysburg.
Kase rushed for 183 yards and three touchdowns and totaled 220 all-purpose yards in the victory to grab the weekly award, which he shared with Dickinson's Ian Mitchell. Kase's three rushing touchdowns improve his career total to 27, which moved him into first place on JHU's career list. He also improved his career rushing total to 3,311 yards, which ranks ninth in Centennial Conference history. Kase also jumped to fourth in school history in career all-purpose yards (3,747).
Kase has now rushed for more than 180 yards six times in his career. No other player in school history has done this more than three times.

Where's Max: Johns Hopkins junior Max Islinger wasn't called on to punt in last week's 41-23 win over Gettysburg. That marked the first time since October 27, 1984 (Dickinson) that Johns Hopkins has not been forced to punt in a game. The Blue Jays had 10 possessions against Gettysburg and scored five touchdowns, added two field goals, threw an INT, turned the ball over on downs and ran out the clock at the end of the game.

Tomlin Rolling: Sophomore quarterback Hewitt Tomlin continued his impressive early-season showing as he was 20-of-29 for 243 yards with one touchdown and one interception against Gettysburg. He also rushed three times for 16 yards and another score.
Tomlin is now 62-of-90 (.689) for 612 yards with four touchdowns and one INT in three games. In the pass-happy Centennial Conference, Tomlin ranks second in completion percentage, fourth in pass efficiency rating (138.5) and fifth in passing yards per game (204.0) and total offense (213.0).
Tomlin ran his streak of consecutive pass attempts without an interception to 138 before Gettysburg's Joe Delaney picked him off in the third quarter of last week's game.

Leading the Way: Johns Hopkins has boosted its season averages to 27.7 points and 363 yards per game with its efforts in back-to-back wins against Randolph-Macon and Gettysburg. 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 Doug Drummond are the primary starters on the line, with senior John Fox and sophomore Ed Rodger also seeing action early in the season. The unit has allowed just one sack on 93 pass attempts this season.

Wixted Reaches 200: Senior Colin Wixted reached a personal milestone in last week's win over Gettysburg. Wixted posted five tackles against the Bullets and went over the 200-career tackle mark with the five stops. The two-time Second Team All-Centennial selection now has 204 career tackles to his credit.

Lachman Nails A Pair, Moves Up in JHU Record Book: Junior Alex Lachman hit a pair of field goals (32 yards, 33 yards) and hit all five of his extra point attempts in last week's win against Gettysburg. In the process, he moved into third place in school history in career field goals (20) and improved his career scoring total to 124 points - a total that ranks fourth in school history.

Sophomore Sensations: A year ago, the Blue Jay offense was led primarily by players who are back this season. In fact, 4,122 of the Blue Jays' 4,158 yards of total offense and all 34 of JHU's offensive touchdowns last season were accumulated by players who returned this year.
Fast forward to 2009 and it's the defense being led by non-seniors - specifically, the Blue Jays are being led by members of the sophomore class.
A quick glance at the JHU tackle charts reveals that the top four tacklers on the team are all sophomores and the number would likely be five if Ryan Piatek (17 tackles in less than two full games) didn't miss last week's game vs. Gettysburg. Sophomore Mike Milano currently leads the Blue Jays in tackles with 29 and is followed closely by classmates Tyler Brown (26), Kale Sweeney (20) and Sam Eagleson (18).

In the Zone: Johns Hopkins has scored on 10-of-12 trips to the red zone this season and eight of those 10 scores are touchdowns. Unfortunately for the Blue Jays, the opposition is 11-of-11 on trips to the `zone this season with eight touchdowns and three field goals.

Working Overtime: The 39-31 triple overtime win at Randolph-Macon early last season was JHU's first overtime game since a 21-14 win at Washington & Lee in the 2002 season-opener (one overtime period). The Blue Jays are 2-2 all-time in overtime and all four extra-session games the Blue Jays have played in their history have been on the road.

Seven's Heaven: Since the beginning of the 2003 season the Blue Jays are 46-15 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 had three players named to the 2008 ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District Team. Current senior Steve Levinson (DL) was named to the first team, while classmates Mike Stoffel (OL) and Anthony Catanzano (OL) garnered second team honors.
Johns Hopkins has earned 29 CoSIDA Academic All-District selections since 2003. JHU's 29 selections in that time are the same number the other CC football-playing schools have combined for (29). Taking it back even farther, Johns Hopkins has earned 55 CoSIDA Academic All-District selections since 1991. During that time the other CC football-playing schools have combined for 59 selections. Johns Hopkins has had at least three players earn CoSIDA Academic All-District honors every year since 2001.