and a playoff bid.
It does my heart good to note the success of the alma mater, Hampden-Sydney College, in football this season. With eight victories, and no losses, the team finally broke into the d3football.com Top 25 this week (No. 25). It has appeared in the American Football Coaches' Association Top 25 poll for the last two weeks, currently standing at No. 20.
The team has shown a lot of character in achieving these milestone. In Week 2, a game attended by the Youngs, the Tigers were down by two touchdowns at half-time, against Gettysburg (I found myself rooting against the Lutherans), but rallied to win by a field goal in overtime (with an amazing two field goal blocks by a single special teams player). This week, the Tigers were down by a touchdown at half-time against Catholic at Homecoming (Head Coach Marty Favret's alma mater --- '84 --- his twenty-fifth reunion year), but won the game by 21-7.
Rival Randolph-Macon, however, is 5-2, and 3-0 in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC), whose winner receives an automatic bid to the Division III playoffs. R-MC's season is conference-heavy, with three conference games in the last three weeks of the season: Guilford; Bridgewater; and Hampden-Sydney, in The Game, the oldest rivalry in the South in college football, on 14 November. H-SC, however, has a bye week, and plays no more conference games, with only a game against non-conference Salisbury on 7 November.
If R-MC prevails over Guilford and Bridgewater, or even loses a game, it shapes up to be a conference title game when the Tigers meet the Yellowjackets on 14 November.
For Division III devotees and alums, it shapes up to be a great November weekend to be in Ashland.
Which is something this proud Tiger alum never thought he'd say.
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