Midseason Recap

With every CSFL team having played either three or four regular season games, we’re at the midpoint of the season, meaning it’s time to take a look back at my preseason predictions. I’ll start out with the most arbitrary one of them all. I picked Bellarmine to win the Midwest Sprint Football League based on nothing besides having a cool-sounding name, and all of a sudden, they’re 3-0. Analytics be damned, sometimes going with your gut pays off.

As for what’s actually going on in the CSFL on the field, I’d say my preseason takes are looking pretty good. I took the lazy route by picking Mansfield QB Cahsid Raymond as 2022 MVP, and so far, he is who we thought he was. As a passer, he ranks in the top four of the league in passing yards (571) and touchdowns (5), while also avoiding turnovers at a much better rate than last year (2 INT so far in 2022, whereas he finished with 9 as a freshman in 2021). And as a rusher, he hasn’t lost a step since last year, leading the league with a preposterous 10.7 yards/carry (and remember, sacks count as negative rushing yards in college). 

Does all of this mean that Raymond is the leader in the clubhouse? I would say yes, but there’s a litany of talented offensive players in the mix. Quarterbacks Mikal Willeke of Navy and Brandon Atwood of Navy have each had tremendously efficient seasons for teams that are throwing the ball more often than they traditionally have. Penn QB Andrew Paolini leads the league with 946 passing yards (236.5 per game), keeping an offense afloat that has severely struggled to run the ball. Navy RB Alex Totta somehow has even more rushing yards than Raymond, currently holding a 526 to 480 edge in that category (though, perhaps somewhat unfairly, Mansfield has four more games and Navy only has three more, giving Raymond a built-in chance to catch up). Several wide receivers have stood out, most notably Navy’s Andrew Margiotta and his absurd 250-yard, 3-TD performance in his most recent game. So while I do think Raymond would win the vote if it was held today, it wouldn’t be a blowout by any means, and the fact that Mansfield has an extremely tough three-game stretch to close its season (Army, Penn, then Navy) might provide an interesting late wrinkle to the MVP race.

At the team level, things have shaped up pretty nicely so far. Already, we know that Penn-Navy on October 21 will determine the South division, and barring some absurd scenario, Caldwell-Army on November 4 will determine the North. In my preseason predictions, I had Navy becoming the league’s first repeat champion since Army in 2012 and 2013. And while that looks good so far given that the Midshipmen are the league’s only undefeated team, it’s far from a lock. Though Navy’s 27-13 win over Army looked impressive on the scoreboard, Navy did benefit from some unsustainable turnover luck, returning both a fumble and interception for touchdowns in the game. In fact, Army dominated the game in first downs (26 to 10) and total yards (406 to 230), implying that these teams are far more evenly matched than the score suggested. I wrote in September that Mikal Willeke’s development could “throw a wrench into the title conversation”, and given that he has a league-leading 9 pass TD thus far, a possible rematch between the service academies seems like it would be a true toss-up.

Is Caldwell on that tier? In August 2022, I wrote that increased balance in the North division was a concept to continue looking for, and we will soon find out if that balance has grown to the point where Caldwell can actually take the division crown. Strictly looking at the scoreboard, you’d think Caldwell is right where Army is. Caldwell lost to Navy, 26-13, a nearly identical score to Army’s 27-13 loss. But for starters, the transitive property doesn’t always hold in football. And even if it did, while the Army-Navy game was closer than the score suggested as previously mentioned, Navy did pretty thoroughly dominate Caldwell in the trenches, finishing with 343 rushing yards on a 7.0 average per carry. So based on what we’ve seen so far, it’s fair to call Caldwell the league’s clear #3 team. But on November 4, what we’ve seen so far won’t really matter; what will matter is whichever team shows up that day. And if last year’s game — an Army 4-2 win in 5-OT that was as much of a coin flip as a football game can possibly be — is any indication, Caldwell has a shot to be the first North division team to take Army down in the history of the two-division structure. 

As for my former Penn program, unfortunately, it seems I was a tad too optimistic in my preseason predictions. I was confident that Paolini and an extremely strong defensive front would help the program avoid its first losing season since 2012, but a sub-.500 year is still in play with the team standing at 2-2. In particular, a Week 2 loss to St. Thomas Aquinas is pretty tough for the program to swallow. While Penn is not what it was in the mid-late 2010s when we were contending for championships, Penn simply should not lose that game ever. The front seven has been as good as advertised, but the offense just hasn’t been there, allowing a staggering 27 sacks in 4 games. If the program can’t improve in the trenches in years to come, it appears to be Navy’s division to lose for a long time.