AUS Football Power Rankings

The Rejuvinated Huskies Come in at #2 on the midway Power Rankings.

by Bill McLean

We are halfway through the 2010 AUS football season and there are only two things we know so far:

A) The AUS is the weakest conference in Canada
B) We have no idea who is going to win the AUS Championship, then make the trip out west to play in the Mitchell Bowl and get destroyed by Calgary or Saskatchewan.

Throwing caution to the wind, here are your AUS power rankings as we approach week five.

1. Mount Allison Mounties

The Mounties are the best team in the AUS.

It feels as strange typing it as I’m sure it is reading it, but in the midst of a season in which the AUS has clearly established itself as the weakest conference in the country, it’s the boys from Sackville who have shown the most consistency thus far.

I’m sure Coach John Macneil is smiling as he reads this.

The Mounties are tied with Acadia for first place with a record of 2-2. They have impressive wins over St FX, a 19-6 drubbing at home, and Saint Mary’s, a hard fought 23-21 battle on a neutral site field in Moncton.

Last week they showed plenty of grit and resolve in a loss to the X-Men in Antigonish, losing 36-27 in front of a huge homecoming crowd at X.

The Mounties outscored the X-Men 21-5 in the second half and came up 1 inch short of getting within a touchdown midway thru the 4th quarter when their outstanding kicker, Jon Szilagyi, saw his 42 yard field goal attempt bounce off the bottom of the uprights.

Consider that the Mounties were without the services of the best player in the conference, Gary Ross, and you have to admire their effort vs. a fired up X-Men team that may not win another game this season.

The Mounties pass defense is borderline disastrous at best, but it’s a good year for that particular deficiency considering the lack of solid passing play in the conference. In a year where the conference championship will probably be decided on the ground, the Mounties have the best defense vs. the run, allowing only 113 yards per game, and the second best rushing offence, averaging 113 yards so far this season.

Mount Allison also has the conference’s best quarterback in Jake Hotchkiss. The big lefty has already thrown for over 1000 yards and completed 65 percent of his passes. Hotchkiss should be twice as effective once Ross is healthy again and wreaking havoc on AUS corner backs.

We’ll know for certain just how good this team is when they travel to Huskies Stadium to play a rejuvenated SMU team on Saturday, October 23rd (Game will be shown on live.haligonia.ca)

2. Saint Mary’s Huskies

After the Huskies 45-10 beat down on Acadia this past Friday night at the stadium, (http://live.haligonia.ca/halifax-ns/sports/173-sports-video/16377-replay-smu-huskies-football-vs-acadia.html) it was very tempting to put Saint Mary’s at the number one spot of this embattled conference.

But I think I want to see Steve Sumarah’s troops prove they are legitimate contenders one more

week before I begin to believe the big, bad Huskies are back.

The Huskies first win in nearly 11 months vs. the Axemen was more then just revenge; it was a display of complete domination from start to finish. But as Mavs Gillis talked about Tuesday on Bill McLean Sports Show, it was hard to tell if the Huskies were really good, or if Acadia was just really bad.

Certainly the Huskies had no problem shutting down Acadia’s predictable offense, but it was the way they re-established that traditional powerful Huskies ground attack that has caught the attention of AUS pundits.

The Huskies racked up 454 yards rushing on Friday night, led by Craig Leger and Devon Jones who combined for 243. AUS special team player of the week, Jahmeek Taylor, added 70, and QB Micah Brown had his breakout game of the season by running for 67 yards.

As mentioned, it looks like it’s the “year of the running game” in this conference, and it seems the Huskies are the best equipped team for moving the ball on the ground as they lead the conference with 173 yards per game. Also, SMU is second in the conference in rushing defence, allowing only 114 yards a contest.

If the Huskies want to make us believe again, they are going to need another dominating performance this weekend in Antigonish vs. the X-Men.

3. Acadia Axemen

In one week Acadia has gone from being a team that we thought could be the best in the conference to a team that looks like it may not have many wins left on the schedule this season.

We’ll know more about this team after this weekend when they travel to Mount Allison, but it would appear that Axemen Head Coach Jeff Cummins has serious reservations about opening up the playbook for his youthful offence, and has a defence that struggles vs. the run.

Thanks to the mauling from the Huskies on Friday night, the Axemen have surrendered over 200 yards per game on the ground. Factor in that they are only getting 95 yards a game rushing on offence, and it makes for a pretty unhealthy balance that could keep them out of first place the rest of the season.

Acadia’s biggest strength this year has been passing defence. The Axemen lead the AUS with seven interceptions and an efficiency rating of 103.

The secondary will be tested early and often this weekend by the Mounties Jake Hotchkiss and Gary Ross.

Finally, it will be interesting to see how much the youthful Axemen confidence has been shaken by the absolute thrashing from Saint Mary’s.

4. Saint Francis Xavier X-Men

The big win in Antigonish during homecoming weekend over the Mounties can’t disguise the fact that this is a very young team that is probably one or two years away from being a serious contender.

Yes, the defence still has Henoc Muamba and Tom Lynch, a couple of scary dudes. But the offensive side of the ball has been devastated by graduation of talented offensive players, leaving a hard working yet inexperienced group of X-Men struggling mightily to move the football with any kind of consistency.

The X-Men are averaging 32 yards a game of offence on the ground (it’s actually 31.8). Considering that the defence is surrendering 158 yards per game, that means ST.FX is getting outrushed 5 yards to 1 per contest.

That’s not going to get the X-Men to the playoffs, even in this conference.

The pivotal stretch of the season for Gary Waterman’s X-Men is definitely the next two weeks with a home and home vs. Saint Mary’s beginning in Antigonish this Friday. The X-Men will be trying to build on the momentum of last week’s win to keep a Huskies team, on the verge of a breakout, still under wraps.

However, a blowout loss to the Huskies at home this weekend would mean impending doom for their visit to Huskies Stadium on October 15th (game will be shown on live.haligonia.ca).

Either way, come Saturday, October 16th, we should have a clear picture of where this X-Men team stands in the conference.

Answers to Impending FAQ’s Regarding These Rankings

1) Mount Allison? Really?
Yes.
The Mounties are tied for the best record in the conference, have the best passing offence and the second best rushing offence while defending the run very well. They also beat #2 Saint Mary’s in a neutral site game (yes…it was only 30 minutes away from Sackville), scoring three touchdowns in the process. They’ve done it with the best player in the AUS, Gary Ross, in and out of the lineup due to injury.
This ain’t your daddy’s Mounties!

2) SMU Huskies #2? Really?
Yes.
The Huskies had an absolutely horrific September, but their complete destruction of Acadia at the Stadium on October 1st could be a sign of things to come for their home and home with St FX the next two Friday nights, and was easily the biggest margin of victory this season in conference play. (Excluding the absolute demolition from Quebec teams on the overmatched AUS in week 2)

3) Do You Really Know What You Are Talking About?
No, of course not!
But if you think you can do better, post a response or email me your thoughts to haligoniasports@gmail.com.

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