“Every game has been extremely tight,” Johns Hopkins coach Jim Margraff said.

The close games are similar to what happened to the Blue Jays last season, according to Margraff. In 2005, however, the team was 6-0 at this point in the season and on its way to winning the conference championship outright for the first time. They had shared the conference title three straight years before that.

Because of injuries, the Blue Jays have a number of young players seeing significant time. They lost two quarterbacks in the season opener and, at times, have started four or five freshman on offense.

“We need to become more consistent on offense, need more consistent play,” Margraff said.

McDaniel is also getting by with younger squad. The Green Terror has two seniors on the offensive line, three seniors at wide receiver and two senior defensive backs. The other positions are filled by underclassmen.

“We don?t have a lot of senior experience,” Green Terror head coach Tim Keating said. “We have not played like a team yet. We have a small junior class. I would like to think it is an anomaly, but these things don?t happen overnight.”

Recruiting has been difficult over the past few years because of coaches leaving the program, Keating said. But he added that McDaniel?s current freshman class is one of the strongest he?s had in awhile.

McDaniel, the Centennial champ six years in a row from 1997 to 2002, is currently tied with Johns Hopkins for last place. The Green Terror is also last in 12 statistical categories in the conference, including total offense, total defense and time of possession.

Even though the numbers are stacked against it, McDaniel has only been out of one game this year, dropping its opener to Bridgewater, 41-0.

“We can play with anybody,” Keating said. “Being as young as we are, we can take something from that. These things are cyclical. It is not going to happen tomorrow, and it might not happen next year. You know we will be back.”