The game
“Johns Hopkins (9-1) opens play in the 2024 NCAA Division III Football Playoffs as the Blue Jays welcome Grove City (9-1) to Homewood Field.”

A review
“Johns Hopkins extended its winning streak to seven on Nov. 16 with a 35-0 regular-season victory at McDaniel.”
“Grove City also closed out the regular season with a decisive victory as the Wolverines defeated Westminster 36-9 on November 16.”

How they got here
“Johns Hopkins received an automatic bid to the 2024 NCAA Division III Football Playoffs when the Blue Jays went a perfect 6-0 in Centennial Conference play to secure the league’s automatic bid.”
“Grove City has earned an at-large playoff bid. The Wolverines secured a share of the Presidents’ Athletic Conference title, but Washington & Jefferson secured the PAC’s automatic bid via tiebreaker. Nevertheless, after a 9-1 record in the regular season, the Wolverines were awarded one of the twelve bids for the playoffs.

What’s next?“The winner of the Johns Hopkins-Grove City game will face the winner of the DePauw-Maryville game in the third round of the tournament on Saturday, December 7th. The location and time of this game will be announced on Sunday, December 1st.

Survey position
“Johns Hopkins comes in at No. 17 in the latest AFCA poll and is ranked No. 19 in the D3football.com poll.”
“This week’s No. 17 ranking marks the 142nd time in 257 polls that the Blue Jays have been ranked in the top 25 since the AFCA first conducted its poll in 1999.
“The Blue Jays are in the D3football.com top 25 for the 164th time in 271 polls since D3football first conducted its poll in 2003.”

Playoff history
“Johns Hopkins is making its 13th trip to the NCAAs, including its 11th since 2011.”
“The Blue Jays are 12-12 all-time in the NCAA Tournament, with a trip to the NCAA semifinals in 2018 and two trips to the NCAA quarterfinals in 2009 and 2023 highlighting their playoff history.”
“In addition, the Blue Jays also reached the second round of the playoffs in 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2021.
“This week’s game will be the 14th home playoff game in Hopkins history.” JHU is 8-5 all-time in NCAA playoff games at Homewood Field.
“JHU has hosted an NCAA second-round playoff game three times (2015, 2016, 2023).

Series story
“This week’s game between Johns Hopkins and Grove City will be the first between the two teams in football.”
“Johns Hopkins and Grove City have only met in direct competition ten times in all sports.” Six of those ten games were in water polo between 1999 and 2004, and there were also three men’s soccer games between the two schools (1995, 2004, 2005). a women’s tennis match (2019) between the two schools.
“The only previous NCAA Tournament game between Johns Hopkins and Grove City in any sport was the 2019 women’s tennis meeting.” Johns Hopkins won that game 5-0 in the first round of the tournament.

Against the PAC
“This week’s game will be the 19th all-time for Johns Hopkins against a team currently competing in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference.”
“JHU has a 9-8-1 all-time record against teams in the PAC, with 11 of those 19 games coming against Carnegie Mellon.”
“Johns Hopkins’ 18 games in the PAC against teams all-time include three that were played in the NCAA playoffs.” JHU lost to Thiel (28-3) in its first-ever NCAA playoff game in 2005 and split two games against Washington & Jefferson with a 42-10 win at Homewood Field in 2012 and a 31-28 loss at W&J that year 2017 ; All three previous NCAA games against PAC teams came in the first round.
« Below is JHU’s previous record against teams from the PAC:

Allegheny (1-0-1)
Case Western (1-0)
Carnegie Mellon (5-6)
Thiel (0-1)
Washington & Jefferson (1-1)
Waynesburg (1-0)

November reign
“Johns Hopkins won all three of its regular season games in November and has experienced a November resurgence in recent years.”
“The three-game run this season extends JHU’s November winning streak to 10 games, dating back to a 45-35 loss at Mount Union on November 27, 2021.”
“To take it back even further, the Blue Jays are 20-2 in the month of November since 2018, when JHU fell 4-0 en route to the program’s only appearance in the NCAA semifinals.

Strength in numbers
“The 10 opponents on Johns Hopkins’ 2024 regular season schedule have compiled a combined record of 60-34 (.638) so far. This is the fifth toughest schedule in the country based on opponents’ win percentage.

Consecutive shutdowns
“Johns Hopkins enters this week’s game against Grove City having posted back-to-back shutouts in wins over Dickinson (30-0) and McDaniel (35-0). This is the first time since the start of the 2022 season that JHU has posted consecutive shutouts.

Defense moves forward
“JHU has allowed a total of 33 points in the last six games.” This is the fewest number the Blue Jays have allowed in a six-game span since allowing just 30 in the first six games of the 2003 season.
“The Blue Jays have held eight of 10 opponents to 13 points or fewer and are allowing just 11.3 points per game.” JHU leads Centennial and ranks ninth nationally in scoring defense.
“All 10 Blue Jay opponents have been below their season average so far in their game against Johns Hopkins. Only one – Ithaca – came within 10 points of their season average against the Blue Jays, and six were 14 or more points below their average. McDaniel was held scoreless by the Blue Jays, but entered the game averaging less than eight points per game (so technically the Green Terror were also within 10 points of their season scoring average).

Defense under Centennial, NCAA Best
“The Johns Hopkins defense has been among the best in the Centennial Conference in virtually every statistical category this season and is also among the national leaders in several categories.”
“Going into this week’s game, Johns Hopkins leads Centennial in scoring defense (11.3) and pass efficiency defense (95.8), ranks third in total defense (289.5) and rushing defense (103, 9) and fourth in pass defense (185.6).
“The Blue Jays also allowed three touchdown passes, the fewest in the league, and opponents completed just 52.8% of their pass attempts.”
“Nationally, Johns Hopkins ranks third in red zone defense (.538), fourth in pass efficiency defense, and the three touchdown passes the Blue Jays have allowed are also the fewest in the country in Division III.”

Paxton gives Jays a head start
« Johns Hopkins freshman kicker Brad Paxton entered the Blue Jay record book with victory at Gettysburg. For his efforts against the Bullets, he was honored as the Centennial Conference Special Teams Player of the Week.
“Paxton made all six of his extra points and was 3 of 3 on field goals as he was good from 27, 20 and 30 yards in the win over the Bullets.” His 15 points tied the Johns Hopkins single-game record for points by a kicker .
“In this week’s game against Grove City, Paxton is 23 of 26 on extra points and has made 11 of 14 field goals this year. His 11 field goals are tied for the Centennial Conference lead, the most by a freshman in Johns Hopkins history (Alex Lachman-11 (2007), ranking eighth in a single season in JHU history.
“Paxton’s 11 field goals also rank second nationally in Division III among freshmen.”

At home in Homewood
“Including the recent win against Dickinson, the Blue Jays have had a dominant run at Homewood Field recently.”
“Since the start of the 2014 season, the Blue Jays are 54-6 (.900) at Homewood Field; Since 2010, Homewood is 70-9 (.886).
“JHU won a school-record 19 consecutive home games from midway through the 2019 season through the 2023 NCAA Quarterfinals.”

Looking for Win #10
“With a 9-1 record on the year, Johns Hopkins enters its second-round NCAA playoff game this week needing a win to reach 10 for the year.”
“A win would mark the 13th time Johns Hopkins has won 10 or more games in a season, with each of the previous 12 games coming since 2003.”
“Before 2002 (when JHU went 9-2), Johns Hopkins had never won more than seven games in a season, but the Blue Jays had averaged Since then, 9.3 wins per season.

For more information, see the PDF version above