DURHAM – The opener was special – playing on the opposite coast in an NFL stadium that has hosted Super Bowls against one of the top schools in the FBS. But the home opener is going to be extra special for the University of New Hampshire football team.
No. 24 UNH (0-1) will christen its brand new, $25 million Wildcat Stadium at 7 p.m. on Saturday against Holy Cross (1-0).
“We’re so excited. We’ve been thinking about it for a while now,” senior defensive end Cam Shorey said. “Just to get in there and get some fans in there and the students who haven’t had a chance to be inside of it yet, it’s going to be great. And I think it’s going to have a lot of juice and energy for us coming out on Saturday night.”
The Wildcats are also excited to get on the field so they can erase the memory of last week’s 31-0 loss to San Diego State.
“I imagine Saturday night it’s going to be a pretty good place to be in New Hampshire,” Coach Sean McDonnell said. “I think it’s going to be a great crowd with a lot of energy, with a lot of special people here that put in a lot of special work for it. (But) our guys got to go play football. I think they’re looking forward to the opportunity to go christen it, at the same time they’re looking forward to the opportunity to win a football game, their first game, and get back to 1-1.”
Holy Cross won its opener in impressive fashion, 51-24 at Morgan State, but the Crusaders won’t pose an overwhelming physical challenge like San Diego State. They will, however, attack the Wildcats with a smart offensive scheme directed by a talented and experienced quarterback, senior Peter Pujals.
Pujals was an All-Patriot League First Team selection last year after going 286-for-484 (59.1 percent) for 3,195 yards and 28 touchdowns and leading Holy Cross to a 6-5 mark. Last week he was 22-for-38 for 240 yards and three touchdowns and ran the ball eight times for 67 yards.
McDonnell said Pujals, a four-year starter, has a great understanding of the offense and makes all the right adjustments at the line of scrimmage. He’s got a couple of good receivers in Jake Wieczorek (team-high seven catches for 66 yards last week) and Brendan Flaherty (a senior out of Beverly, Mass., who UNH recruited), but the real weapon is Pujals himself.
“Pujals is as good as we’ve seen in our parts in a while,” McDonnell said. “The kid is very athletic, he understands the schemes … When I look at them it starts on offense and it all goes through the quarterback.”
The Crusaders will attack with a variety of screens and run-pass option plays that will put lots of pressure on UNH defensive ends. Luckily for the ’Cats, they’ve got an excellent group of ends, led by the 6-foot-5, 260-pound Shorey.
Not only does Shorey have the size to take on blockers in the run game, he has the athletic ability to bounce from the line and help track down screens and swing passes.
“If you watch Cam he’s a terrific athlete. I remember watching his recruiting tape and the first part of the tape was him dunking a basketball as a freshman and sophomore in high school,” McDonnell said. “And then over at Philips Exeter you saw him continue to develop and … he did a tremendous job this summer of getting in great shape physically and getting stronger. Last week he was okay, as all of our defensive ends were. We need them to be better than okay if we’re going to have a good game on Saturday night defensively.”
Shorey had two tackles, including a sack, against the Aztecs and was part of a run defense that held its own against a power attack led by one of the best running backs in the country, Donnel Pumphrey. Shorey, who is from Calais, Maine, knows his duties will be different this week, but he doesn’t think they’re going to be easy.
“So (Holy Cross) likes to spread us out a little bit, very different from last week. They like to throw the football, I think they pass about 70 percent of the time,” Shorey said. “That’s not to say they can’t run the football, because they can and they have a good backfield, (but) the quarterback runs them. However he plays is how they’re going to play. They run everything through him and he’s a good player, so it’s gong to be a big challenge this week.”
While the UNH defense had plenty of positives to take home from San Diego, the souvenir pickings were slim on the offensive side. The Wildcats finished with just 141 yards of total offense, gained 2.3 yards per rush and went 7-for-20 for 70 yards passing the ball.
“At the top of the list for us on the offensive side of the ball is running the ball with some effectiveness, having some physicality on the offensive line and protecting the quarterback – doing the things we need to so we can get to our players in open spaces, the guys that can go,” McDonnell said. “I think we’ve got some talented kids on offense that weren’t able to show anything last Saturday night because of the length and the strength and the ability of San Diego State.”
One of those “guys that can go” is sophomore receiver Neil O’Connor, who showcased his abilities in the Blue-White scrimmage in August when he had five catches for 146 yards and two touchdowns. O’Connor said the San Diego State defense, “did a lot of great things,” but he also thinks the UNH offense didn’t play to its capabilities.
“We prepared well for that (San Diego State) game, I think we can just continue to do that, but just execute come Saturday,” O’Connor said. “A lot of times one guy was messing up here and another guy was messing up there. If we can all play as 11 and all execute, we’ll be in good shape.”
Sophomore quarterback Trevor Knight threw for just 37 yards on 4-for-16 passing, and one of those incompletions went over the head of a wide-open O’Connor who would have scored the game’s first touchdown. McDonnell said Knight was nervous, and understandably so, but the coach also recalled that in last year’s opener against another Mountain West foe, San Jose State, four-year starter Sean Goldrich was just 10-for-22 for 60 yards.
“I’m interested to see how the offense responds (against Holy Cross),” McDonnell said.
The offense will get a boost with some players coming back from injury – receivers Rory Donovan and Malik Love and tight end Nick Derocher, a sophomore from Northwood.