DURHAM – They had won five of the their last six games, including the signature win of the season (so far) in their last contest, a 43-14 whupping against then No. 22/20 Stony Brook. And then … the bye week struck for the No. 21/23 University of New Hampshire football team.
“It was a good week of practice, I’ll tell you how successful it was Saturday after the game (at home against 5-4 Albany),” UNH Coach Sean McDonnell said. “There’s no magic to this off week. We were playing pretty good coming into the off week, had a pretty good game, everybody said, ‘Worried about momentum?’ I just hope it carries over, because we’ve been playing pretty good, hanging on to the ball and doing the right things.”
Those right things have brought the Wildcats near the top of the Colonial Athletic Association standings with a 5-1 mark in league play and a 6-3 record overall. No. 6/5 James Madison (8-1) is in first with a 6-0 CAA record with UNH and No. 9/11Villanova (7-2) right behind at 5-1. JMU, which hung on for a wild 47-43 league win last week against Richmond, travels to Villanova on Saturday for a key CAA clash.
If the Wildcats can keep the momentum they had built over the last month and close out the regular-season with wins against Albany and at Maine on Nov. 19, they will almost certainly be making their 13th straight appearance in the FCS playoffs, the longest streak in the country.
“We’re very excited to play (Albany) … as Coach Mac said, it’s championship month, so we’ve got to make sure we buckle down and finish,” UNH junior running back Donald Goodrich said.
If the ‘Cats lose momentum and drop one of these last two games, they could still get in to the playoffs at 7-4, but they’ll need the selection committee to look on them kindly.
The players, however, aren’t concerned about losing the energy they built in October.
“No, not all,” senior DeVaughn Chollete said. “We prepared during the bye week for this game. We still practiced. We watched film on our own and with each other. So nothing too much different in that aspect.”
What they saw on film was an Albany team that won its first four games but has gone just 1-4 since then, including a 33-17 loss at home last week to Delaware.
The Great Danes follow an old-school formula – run the football and play physical, ball-hawking defense.
“I think it comes down to stopping the run,” Cholette said. “They have a good quarterback (Neven) Sussman, he can throw the ball, but I think their line is good and they have a back that has good vision and ability to make plays, so we have to make sure we stop the run.”
That back is sophomore Elijah Ibitokun-Hanks, who is No. 6 in the FCS in rushing yards (1,072) and total touchdowns (13). But those numbers are offset by passing offense that’s ranked No. 116 in the FCS with 118.9 passing yards per game. And just last week Sussman, also a sophomore, threw a pair of back-breaking interceptions, including one that was returned for a touchdown.
“The two interceptions were very disappointing,” Albany Coach Greg Gattuso said. “They were against very obvious coverages in the sense of where we should have gone with the ball. Some times young quarterbacks are prone to make mistakes and I thought they were really critical mistakes.”
For most of the season, however, the Great Danes have used turnovers to their advantage. They lead the CAA in turnovers gained with 26 (13 interceptions, 13 fumble recoveries) and in turnover margin (plus-13). The ‘Cats know they have to protect the ball on Saturday, but that’s nothing new for them.
“Every week we talk about it first thing,” McDonnell said. “If we hang on to the football, we believe we can move the football on anybody. When we turn it over, it causes problems.”
UNH is hoping to host another game at Wildcat Stadium in the postseason, but Saturday’s contest is the last regular-season home game, which means it’s senior day.
When he was asked about this senior class, McDonnell first talked about four seniors on the the offensive line – Tad McNeely, Curtis Nealer, Concord’s Andrew Lauderdale and Lebanon’s Alexander Morrill, who has missed most of the season with a hip injury.
“You’re proud of those kids, they’re the cornerstone of the offense,” McDonnell said.
The coach had kind words for all of his senior starters, but there was a little extra for cornerback Casey DeAndrade, a captain, four-year starter and All-American. McDonnell compared DeAndrade to UNH legends Ricky Santos and Matt Evans, who won the Walter Payton Award (FCS Offensive Player of the Year) and Buck Buchanan Award (FCS Defensive Player of the Year), respectively, during their time at UNH.
“(DeAndrade) just has been a kid that you hung your hat on in this football program,” McDonnell said. “Plays the way we like to play football. He’s competitive, he’s athletic, he don’t look like much at times, but he’s the best player on the field most of the time.”
If you’ve been to a UNH game in person, you may have noticed that one player carries a state of New Hampshire flag to lead the team as it takes the field. McDonnell shared the history of that tradition on Wednesday.
The flag came from a Andrew Davis, a New Hampshire native who was in the armed services. The Wildcats gave Davis a ticket to a UNH playoff game in Spartanburg, S.C., against Wofford College in 2012. In return, Davis gave the Wildcats the flag he carried with him during his service in Afghanistan.
McDonnell began the tradition of having a player lead the team on to the field with the flag in 2013. And the first person to carry the flag was none other than Franklin’s Matt Kaplan, “someone who we thought best-represented what UNH football was all about at that time,” McDonnell said.
McDonnell said the reasoning behind who carries the flag changes with every game – the flag bearer may have grown up near the opposing school, or been recruited by them, or maybe his position is the key to the game plan, etc. – but the significance never changes.
“It’s important to get an opportunity to carry something that’s a symbol of our program and most importantly, I think, a symbol of the state of New Hampshire … the kids take great pride in the 603 and that’s what it does,” McDonnell said.
In true, blue-collar, resourceful UNH fashion, the flag isn’t attached to a flag pole. The staff couldn’t find one after Davis delivered it to Durham, so they made do with a broken ski gate from the ski team that still holds the flag today.
But make no mistake, the ’Cats take the flag seriously.
“To me it means going to war,” Cholette said. “We do it every game going out to war with our brothers. That’s how I feel about it.”