ORONO, Maine – They had just two yards in the first quarter and they lost their starting quarterback. They were manhandled for the majority of the first half. They were on the road in the stadium of their arch rival with a historic playoff streak on the line.
The University of New Hampshire football team shrugged off all the setbacks, stared down all the pressure and pulled out a last-second, 24-21 win over Maine in Saturday’s regular-season finale in front of 6,401 at Alfond Stadium.
“I think everybody really came out to play in the second half, and that’s a testament to the character of our team,” said UNH senior Dalton Crossan, who powered the second-half surge and finished with 163 yards rushing and a touchdown on 25 carries.
The win puts the Wildcats at 7-4 overall and 6-2 in the Colonial Athletic Association – and puts them in position to extend their FCS-best string of postseason appearances to 13 straight years. The ’Cats will learn their fate Sunday at 11 a.m. when the 24-team FCS playoff bracket is revealed live on ESPNU.
“We should be in the playoffs,” UNH Coach Sean McDonnell said. “We’re a good football team. We lost two games in the fourth quarter to Dartmouth and Albany … and you look at what we’ve done on the road, won four games on the road Maine, Rhode Island, Towson, Elon, that’s a pretty good resume. Also better go to church and say a lot of prayers.”
The prayers are needed because 7-4 records have always put teams on the playoff bubble, although New Hampshire was invited the tournament with that same record in 2015, 2013, 2010 and 2007. And McDonnell wasn’t the only coach at Alfond who thinks the Wildcats should be in for a 13th straight time.
“For sure. Yeah, definitely, 6-2 in this league, that should get you in every year, no doubt about it,” said Maine Coach Joe Harasymiak, whose team could have been the one hoping for an invitation but instead finished 6-5 and 5-3 in the CAA.
The win was also the seventh straight against Maine and 13th in the last 14 meetings. Which means the rivalry’s trophy, the Brice-Cowell Musket, will remain in the UNH locker room for another year.
McDonnell likes to say that every game is the most important game because it’s the next one, but UNH senior captain Casey DeAndrade was willing to counter the company line after Saturday’s emotional win.
“(McDonnell) is probably going to get mad at me, but it’s not the next one. It’s Maine,” DeAndrade said, “and we always get up for this one.”
It was, however, hard to be sure just how up the ’Cats were in the first half. Maine sacked Trevor Knight on each of New Hampshire’s first three possessions, and the last one from Christophe Mulumba Tshimanga knocked Knight out of the game for good. That play also pinned UNH on its own 1, which led to Maine getting the ball on the New Hampshire 29 and scoring the first touchdown of the game on a 13-yard double pass from Earnest Edwards to Jared Osumah for a 7-0 lead with 2:07 left in the first.
The UNH offense followed with a three-and-out, but the defense picked up the scoring slack on Maine’s next drive when Pop Lacey picked off Dan Collins (11-for-28, 202 yards, two touchdowns, two interceptions) and returned it 44 yards for a touchdown. That gave the Wildcats an FCS-best seven defensive touchdowns this season and, more importantly, gave them some hope.
“It’s been a good thing for (the defense) to score here and there, and I think it just gives everyone confidence, not only us, but special teams, everything, it gives us a little boost,” DeAndrade said.
The Wildcats did start to play better after that, but Adam Riese, who had replaced Knight, threw a red-zone interception to end a drive. And Maine scored the next touchdown – a 45-yard pass from Collins to Micah Wright (five catches, 121 yards, two touchdowns) with 7:55 left in the second quarter. The Wildcats answered with a long drive, but again they stalled in the red zone as Riese was stopped short on a fourth-and-goal from the 1 as the Black Bears took a 14-7 lead – and all the momentum – into halftime.
Yet the Wildcats know how to bounce back from adversity and that’s just what they did in the second half. The offensive line that had been pushed around began pushing back and Crossan ran wild. The senior broke tackles and ankles on a stunning 35-yard touchdown run to make it 14-14 with 5:31 left in the third.
The ’Cats kept feeding Crossan the next time they got the ball, and the result was a 16-play drive that ended with a pretty 10-yard touchdown pass from Riese (20-for-37, 218 yards, touchdown, interception) to Neil O’Connor to give UNH its first lead of the game, 21-14, with 12:22 left in the fourth.
“Hat goes off to the offensive line, hat goes off to Dalton the way he ran and really to Adam Riese,” McDonnell said. “He’s been preparing all year and … everybody in the program knows that if he comes in, we can win, showed it again today.”
Maine tied things when Wright pulled in a 29-yard touchdown catch with 5:02 on the clock, which proved to be plenty of time for Riese and the ’Cats to mount a final drive.
The senior quarterback hit Kieran Presley with a 28-yard pass to start the game-winning march and Crossan did most of the heavy lifting from there. Eventually, UNH pushed the ball inside the Maine 10, milked the clock down to seven seconds and Morgan Ellman drilled the game-winning, musket-keeping 21-yard field goal and kept New Hampshire’s playoff hopes alive.
“Today was an example of our guys just believing that they we’re going to find a way to win the game,” McDonnell said.
(Tim O’Sullivan can be reached at 369-3341 or at tosullivan@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @timosullivan20.)