Game One (really Game 587 in the long run)
Seven weeks from this Saturday, Collegefootballfan.com’s 2019 kick-off begins its 40th season of college football in Hamilton, NY at Andy Kerr Stadium, home of the Colgate Red Raiders, defending 2018 champions of the Patriot League (10-2, 6-0) and FCS semi-finalist. A solid D returns led by All-FCS DL Nick Wheeler and DB Abu Daramy-Swaray. Returning QB Grant Breneman starts his Junior year behind a solid, experienced group of linemen. They should dominate the Patriot League again and take the automatic bid back to the play-offs. We watched them defeat a great James Madison program last season in the play-offs under HC Dan Hunt…
Their competition comes from Villanova under third-year HC Mark Ferrante off a 5-6, 2-4 CAA season set back by numerous injuries including at QB. The Wildcats will return a good secondary on our 2019 kick-off led by CAA Defensive Rookie of the Year Christian Benford. On offense, Ferrante might start 6′-7″ Frosh QB Qadir Ismail who will have an experienced running game behind him. On a historical note, we watched current Villanova Wildcat HC Mark Ferrante quarterback St. Lawrence University past Wagner College in a D-3 Play-off game, 42-34, in 1982.
2019 Game Two
In our 588th game ever, we will return to Stony Brook out on Long Island for only the second time. In 2008, Collegefootballfan.com was invited by the underground student newspaper to attend their opening day win over Colgate in the press box, 42-18. HC Chuck Priore, still there after all these years, brings back eight defensive regulars from his 7-5, 5-3 CAA playoff team. He looks to start up a whole, new backfield to try to make it into the FCS playoffs for the Seawolves’ third year in a row. Coming across the Long Island Sound from Rhode Island to do battle will be the Bryant Bulldogs 6-5, 2-4 of the Northeast Conference under new HC Chris Merrit who replaces James Perry who took the HC job at nearby Brown to try to turn football fortune around there. FCS All-America return man Jean Constant who doubles at wide-out will offer some excitement in this Thursday evening game. Rumors persist that the Bulldog starting QB will be Ohio State transfer Kory Curtis. On defense, stalwart DL Tomas Wright, LB Jesse Nemerovich, and CB Andre Brackett will lead the charge. It will be a tough home opener for Stony Brook.
2019 Game Three
Rutgers HC Chris Ash will be wearing “hot pants” this Friday evening entering his fourth season at Rutgers “on the banks of the old Raritan“. Coming off a 1-11, 0-9 Big Ten season, the Scarlet Knights’ stats look even worse. Of 130 FBS football teams, they finished 127th in pass completions, 128th in yards per catch, and dead last in scoring, 13.5 points per game. Soph QB Arthur Sitkowski returns for a second helping and hopes to gets some better pass protection around him and some open receivers down field. Last year he finished with only four TD passes and 18 INTs. A star at IMG in Florida, it once again reinforces my point that the best QBs don’t come out of these high school “football factories”. At that level, they get the best around them at every position on the field and dominate. At the college level, the surrounding talent around a QB is on more equal footing. All we can say about the RU team this year is that there is a lot of experience returning. How much of an improvement remains to be seen. The talent level fall far short of its Big Ten East brethren.
In this third game of our 2019 kick-off, like in 2018, Rutgers best chance to win a game is in their season opener. Last season, the Knights stirred their fans up with a 35-7 win over Texas State of the Sun Belt. This year, UMass comes to The Birthplace off a 4-8 record and under a new HC Walt Bell, former offensive coordinator at Florida State and Maryland. However, the Minutemen return without a key starters from last season at QB, WR (Dandy Isabella drafted by the Arizona Cardinals), RB, and MLB, all graduated. QB Michael Curtis played in six games last year and will probably start in the season opener. We’ve liked DB Isaiah Rogers when we saw UMass play the last few years. Despite future FBS schedules already announced by the UMass Administration, we bet the football program eventually settles back into the FCS where it will compete on a more equal level.
2019 Game Four
We started our 2018 season kick-off with UMass at Boston College. The day after we see UMass play RU on Friday night, we’re on our way to a wedding on Sunday in New Hampshire. Luckily for our daughter Alex’s four-year roommate as South Carolina, Jocelyn, Boston College hosts Virginia Tech on Saturday the day before, otherwise we’d be scrambling our schedule to make October 19 fall on our Game 600 target. Good job, Jocelyn!
BC hosts Virginia Tech, the team we saw finish off last season with a 35-31 loss to Cincinnati in the Military Bowl. Tech 6-7, 3-5 returns eleven starters on defense under successful long time DC Bud Foster after one of his unit’s less spectacular seasons. A solid secondary returns and LBs Rayshard Ashby, Dylan Rivers, and Dax Hollifield return with a lot of experience under their belts. Offensively, HC Justin Fuente will rely on Ryan Wills a at QB again having thrown for 2,716 yards, 24 TDs, and nine INTs during his inaugural season. Four of five top receivers return to solidify the passing game. However, three new starters on the line need to develop quickly to provide protection and to open holes for RBs DeShawn McClease and Jalen Holston.
The experienced Hokie defense will be tested by the BC Eagles’ offense who return AJ Dillon as their prime ball carrier. Last season he ran for 1,108 yards and 10 TDs in ten games. QB Anthony Brown fired 20 TDs with Kobay White as his prime target with 526 yards a season ago. The offensive line will make some adjustments, but will add some familiar football family names up front with C Alec Lindstrom whose brother Chris just graduated to go 14th in the NFL draft to the Atlanta Falcons. OT Tyler Vrabel, son of Mike Vrabel formerly of the New England Patriots, fills in to open up some holes for Dillon and to protect Brown. HC Steve Addazio’s defense will play typically tough despite one returnee on the D-Line and one in the secondary. Tech’s receiving corp will look to take advantage, but with BC LBs Isaiah McDuffie and Max Richardson leading the defensive attack, this should be a very competitive game in Chestnut Hill. We look forward to this one.