By Brittany Burke
Saturday’s loss to the Monmouth University Hawks isn’t the first of the season for the CCSU football team, but the 24-12 defeat is the team’s first conference loss, and even more notably, it is the first loss for the Blue Devils experienced on Arute Field since the final game of the 2007 season against Albany.
Going into Saturday’s game against the Hawks, the Blue Devils boasted a home-game win streak of 15 games. CCSU’s streak, which began with the first game of the 2008 season and lasted almost four years, also happened to be the longest in the country.
“I always looked at [the streak] as one game at a time and you had to prove yourself every week,” said Head Coach Jeff McInerney. “The fact that we had that consistency for that long is a credit to our team, but my worries are always making every team I have the best it can be and one game at a time.”
The Blue Devils allowed the Hawks to get an early lead, and never managed to surpass it. Due to an explosive running game, the Hawks went 69-yards in six plays, resulting in a quick touchdown, with plenty of time on the clock in the first quarter.
“It was important that we do get off to a good start,” said MU Head Coach Kevin Callahan. “That was something we talked about this week during our preparation. Central’s a team where they never quit. They always play to the very end and you know you’re going to have a game in the fourth quarter no matter what happened before. I think it was important that we got ourselves out to a lead and then like a typical Central team they came back and regained the momentum right before the half at the end of the second quarter.”
Despite getting the ball back early, the Blue Devils couldn’t find a natural offensive rhythm and as a result the ball was given back to MU. Defensively, the Blue Devils allowed for major runs and extra yardage after initial contact. The Hawks took advantage of CCSU, and with less than three minutes to play in the first the lead was extended to 10.
“We were just flat,” said Gunnar Jespersen. “We were flat as an offense, we were waiting for that breakout game, but you can’t wait for something, you’ve got to go get it, and I think that’s what we were doing as an offense and it started with practice. Practice [last] week wasn’t excellent. We practiced mediocre, we played mediocre today at the best. We’re a much better offense than they are, they have a great defense but we’re a much better offense than what we showed today and we’re going to change that, we’re gonna change that this week.”
The Hawks out-rushed and out-passed the Blue Devils, but a momentum shift went CCSU’s way when Lorenzo Baker forced a fumble, which was recovered by Tyrell Holmes. The defensive jolt sparked the offense, and resulted in a Brian Fowler touchdown heading into halftime, however the team remained down 17-7.
“They jumped on us early,” said Gene Johnson. “Me being on the defense side of the ball that’s something that we gotta fix, we can’t expect a team to go up 17-0 then just expect to just come back like that. We let them get up early and that was the problem. We put our offense in a tough situation by going up 17-0 so we just got to stay together and build off of that.”
Fowler led the team in rushing with 62 yards and the only CCSU touchdown of the game. Late in the game, with the Blue Devils down 24-12, it looked as if Fowler would add another touchdown to his game-day resume, but as he broke from the line of scrimmage he was in noticeable pain. Instead of running all the way into the end zone untouched, he had to run to the sidelines after 18 yards.
Last season the Blue Devils won at MU 49-48 in double overtime, and the year before that they beat the Hawks after climbing back from a 19 point deficit to win by one point, 20-19, which enhanced the reputation of being a late-in-the-fourth comeback team, but on Saturday the magic just wasn’t there.
“What I look at this,” said McInerney. “Championship’s not over by a long shot. A team could win this outright with one loss and there’s been a year here if you remember it, 2006, it was a three way tie with two losses, so we can’t let this one game on this one Saturday afternoon affect us. We got some things we need to clean up and pretty much, defensively I thought they fought hard and competed … what I was hoping for is we could just run the football. We gotta clean up what we’re doing.”
CCSU has one week to recap before playing it’s second consecutive home game. On Oct. 1 at 12 p.m. CCSU plays its homecoming game against Sacred Heart.
“Sometimes you’ve got to get knocked down to get up,” McInerney said. “Like I tell people, I’m gonna be the same tomorrow, whether we won this game or lost, and I’m gonna do that for the next eight weeks because we have a bye week. Regardless of circumstance, we’re gonna see how good of coaches and teachers we are. Like I told the kids, it’s on me to prepare you and get you ready and if you don’t have enough of what it takes I got to replace you …”
