The Long Rhode to Success

Yesterday I had the opportunity to be the color commentator for 90.3 WRIU Kingston in their broadcast of the Central Connecticut/Rhode Island football game. As a Rhode Island Ram who has only seen his team lose many a time by embarrassing margins this game was a breath of fresh air. Rhode Island came together in two of the three aspects of the game, and dominated those two on their way to a bloodbath 42-7 victory over the CCSU Blue Devils.

OFFENSE: The Rhody offense set the tone of this game pretty early on. As with most offensively successful teams (2007 Patriots, Greatest Show on Turf, etc) the offensive line does the real hard work in order for the skill players to thrive. And boy, did they thrive in this one. The boys on the o-line didn’t allow a single sack while giving QB Bob Bentsen time to go 11-20 for 168 yards with 2TD’s and a pick. Now those certainly don’t indicate the second coming of Joe Montana, but the thing is he did not need to be Joe Montana. All he had to do was be Trent Dilfer, and let the pieces around him do their job.

Justin Semmes led the rushing attack on 18 touches for 114 yards (6.3 Y/A) and 2TD’s. H would score late in the first quarter to URI the lead and never look back. Robbie Delgado complemented Semmes, getting 17 rushes for 69 yards (4.1 Y/A) and a score and even Bentsen got in on the fun (8 carries for 42 yards). Once Rhode Island forced Central Connecticut into respecting the rushing attack and pulling their safeties into the box, Bentsen would drop little passes to the FB Favreau (3 catches, 48 yds, 1TD) and WR Wynn (2 catches, 69 yds) out in the flats for big gains down the sidelines. Beautiful “hit ‘em where they aint” football.

DEFENSE: Just like with the offense, everything starts up front. Rhode Island only had one sack on the afternoon, but they were able to push QB Andrew Clements all over the field and force him to be careless with the ball. Clements was 13 for 24, 143 yds and 3 interceptions. Bacarella would tack on another key interception as time expired in the first half on CCSU’s only real scoring opportunity of the first half. Rhode Island successfully applied the “bend, don’t break mentality” to Saturdays contest and dominated the red zone, and therefore dominated the scoreboard. As the New York Football Giants have known for years, a terrific pass rush can make an average secondary look like a bunch of Pro-Bowl caliber players.

SPECIAL TEAMS: This was really the only facet in the game URI didn’t dominate. They were able to take advantage of some quality punting opportunities to pin the Blue Devils inside their own 20 which would set Rhody up with good field position after the defense forced three and outs. These short fields were great for the Rhode Island offense. The scary part was kicking it deep following the touchdown. Early in the contest Rob Hollomon ripped a 73 yard return to set up what looked like great field position for the offense. His first three kick returns were enough to scare Rhode Island (3 returns, 146 yards) into only attempting squib kicks for the rest of the afternoon.

IN CONCLUSION: Anytime you turn the ball over 6 times, you will lose the football game. The Blue Devils found that out the hard way. The Rhode Island lineman dominated the line of scrimmage from both sides of the ball, and that is why they won this game. Also, with CCSU shooting themselves in their collective foot (9 penalties for 77 yards) it made Rhode Island’s BLOWOUT WIN that much easier.