By Chris Estrada
As the old adage goes, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. As you can see, that old chestnut mentions nothing about football.
Northeastern was competitive almost every week in 2007 and scored impressive wins against ranked opponents New Hampshire and Hofstra. But in a season that featured five games settled by 10 points or less, the team lost four of them.
With the season opener against Ball State 15 days away, the Huskies are working to make sure they will be ready to come through in crunch time. This year’s group was unveiled to the media Aug. 5 at Parsons Field and players like senior defensive lineman and returning starter Wil Colon told the press that the little things are going to be big.
“That’s what we’re trying to work on this year,” he said. “We want to finish games this year, whereas last year, we were up on teams like Delaware, who ended up going to the [Football Championship Subdivision] national championship.
“We want to be able to finish those games this year and that’s why this year, our motto on defense is ‘no excuses.’ It’s kind of like the Pats – just shut up, do your job and make sure we finish every single game. It’s not over ’til the whistle.”
Head coach Rocky Hager will see 43 returning lettermen, 15 of them returning starters, this season, something that he said gives him confidence in the Huskies going above their fifth-place pre-season ranking in the Colonial Athletic Association’s North Division.
Nine of those starters are on offense, including senior quarterback Anthony Orio and a trio of receivers in senior tight end Brian Mandeville, senior wideout Chris Plum and junior wideout Tony Lott. But despite that and the added receiving ability of new starting tailback Alex Broomfield – who will step in to replace NU’s all-time leading rusher Maurice Murray – Hager said a balanced offense will remain the plan of attack.
“If the offense has got to blend itself into a defensive scheme that says you should throw the football, we’re going to throw the football,” he said. “I think it happens that we have a smart enough quarterback who can get us into those plays once in a while.”
Hager added that such a flexible approach would run both ways – for the passing attack and the running attack.
“If [the defense] is going to say, ‘Well, we’re going to back off,’ and you have to try and run the football, then we’ll run the football – try to allow the quarterback to … give us the best opportunity to move the football team that way,” he said. “We’ll always search for methods with which to run the football, but we’re not going to be afraid to throw the football either.”
On defense, the team will go a little differently and try out a combination of a straight 3-4 look (three linemen, four linebackers) and a 3-3 stack formation that allows for multiple schemes in attempting to stop offenses.
“The defense is pretty much the same,” said returning starting free safety Nate Thellen. “We have new plays going obviously, but we’re doing a lot more quarters [style of defense] this year, coverage and different zone pressures. But basically, it’s the same as we’ve been running in the spring and last fall.”
Hager also said some looks with four down linemen will be used to take advantage of his quicker pass rushers, like sophomore outside linebacker and returning starter David Akinniyi.
“That’s a derivative of the fact that [Akinniyi] is a guy that can also line up on the line of scrimmage and show a good rush,” Hager said. “He showed some of that last year when we were in a four-man front as well. You’ll see a little more of that this year, because of the multiplicity that we’ve placed together in the package.”
Other starters coming back on defense include seniors nose guard Corey Thomas, left cornerback Cord Parks and inside linebacker Craig Kenney.
In special teams, Hager called the battle at kicker a “dead heat” between junior Mat Johnson and sophomore Paul Branco. Ron Conway will be at punter and fellow juniors Zach Abrams and Ty Sibert are expected to snap.
The Huskies’ first action of the season will be in Muncie, Ind. Aug. 28 against the Ball State Cardinals at 7 p.m.
