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Football: Black Bears open CAA play

UMaine hits the road to take on Ward, Richmond Spiders

By Adam Clark

Posted on Thursday, September 18th, 2008, 12:00 am

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Andrew Downey and Jovan Belcher get pumped up on the practice field Tuesday after winning the home opener on Saturday.

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In the 2007 inaugural season of Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) football, five teams from the conference made the NCAA playoffs. Delaware advanced to the championship game before falling to Appalachian State.

Top players like Ricky Santos of UNH, Omar Cuff and Joe Flacco of Delaware and Tim Hightower of Richmond moved on though. They were either drafted by an NFL team or signed as undrafted free agents this spring.

Despite such a star-studded crop of players moving on to professional football, the CAA in 2008 appears to be even stronger with five teams currently ranked among the nation’s top 10.

“The teams are much improved from last year,” said University of Maine Coach Jack Cosgrove. “Not that last year wasn’t a good year, it’s just that so many players have come back to play again, and that’s the natural progression.”

On Saturday, the Black Bears open conference play when they travel south to take on one of those top-10 teams, the No. 2-ranked Richmond Spiders, at 3 p.m.

UMaine (2-1, 0-0 CAA) is coming off a 28-13 victory over Stony Brook in its home opener last Saturday. In the contest, sophomore quarterback Adam Farkes threw four first-half touchdown passes. The Black Bear defense recorded 10 tackles for loss, including seven sacks.

Stony Brook, is not the caliber of Richmond.

“They were a team that finished at the top of our league last year and were defeated by eventual national champion Appalachian State [in the national semifinals],” Cosgrove said. “They have a lot of those guys back this year.”

Richmond (2-1, 1-0), the winner of the CAA South division in 2007, started the 2008 season strong, defeating nationally-ranked Elon and CAA foe Towson. Their only defeat came at the hands of Virginia from the Atlantic Coast Conference. The Spiders had a chance to win the game and trailed 3-0 in the fourth quarter before falling 16-0.

“We watched the film of them against Virginia, and Virginia struggled to move the ball,” Farkes said, “but you don’t want to get hung up on that. We respect them. They’re No. 2 in the country, and they’re a great team, but so are we.”

The Spiders lead the conference in scoring defense (13.3 points per game) and total defense (272.7 yards per game).

Leading the way is senior defensive end Lawrence Sidbury (13 total tackles, 1.0 sack). Linebackers Collin McConaghy (20 total tackles) and Eric McBride (16 total tackles) bolster a defense that returns eight starters. All three players are preseason All-CAA picks.

“They have a very complete, solid team defense,” Cosgrove added. “They seem to really work well together [and] keep it pretty simple. It’s really a strength of a team that has a lot of strengths.”

Offensively, the Spiders had to replace All-American running back and current Arizona Cardinal, Tim Hightower. Senior Josh Vaughan (50 carries, 274 yards, two touchdowns) has stepped into that role and performed well behind a veteran offensive line that includes preseason All-American guard, junior Matthew McCracken.

Also returning for Richmond is junior quarterback Eric Ward who threw for over 2,300 yards and 17 touchdowns last season. Ward, a dual-threat behind center, also ran for eight touchdowns in 2007.

“He can run it off of the scramble or on the designed run,” Cosgrove said of the Richmond quarterback. “He can create off the scramble with the pass. He’s a typical quarterback that is a pain in the butt to defend.”

Ward’s top target at wide receiver is sophomore Kevin Grayson (18 receptions, 308 yds., 1 TD). Grayson, the 2007 CAA Offensive Rookie of the Year, is a “game-breaking type of wide receiver,” according to Cosgrove.

The Spiders also possess a great return game with sophomore Justin Rogers, one of the elite kick returners in the country and the 2007 CAA Special Teams Player of the Year.

While Richmond has performed very well this season, UMaine has also come on strong after a 46-3 loss at Iowa to open the season.

Since the Iowa game, the Black Bears have reeled off two straight wins over Monmouth and Stony Brook. In those games, Farkes has thrown a combined seven touchdowns, matching his career-high from 2007 for touchdowns in a season.

The defense has also taken strides, particularly in last weekend’s win over Stony Brook where the Black Bears forced four turnovers.

“The first two games we were kind of tweaking and modifying what we had to do,” junior defensive lineman Jonas Rousseau said. “Now, we know what our game is.”

Despite being the heavy underdog in Saturday’s contest, UMaine is excited about the prospect of taking on a national power.

“We got to go down there and play a great opponent,” Farkes said. “It’s an opportunity that we can take advantage of.”

“In order for you to be a good team, you got to beat the great team,” Rousseau said. “We plan on playing them physical, plan on playing them tough and playing them for 60 minutes.”