New Hampshire Football Report
Home / College / Lupoli made snap judgements

Lupoli made snap judgements

CONWAY, Ark. – University of New Hampshire junior quarterback Trevor Knight had taken the vast majority of his team’s snaps, certainly the meaningful ones, through yet another playoff-worthy season.

Until midway through the second quarter of Saturday’s NCAA Division I FCS tournament second-round game at Central Arkansas.

Then Knight collided with one of his offensive lineman and was knocked out of the game.

Enter Christian Lupoli, a redshirt freshman quarterback who had completed all of three passes in his collegiate career, the most recent five weeks ago against James Madison for 4 yards.

The limited collegiate production was not an indicator of Saturday’s success, as it turned out.

“The thing I take great pride in, in our program, is wherever we’ve gone we’ve given our best effort, played hard and let the chips fall and usually good things come,” UNH coach Sean McDonnell said after the game. “Today, great things came. Guys went down. Kids came back up. Obviously, Trevor went down. Christian goes in and does a terrific job.”

Lupoli completed eight of his 10 passes for 63 yards and a winning touchdown to sophomore Malik Love in a 21-15 victory in the FCS second-round game.

The triumph was win No. 150 for McDonnell who is in his 19th season as UNH head coach. He owns a career record of 150-87.

Lupoli and a stout defense were instrumental in this one.

Besides the touchdown and leading a couple of timely and time-consuming drives, he protected the ball well.

“I’m incredibly proud of Christian Lupoli,” said senior center and captain Jake Kennedy. “That was big-time for him, especially given the circumstances of a playoff game and never really having played that much. Unbelievable for him.”

Lupoli came in with 7:16 left in the first half and on his first play ran for nine yards.

Later in the drive, on a third and 13 situation, he teamed with Malik Love on a 19-yard pass play that ended up being UNH’s longest play of the day.

On UNH’s first possession of the fourth quarter with his team leading 14-9, he directed a drive down the field. On third and eight from the Central Arkansas 9-yard line, he connected with Love for a score.

Great stuff. Stuff he’s shown in practice, coach?

“I’m going to be honest with you,” McDonnell said. “He has shown signs of that in practice. But not as consistent as he was today. And I’m really, again, proud of that kid. “This is a hard spot to come into and he does it. He makes an unbelievable throw for the touchdown. I mean, he throws a rope in there.”

So, Lupoli was asked in his first postgame media conference while at UNH: You were called on in the toughest of situations, were you nervous?

He laughed, well, a bit nervously.

“Coach Mac always preaches the next man up mentality,” Lupoli said. “That happens in practice. We have a lot of sudden-change drills where things happen and we’ve got to go in and make plays. I think the whole team did a great job tonight.”

It did.

Lupoli was ready to go.

“He came in and he acted like a real good leader,” said Matt Mascia, the redshirt freshman right guard. “He took over. We all believed in him because we see what he can do and it worked out great.  . . . We did what we had to do. We had to take time off the clock. We had to rush the ball. Evan (Gray) had an unbelievable game. He found holes. He waited. He was patient and then he hit them as soon as they were there.”

Gray had 24 carries for 85 yards.

Lupoli, it should be noted, led his Notre Dame High School team in West Haven, Conn., to a  state championship game and passed for more than 4,500 yards and 39 touchdowns in high school and rushed for 19 more.

“The kid had a great high school career,” McDonnell said on Sunday. “There’s a lot of good stuff in his background.”

Also on offense, sophomore tackle Noah Robison started in place of the injured Dayne Herrron and drew McDonnell’s praise as well.

Overall, Saturday’s statistics looked strange.

Central Arkansas doubled UNH’s yardage total, 434 to 216. The Bears had touchdown pass plays of 74 and 78 yards. Central Arkansas ran off 74 plays for its yardage. UNH had 71 plays for 216 yards.

The Wildcats had a 33:34 to 26:26 lead in time of possession.

But an impressive and improving UNH defense came up with four turnovers against a team that had turned the ball over 10 times all season and had five sacks against an offensive line that had given up six sacks all season.

The Wildcat defense stopped the run and took full advantage when Central Arkansas had to pass.

On offense, a young, untested quarterback passed the test. Big-time.

UNH, 9-4 overall, moves on to another huge challenge at South Dakota State in the tournament quarterfinals, Saturday at 3 p.m. Eastern on ESPN3 in Brookings, S.D.

Knight is in concussion protocol and will be evaluated as the week progresses.

Buckle up.

*****

  • South Dakota State is seeded No. 5 in the tournament with a 9-2 regular season record and 6-2 mark in the tough Missouri Valley Conference.
  • The Jackrabbits had a first-round bye and got some revenge with a 37-22 win at home over Northern Iowa on Saturday.
  • Northern Iowa beat them 38-18 in Brookings on Oct. 14. That was South Dakota State’s last loss. The team’s other loss was at Youngstown State, 19-7, on Sept. 30.
  • The Jackrabbits beat North Dakota State, 33-21, on Oct. 4. North Dakota State was ranked No. 2 and South Dakota State No. 8 at the time.
  • Among several South Dakota State weapons is sophomore kicker Chase Vinatieri. You may have heard of his uncle, Adam, who did a little kicking for the Jackrabbbits before finding work in the NFL.
  • Chase is 12-for-13 in field goals this year. He’s made all five of his from 40-49 yards and both attempts over 50 yards.
  • Saturday he made kicks of 29, 44 and 55 yards. Chase also scored a touchdown earlier in the year on a 31-yard run off a fake field goal.
  • The Jackrabbits have a couple of All American pass-catchers in tight end Dallas Goedert and receiver Jake Wienke.
  • Goedert, a 6-foot-5 and 260-pounder, is predicted to be a high NFL draft pick. He has 66 catches for 1,049 yards and six TDs. Wienke has 49 catches for 720 yards and 13 touchdowns.
  • Junior quarterback Taryn Christion is a threat to run and pass. He’s passed for 3,091 yards with 31 TDs and eight interceptions. He’s rushed 90 times for 467 yards and eight scores.
  • Sophomore running back Mikey Daniel has 10 rushing TDs and senior Brady Mengarelli has six.
  • Sophomore linebacker Christian Rozeboom leads the team with 113 tackles.
  • John Steigelmeier is in his 21st season as head coach at South Dakota State.
  • The Jackrabbits are in the FCS tournament for the sixth straight season.
  • Last year, they also were a seed and had a bye and beat Villanova, 10-7, in the second round.
  • They fell in the quarterfinals, 36-10, at North Dakota State.

     

 

 

“We knew they had a really good offense coming in. Like coach Mac said, a lot of people didn’t think we had a chance out there against them. We play in a pretty good league and once we got out there a little bit – they moved the ball a little on the first drive and we forced a punt, they scored on that long pass – we knew right there we were going to be in the game. . . . We held them pretty good all day.”

 

 

 

 

You must be logged in to post a comment Login