UNH back in its weight class

By rbrown
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Updated: September 6, 2024

By Allen Lessels

Now, with that pesky FBS encounter out of the way, the University of New Hampshire football team can get down to the serious business of seeing how it stacks up against folks its own size at the Football Championship Subdivision level of play.

After starting the season with last week’s trip to play Central Florida, the Wildcats will look to take advantage of a rare opportunity and get an early jump on the season while not having to stray far from home. The focus this week is all on Saturday’s 2 p.m. clash at Holy Cross.

UNH faces Stonehill in its home opener on Saturday, Sept. 14 at 6 p.m. and then plays host to Coastal Athletic Association newcomer Bryant on Saturday, Sept. 21 at 3 p.m.

After a week off, the Wildcats face Harvard – for the first time since, get this, 1939 – in Cambridge on Friday, Oct. 4 at 7 p.m.

For the trivia buffs out there: Care to guess the last time UNH played opponents from New England in four consecutive games in one season? We’ll give you a minute.

Ruling the region may be the key to the season.

“To get to where we want to be, that’s ultimately playing meaningful games late in the year and making it to the playoffs, we have to be the most productive team in New England,” said UNH coach Rick Santos. “We’ve got to find a way to be the Kings of the North, really. Win all those regional, New England games. There are so many this year and so many really, really good teams. If we can do that, we’ll have a great shot.”

The challenge is to pick up wins early and gain momentum going into a stretch of games against teams that were ranked or received votes in this week’s The Sports Network’s Top 25 poll. That next set of games starts on Saturday, October 12 at Elon.

The first four New England tests

At Holy Cross

The Wildcats came away disappointed from their last two contests at Fitton Field at Holy Cross.

Their 2022 season ended with a sloppy 35-19 loss in the rain and mud to the Crusaders in a second-round matchup in the FCS playoffs.

In 2019, shortly after Santos took over on an interim basis for Sean McDonnell who was on a medical leave, UNH opened the season with a 13-10 loss at Holy Cross. The Crusaders recovered a fumble in the end zone for a score as UNH tried to run the ball out on a controversial call with less than two minutes to play.

Holy Cross lost its 2024 opener, 20-17 in the closing minutes, at Rhode Island on Saturday.

Dan Curran, who rushed for more than 1,000 yards and scored 16 touchdowns as a UNH senior in 1999, is in his first season as head coach at Holy Cross. He was the head coach at Merrimack for 11 seasons.

Stonehill

The Wildcats opened the season with a 51-17 win at Stonehill last season. Max Brosmer, now at the University of Minnesota, threw five touchdown passes in the win. Colby Ramshaw, now a UNH sophomore tight end, caught the first of those TD passes.

Stonehill went 5-5 last season in its second year in Division I. The Skyhawks open the season at Stony Brook of the CAA on Saturday.

Bryant

In the only meeting between the teams, UNH beat Bryant 45-17 in 2017 behind three Trevor Knight to Neil O’Connor TD passes and two Evan Gray rushing scores.

Bryant, 6-5 last year, lost its opener at Delaware on August 29 and plays Franklin Pierce in a home game on Saturday.

At Harvard

The Wildcats have been waiting a bit – 31,002 days by the time they meet – for a little revenge.

They lost at Harvard 46-0 the last time the teams played on Nov. 18, 1939 in Harvard Stadium. In fact, each of the seven games they played was at Harvard and each was won by the Crimson by a lopsided score.

Last year, the Crimson finished 8-2 overall and 5-2 in the Ivy League to give Tim Murphy his 10^th Ivy League championship in his 30 years as head coach. He retired after the season and Andrew Aurich, an assistant coach at Rutgers and Princeton among his prior jobs, is the new head coach.

Harvard opens the season with a home game against Stetson on Saturday, Sept. 21.

Trivia time

About that quirk of schedule.

This will be the first time UNH has played four consecutive games against New England teams since ending the 1987 season with games at Rhode Island, at Maine, home against Massachusetts and home against Connecticut.

Ahh, the good old Yankee Conference.