Wildcats look to regroup

By rbrown
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Updated: September 4, 2026

Trevor Barry photo courtesy of UNH athletics

By ALLEN LESSELS

DURHAM – The University of New Hampshire football team dropped its opener, a Coastal Athletic Association contest at UAlbany, 28-14, last Friday.

The Wildcats will look to get a turnaround started in a tough spot on Saturday, at the MA Wireless Dome at noon against Syracuse of the ACC. It’s the opener for the Orange, who are aiming to quickly put a rough season behind them.

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After posting a 10-3 record in 2024 under head coach Fran Brown, who came in after helping Georgia to a national championship and 27-1 record over the previous two seasons, Syracuse fell to 3-9 last year.

The Orange won 34-12 at Clemson to improve to 3-1 last fall, but lost starting quarterback Steve Angeli, a transfer from Notre Dame, in the second half of that game to a season-ending Achilles injury. Syracuse lost its last seven games.

Angeli, who passed for 329 yards and 10 touchdowns in those first four games, is back now.

UNH returned to Durham this week with plenty to work on, including its play up front.

“We obviously didn’t control the line of scrimmage,” said first-year head coach Sean Goldrich. “It’s hard to go on the road in a conference game coming out of the gate and win, if you can’t control the football and can’t stop the run.”

The numbers were not pretty. Albany rolled up a whopping 374 yards on the ground, 244 of the total in the first half.

On the flip side, UNH had 24 rushing attempts for 62 yards and allowed four sacks.

The result was Albany had an advantage of 39 minutes to 21 minutes in time of possession.

Linebacker Trevor Barry led UNH with 13 tackles, free safety Cohen Cook had nine and defensive tackle Cameron Garner-Young had six with one tackle for a loss. Defensive end Mason Smith added four tackles.

“We hurt ourselves in a lot of areas,” Goldrich said.

Defensively, the Wildcats were pressing and trying to do too much and didn’t tackle well, he said.

He was pleased with how the team kept battling to the end.

“I don’t think we ever felt out of the game,” Goldrich said. “I don’t think we were too far away. Obviously being able to control the football was something they did better than us and we’ve got to step up in those areas.”

That will be one of the goals on Saturday.

Syracuse has never lost to an FCS opponent, going 23-0 in those games.

After Syracuse, UNH plays a pair of home games. The Wildcat Stadium home opener is against Stonehill on Sept. 12 at 6:03 p.m.

Harvard comes to Durham for the first time on Sept. 19 for a 1 p.m. contest.