Football in October doesn’t get much better than this weekend. It’s Homecoming in Kingston, Smithfield and Foxboro.
Let’s start at the University of Rhode Island. Coach Jim Fleming’s Rams are 3-0 and this week ranked No. 21 in the Stats Perform Football Championship Subdivision and No. 23 in the American Football Coaches Association. They opened the season with a solid 45-21 victory over Bryant, followed with a gritty 16-14 triumph at Albany, and two weeks ago routed longtime intrastate rival Brown, 45-24. URI was idle last week so has had plenty of time to prep for 1-3 Stony Brook Saturday at noon.
Rhody’s last 3-0 start occurred in 2005, and only eight teams in school history have won their first three games.
Football buzz is returning to Kingston. This Homecoming game is sold out, just as it used to be in the good old days when alums and students packed the tailgate area and partied, usually before, occasionally during, and always after the game. If the Rams were decent, fans would drift into Meade Stadium for the second half. If they were bad, they stayed in party central, and listened to Jim Norman and Hal Kopp (later Jim and Terry Lynch or Steve McDonald and Terry) on the radio and popped another beverage.
Fans should make themselves comfortable early for the current Rams. Quarterback Kasim Hill, a redshirt junior, has passed for 716 yards and five touchdowns with only one interception. He has rushed for 122 yards and two touchdowns. His performance at Brown — 320 yards and three touchdowns passing and 31 yards and a touchdown rushing — earned him Colonial Athletic Association offensive player of the week and the New England Football Writers Gold Helmet.
Running back Justice Antrum, a redshirt senior, leads the CAA with four rushing touchdowns and is tied for the top spot with five TDS. He is averaging 75.67 rushing yards per game, third in the league. He has run for 227 yards in three games, 11 yards more than the 216 he gained in 33 career games before this season.
Wide receiver Ivory Frimpong, another senior, is having a breakout season. In his first three years he had 19 receptions for 184 yards. After three games this season he has 14 catches form 224 yards. He ranks third in the CAA in receiving yards per game and sixth in yards per catch.
Rhody’s defense has intercepted three passes and recovered two fumbles for a +3 in the turnover department, tied for 10th nationally.
Is this team capable of a title run? It’s still too early to tell. That 2005 team finished 4-7. The last time the University of Rhode Island football team won a championship, Ronald Reagan was President of the United States, Edward D. “Ted” Eddy was President of URI, Tony Eason was the New England Patriots quarterback, Hurricane Gloria battered the East Coast from North Carolina to New England, Fleming, now 62, was just 26 and a graduate assistant at South Carolina, and Thorr Bjorn, URI’s director of athletics, was in high school.
The year, my friends, was 1985. The Rams were the Yankee Conference champion and lost to Furman in NCAA I-AA quarterfinals. In 1984 URI tied Boston University for the Yankee Conference title and lost to Montana State, the eventual national champion, in the I-AA semifinals. Those were the glory days of URI football.
Bryant University’s Smithfield campus will be decked out for its Homecoming game against Brown. The Bulldogs are 2-2 and should put points on the board against a team that has allowed 94 points in losses to URI and Harvard.
Zevi Eckhaus, a true freshman, is was the Northeast Conference rookie of the week for his 22-29-232-2TD performance in Bryant’s 34-17 victory over Marist. He broke the Bryant record for passing yards in a game by a true frosh.
This kid can pass. In four years at Culver City (Calif.) High School, he threw for 10,210 yards and 137 touchdowns. He threw seven touchdown passes in a game three times and in one season tossed 59 TD passes. Whoa!!
Linebacker Ryan Saddler was the NEC defensive player of the week for the second time. He made seven tackles in the Marist game.
Brown has to be desperate for a respectable showing, if not a victory, after its 45-24 loss to URI and 49-17 blowout loss at Harvard, a nightmare in which the Crimson scored five touchdowns in the second quarter and led 42-0 at the half. The Bears have turned the ball over seven times on four fumbles and three interceptions.
James Perry was the best quarterback in the Ivy League when he played for Brown, but he is a long way from being the best head coach. His team finished 2-8 in 2019 after a 12-10 record in two seasons as Bryant’s head coach. The Ivy League did not play football in 2020.
Bryant will also honor the 40th anniversary of its lacrosse program and present rings to the 2021 NEC championship team during Homecoming festivities.
The third big Homecoming this weekend will be Sunday night, when Tampa Bay quarterback Tom Brady returns to Gillette Stadium for the first time since ending his 20-year run with the New England Patriots. More on that overhyped drama later.
