University of New Hampshire Athletics
Bret Edwards passed for his 10th TD of the season against Elon.
10/24/2021 4:41:00 PM | Football, UNH Insider
'Heads Up:' 'Cats Prep for Richmond on Saturday
DURHAM, N.H. – "Heads up," said sophomore defensive back Randall Harris.
The University of New Hampshire football team dropped a Colonial Athletic Association road game at Elon on Saturday, 24-10.
The Wildcats have lost their last four contests and slipped to 3-4 overall and evened their record at 2-2 in the league.
They come home to play Richmond in Wildcat Stadium for a Halloweekend contest next Saturday at 1 p.m.
Fans can purchase tickets at UNHWildcats.com/Tickets or by calling the UNH Wildcats box office at 603-862-4000 (Monday-Friday, 10am-5pm).
A major part of the postgame message Saturday was that this is no time to linger on a loss.
"Just keep our heads up," said Harris, who had one of two turnovers collected by the Wildcats against Elon.
The Wildcats invoked their normal 24-hour rule of thinking about Saturday's game before moving on to preparation for Richmond, which has lost its last five games.
"It's OK to feel sorry for ourselves right now and down in the dumps," Harris said. "But at the end of the day we still have a lot of CAA games left. There's always an opportunity. You never know what can happen in this league. Anybody can lose on any given day. The idea is to keep our heads up and be ready to go back to work."
Harris picked off a Davis Cheek pass and returned to 27 yards to the Elon 43 to set up UNH's only touchdown of the game.
Sophomore quarterback Bret Edwards capped the scoring drive with a 5-yard pass to sophomore Griffin Helm with 6:16 left in the first quarter. It was the 10th TD pass of the season for Edwards and first career score for Helm.
After the Wildcat defense forced a punt, the offense drove to another first on a march featuring a 49-yard scramble by Edwards. Redshirt freshman Sean Lehane kicked a 36-yard field goal, the first for UNH this year and the first of his career for a 10-7 lead just 51 seconds into the second quarter.
The offense, though, was unable to score again.
Cheek scored on a 2-yard run late in the first half to put Elon back on top at 14-10 and then combined with Chandler Brayboy for a 20-yard passing TD on his team's first possession of the second half.
"We just got nothing going in the second half at all," said UNH coach Sean McDonnell. "We played decently on defense in the second half after their one drive, it was just disappointing we couldn't find a way to win a game here. . . . Very disappointing, a tough loss for us. Disappointed in the fact we had a chance to win this football game."
Elon's defensive pressure caused problems for Edwards and the Wildcats.
"They got us off balance," McDonnell said. "I thought Bret was running for his life a couple of times and he made plays and he was running for his life a couple of times and had to throw it away. I'll take a look at the tape, it's hard to see what was going on. I thought they extended their pressure a little more than they had."
Now come the Spiders for Halloween Eve.
Richmond won its first two games of the season against Howard, 38-14, and Lehigh, 31-3, but has lost five straight at Villanova, 34-27, and Virginia Tech, 21-10; at home against Elon, 20-7, and James Madison, 19-3; and at Stony Brook, 27-14.
The Spiders turned the ball over six times in Saturday's loss at Stony Brook: they lost four fumbles and senior quarterback Joe Mancuso, who returned from a thumb injury, had two of his passes intercepted.
Richmond features the defender who leads the CAA in tackles in linebacker Tristan Wheeler (he has 68) and one of the most versatile offensive weapons in the league.
Running back Aaron Dykes has scored seven touchdowns. He has carried the ball 80 times for 321 yards and four TDs. He has 17 catches for 133 yards and two scores. And he has returned a kickoff 98 yards for a touchdown.
The Spiders are last in the CAA in turnover margin at minus-5. UNH is fifth in that category at plus-4.
Grad student safety Evan Horn forced a fumble that freshman linebacker Max Tillett recovered for UNH's second turnover against Elon.
The Wildcats are tied for second in the league with nine interceptions as a team.
The Harris pick was only the third off Cheek this year.
"It's a rare sight for Cheek to overthrow a pass," Harris said. "He was trying to throw to No. 2 on a seam route and it kind of just ended up in my hands. I saw I had a lead block from one of our safeties, Evan Horn, and I just went with it."
HOME AGAIN
NEXT UP
NOTEWORTHY
QUOTABLE
"We couldn't gain any momentum one way or the other. It was a tough, hard loss on the road here."
Head coach Sean McDonnell
"We were moving the ball in the first half. We just weren't finishing drives."
Sophomore quarterback Bret Edwards
UNH BY THE NUMBERS
Allen Lessels
@UNHInsider
Allen.Lessels@unh.edu
The University of New Hampshire football team dropped a Colonial Athletic Association road game at Elon on Saturday, 24-10.
The Wildcats have lost their last four contests and slipped to 3-4 overall and evened their record at 2-2 in the league.
They come home to play Richmond in Wildcat Stadium for a Halloweekend contest next Saturday at 1 p.m.
Fans can purchase tickets at UNHWildcats.com/Tickets or by calling the UNH Wildcats box office at 603-862-4000 (Monday-Friday, 10am-5pm).
A major part of the postgame message Saturday was that this is no time to linger on a loss.
"Just keep our heads up," said Harris, who had one of two turnovers collected by the Wildcats against Elon.
The Wildcats invoked their normal 24-hour rule of thinking about Saturday's game before moving on to preparation for Richmond, which has lost its last five games.
"It's OK to feel sorry for ourselves right now and down in the dumps," Harris said. "But at the end of the day we still have a lot of CAA games left. There's always an opportunity. You never know what can happen in this league. Anybody can lose on any given day. The idea is to keep our heads up and be ready to go back to work."
Harris picked off a Davis Cheek pass and returned to 27 yards to the Elon 43 to set up UNH's only touchdown of the game.
Sophomore quarterback Bret Edwards capped the scoring drive with a 5-yard pass to sophomore Griffin Helm with 6:16 left in the first quarter. It was the 10th TD pass of the season for Edwards and first career score for Helm.
After the Wildcat defense forced a punt, the offense drove to another first on a march featuring a 49-yard scramble by Edwards. Redshirt freshman Sean Lehane kicked a 36-yard field goal, the first for UNH this year and the first of his career for a 10-7 lead just 51 seconds into the second quarter.
The offense, though, was unable to score again.
Cheek scored on a 2-yard run late in the first half to put Elon back on top at 14-10 and then combined with Chandler Brayboy for a 20-yard passing TD on his team's first possession of the second half.
"We just got nothing going in the second half at all," said UNH coach Sean McDonnell. "We played decently on defense in the second half after their one drive, it was just disappointing we couldn't find a way to win a game here. . . . Very disappointing, a tough loss for us. Disappointed in the fact we had a chance to win this football game."
Elon's defensive pressure caused problems for Edwards and the Wildcats.
"They got us off balance," McDonnell said. "I thought Bret was running for his life a couple of times and he made plays and he was running for his life a couple of times and had to throw it away. I'll take a look at the tape, it's hard to see what was going on. I thought they extended their pressure a little more than they had."
Now come the Spiders for Halloween Eve.
Richmond won its first two games of the season against Howard, 38-14, and Lehigh, 31-3, but has lost five straight at Villanova, 34-27, and Virginia Tech, 21-10; at home against Elon, 20-7, and James Madison, 19-3; and at Stony Brook, 27-14.
The Spiders turned the ball over six times in Saturday's loss at Stony Brook: they lost four fumbles and senior quarterback Joe Mancuso, who returned from a thumb injury, had two of his passes intercepted.
Richmond features the defender who leads the CAA in tackles in linebacker Tristan Wheeler (he has 68) and one of the most versatile offensive weapons in the league.
Running back Aaron Dykes has scored seven touchdowns. He has carried the ball 80 times for 321 yards and four TDs. He has 17 catches for 133 yards and two scores. And he has returned a kickoff 98 yards for a touchdown.
The Spiders are last in the CAA in turnover margin at minus-5. UNH is fifth in that category at plus-4.
Grad student safety Evan Horn forced a fumble that freshman linebacker Max Tillett recovered for UNH's second turnover against Elon.
The Wildcats are tied for second in the league with nine interceptions as a team.
The Harris pick was only the third off Cheek this year.
"It's a rare sight for Cheek to overthrow a pass," Harris said. "He was trying to throw to No. 2 on a seam route and it kind of just ended up in my hands. I saw I had a lead block from one of our safeties, Evan Horn, and I just went with it."
HOME AGAIN
- UNH has four regular season home games remaining, two at home, two on the road.
- Richmond is in next Saturday, Oct. 30 at 1 p.m. for Halloweekend.
- Tickets for home games are available by calling the UNH Box Office at 603-862-4000 or at www.unhwildcats.com.
- The Wildcats face Maine in the Border Battle for the Brice-Cowell Musket at home on Nov. 20 at 1 p.m.
- UNH's home games may be viewed on NBCSports Boston and at www.FloFootball.com.
- The team's two remaining road games are Nov. 6 at UAlbany and Nov. 13 at Rhode Island.
NEXT UP
- Richmond is 2-5 overall and 0-4 in the CAA.
- Mancuso has completed 75 of his 130 passes for 864 yards with seven touchdowns and four interceptions.
- Russ Huesman is in his fifth season as the Spiders coach.
- Richmond averages 143 yards per game rushing and 1285.6 passing for total offense of 328.6 yards per game.
- The Spiders allow 114.3 yards per game rushing and 221.7 passing for 336 total.
NOTEWORTHY
- It was the second interception for Harris in the last three games.
- He returned a pick 18 yards for a touchdown against James Madison.
- Harris joins three other Wildcats with two interceptions this year: Horn, senior safety Pop Bush and redshirt freshman Noah Stansbury also have two each.
QUOTABLE
"We couldn't gain any momentum one way or the other. It was a tough, hard loss on the road here."
Head coach Sean McDonnell
"We were moving the ball in the first half. We just weren't finishing drives."
Sophomore quarterback Bret Edwards
UNH BY THE NUMBERS
- UNH collected two turnovers and turned the ball over once.
- Freshman defensive end Josiah Silver had a sack and a half against Elon.
- He is first on the team and third in the league with 6.5 sacks.
- Silver has at least one sack in each of the last three games and four sacks total in that stretch.
- Edwards completed 16 of his 30 passes for 127 yards and a score.
- For the season, he has completed 126 of his 199 passes for 10 touchdowns with four interceptions.
- Sophomore Dylan Laube leads the CAA in all-purpose yards at 142.1 a game.
- Junior Carlos Washington Jr. leads the Wildcats in rushing at 56.6 yards per game.
- Redshirt freshman linebacker Ryan Toscano leads the team in tackles with 58.
- Stansbury is next with 45.
- Sophomore linebacker Bryce Shaw has 41.
Allen Lessels
@UNHInsider
Allen.Lessels@unh.edu
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