By Brittany Burke
Quarterback Gunnar Jespersen.
As defending Northeast Conference champions, the CCSU football team enters the 2010 fall season projected to repeat their championship season in the coach’s poll, but number one is the last place head coach Jeff McInerney wants them to be.
“I told them to forget it. I told them the only thing that matters, whether you’re picked first or last, you still have to go out there and play and win,” said McInernery.
“It’s the first time in school history [being picked first], and I’m a guy who likes firsts. Beating teams for the first, we’re the only team in the NEC to ever be ranked, we’re the only team in the history of the NEC to beat an Ivy League team, we beat fully funded teams, we beat ranked teams. I like those things, the one I didn’t like is we’re picked first and I think it’s foolish.”
Despite being the 2009 NEC Champions, Coach McInerney stresses that this is not the championship team. The 2009 roster were champions, the 2010 roster still has something to prove.
The end of the 2009 season saw the departure of the team’s two starting quarterbacks, leaving a void at the most crucial position on the roster. Gunnar Jespersen, a junior transfer from Allan Hancock Junior College in California, is expected to start in the season opener against the University of New Hampshire, while freshmen Denzell Jones will serve as a backup. Neither quarterback has had previous game experience in the NEC, putting the Blue Devils at a serious disadvantage.
“Gunnar knows the offense; Gunnar’s an extremely confident young man. Gunnar works extremely hard, he’s a competitor and he gets it. What he can’t do is put us in harm’s way, try to make the big play. When our defensive line is healthy we’re pretty good on defense. We can win games on defense, he just doesn’t need to turn the ball over and I think he’s been awesome,” said Coach McInerney of his starter.
While the offensive side of the ball may remain uncertain, returning seniors such as Jeff Marino remain confident in the defense’s ability to make plays and keep control of the game. Marino led the team in tackles last season with 93, followed by fellow senior Alondre Rush who finished the season with 78.
“The biggest thing I think with our defense is a lot of knowledge came back…the people that got reps last year…they’re coming up and playing this year like Dominic Giampietro, Ricardo Gibson, Dominick Tomanelli, Gene Johnson, all those guys,” said Marino. “Now they’re stepping up, now they’re picking up. There was no drop off from last year at all. I think we’re a better team as far as the front seven, I think we’re a way better team than last year.”
The Blue Devils face a tough 2010 season opening against power house University of New Hampshire before opening the season at home on Saturday, Sept. 11 versus Bentley. Like any other defending champions they realize that there are other teams in the NEC who are now gunning to defeat them, but they plan to take it one game at a time.
“Honestly a lot of the teams on our schedule are rivals,” Rush said. “There’s not really one game or the other, we have a lot of big games this year, a lot. So if I was to say ‘Oh Oct. 22 is important because it’s against Albany,’ that’s an understatement because we have teams in our conference that are coming off to beat us.
“We’re playing two upper echelon Division I-AA teams that make the playoffs every year, and if we over look them for one second we’re gonna get beat,” said Rush.
Based on the Blue Devil’s scrimmage played on Aug. 24, the team still has some things to work on, including remaining consistent on offense and coming out explosive in their season opener against UNH.
