2008 CAA FOOTBALL PREVIEW: NEW HAMPSHIRE WILDCATS
The University of New Hampshire football team has enjoyed an amazing four-year run, notching four straight trips to the NCAA FCS tournament, advancing three times to the quarterfinals. But nobody knows better than 10th-year head coach Sean McDonnell that you can never rest on your laurels as the Wildcat football program will be looking for new ways to win football games in 2008 with a mix of veterans and newcomers.
His first, and most important challenge, is to find a way to replace one of the top players ever to wear the Blue and White in QB Ricky Santos, an All-American and Walter Payton Award winner. Sophomore quarterback R.J. Toman, who guided the Wildcats to a victory of Delaware in 2007, is expected to take over the UNH offense in 2008.
Fortunately for UNH, injuries suffered in 2007 are healing and the coaching staff will have a group of experienced veterans who will have recovered by the fall, and a solid group of young players who took advantage of their opportunities to play last season. Seven starters on both sides of the football return from the final game vs. Northern Iowa, but several more are back. One of UNH’s strengths in 2008 could be the offensive line with four of five tentative starters being seniors and the other an experienced junior, all with an average weight of nearly 300 pounds. The four seniors (Josh Droesch, Andrew Elwell, Eric Cumba, and Chris McClurg) are among the best in the CAA individually and as a group. UNH is also loaded with returning skill players at running back (junior Chad Kackert and senior Bobby Simpson), wide reciever (senior Mike Boyle and sophomore J.T. Wright) and tight end, where the ?Cats may have the top player in the conference is junior Scott Sicko, who was named an All-American last year with 51 catches for 619 yards and six TDs.
On defense UNH returns both starting corners in senior John Clements and sophomore Dino Vaso. At linebacker, the ?Cats feature a veteran in the middle in senior Matt Parent, an up-and-coming strong safety in sophomore Hugo Souza and a defensive line with at least three starters (junior T.J. Taylor, junior Jordan Long and sophomore Steve Young) weighing over 280 pounds. That size should slow down opponent running games this year.
The kicking game returns intact with junior Tom Manning scoring the points and all-conference punter Tom Bishop handling the punting duties.
New on CAASports.com this season is The CAA Football Pressbox. Located as a button on the homepage as well as in the menus down the left-hand side of the football page, The Pressbox is the official source for all CAA Football information. Check The Pressbox
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flipcards in a printer-friendly format. Also available on the site are
coach and player pictures and each team's logo and helmet illustration.
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