Around the CAA: Week 2

HARRISONBURG – The opening week of the college football season saw seven of the 11 Colonial Athletic Association teams start play with a new quarterback, and that crop of debutant signal callers had mixed results.

Statistically, Towson’s Grant Enders turned in the best Week 1 effort. Enders threw for 197 yards and three touchdowns and rushed for another 47 yards and a score in the Tigers’ 42-3 rout of Morgan State on Saturday. Enders – a transfer from Lackawanna Junior College  – completed 15 of his 19 pass attempts and was intercepted once.

“I saw him manage the game really well,” Ambrose said. “And more importantly, I saw a guy who hasn’t been here that long really meld well with his offense in a short period of time. He has some natural leadership ability. He understands the personalities of his teammates and has the ability to relate and speak to them on a comfortable level.”

And Ambrose may have discovered an element to Enders’ game he wasn’t aware of.

“I don’t think anybody anticipated him being that fast,” Ambrose said of Enders, who broke free for an 18-yard touchdown run in the third quarter. “He broke the pocket twice and we’re going, ‘Where are you going?’ And he did it in a hurry. We found an added aspect to him that we didn’t know. We just hadn’t practiced anything like that.”

The Tigers’ opponent this week also is breaking a new quarterback. And while Villanova redshirt freshman Dustin Thomas didn’t have the success Enders did his first time out, Wildcats coach Andy Talley said the rookie impressed him with his toughness during a 42-7 loss at Division I-A Temple on Thursday.

“Dustin Thomas has some toughness to him,” Talley said. “That was a big concern for me after having played with (former QB) Chris Whitney for four years. We really needed to know he could handle the physicality of the game.”

That part, Thomas did OK with. The throwing the football part? That needs some work. Thomas was 11-for-25 for 109 yards and had four turnovers, three interceptions and a fumble.

“That will get you beat normally by 30 points against anybody let alone a team as good as Temple is,” Talley said. “But we like him a lot. I think he’s going to learn quickly that he can’t hang the ball up. That high school football is not quite as fast as the level, especially the level we were playing Thursday night.”

With the youngest team Talley has had during his Villanova tenure, Thomas – who the veteran coached described as “a gunslinger” – will need to improve for the Wildcats to compete.

“In our offense right now, he cannot just manage the game,” Talley said. “He has to make plays.”

New Hampshire’s Kevin Decker and James Madison’s Justin Thorpe both played well in lopsided losses to I-A teams.

Thorpe went 11-for-15 for 152 yards and a touchdown in JMU's 42-10 loss at North Carolina. Decker was 21-for-28 for 162 yards with one touchdown and one interception in a loss at Toledo.

At Delaware, K.C. Keeler was happy with the play of Trevor Sasek before Sasek was knocked from the game with a knee injury. He was set to undergo an MRI Tuesday and his status for Saturday was unknown.

“I thought he played outstanding,” Keeler said. “That first ball he threw to Nihja White, that Nihja dropped, hit him right in the hands. It reminded me of (former Delaware and current Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe) Flacco. I’m not going to compare anyone to Flacco but just that one ball, it just came out of his hand. He had a lot of pace on the ball. He looked very confident, played with a  great demeanor.”

Keeler said there was no structural damage to Sasek’s knee, so it’s possible he will play Saturday when the Blue Hens host Division II Westchester.

UMass also isn’t sure who will start its next ballgame – Sept. 17 at home against Rhode Island. Brandon Hill won the job coming out of preseason practice but Saturday – in a 24-16 win over Holy Cross – Kellen Pagel was more effective moving the Minutemen.

Pagel went 10-for-16 for 104 yards and two touchdowns. Hill was 5-for-8 for 30 yards. UMass coach Kevin Morris said the competition to be the starter will continue the next two weeks. Ideally, he’d like to have a set QB in place for the Rhode Island game, though he wouldn’t rule out using both.

“Anything it’s going to take to win at the quarterback position,” Morris said. “I’ve always been a one quarterback guy. I just think it gives a better flow for the team. But that’s not necessarily the case this year with this team.”

The biggest concern under center in the CAA may be at William & Mary, where new starter Mike Paulus was yanked after going 5-for-22 for 35 yards in a loss to Virginia. W&M coach Jimmye Laycock said Paulus remains the Tribe’s starter and noted W&M’s struggles to run the ball contributed to the quarterback issues.

“Mike started and I don’t think he had a particularly good game,” Laycock said. “We were able to play three quarterbacks. But we have to get better play out of a lot of people on offense.”

That should be a bit easier this week against VMI.