Time is now for Delaware football to regain winning ways, national stature

University of Delaware football followers can be pardoned for living in the past.

It’s very pretty there.

But the time is now, and the time has always been now, for Delaware football.

Winning was always expected. Winning was always an assumption.

If a Delaware team didn’t make the playoffs this year, it surely would next year, or the year after.

Remember?

But now, it’s been awhile.

The Blue Hens haven’t won at least eight games – once the presumed minimum expectation for most UD teams – since 2010.

They haven’t made the NCAA playoffs since that year either, an agonizing seven-season drought that is four years longer than the previous lengthiest postseason absence, that coming way back in 1983, 1984 and 1985. Then coach Tubby Raymond sprung quarterback Rich Gannon on enemy defenses and things got right again.

History can be both a hindrance and helper. But it surely did attract a man with Danny Rocco’s coaching know-how to cross conference lines and bolt Richmond for rival Delaware in December of 2016.

Rocco, who recognized the revered nature of the position, its accompanying expectations but also the vast potential, wouldn’t have come if he didn’t think he could build on that history.

In his first season as coach, there was considerable progress in that direction. A 7-4 record in 2017 was Delaware’s best since an identical mark in 2011, though the season-ending defeat at Villanova still baffles.

Here comes 2018, arriving with Thursday’s opener at Delaware Stadium against Rhode Island.

The Rams might be the league’s perennial weak link, but they’ve, nonetheless, managed to upend the Blue Hens in four of the last 11 meetings. Rhode Island’s lone win in 2015 was 20-0 over the Blue Hens, who were as hapless as ever that day in Kingston, where Delaware suffered its first shutout loss to an FCS foe since 1996.

Delaware arrives with a reputation, ranked 15th in the STATS Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) preseason national Top 25. Ironically, as one of 157 media voters in the poll, that’s exactly where Delaware was on my ballot. 

It’s Delaware’s first appearance in the preseason rankings since being 15th in 2012, an almost incomprehensible time away considering the regularity with which Delaware once appeared in the polls.

What makes the Blue Hens worthy of such distinction but, more importantly, of their smitten followers’ trust?

Delaware’s defense keeps touting itself as potentially among the best nationally in FCS. That is not blustery bravado. It is likely.

There are a record dozen or so NFL scouts attending Thursday’s opener – the guys in look-at-my-logo NFL caps and shirts have been at nearly every practice – mostly to eyeball safety Nasir Adderley and inside linebacker Troy Reeder, though others have caught their attention. This is a senior-laden, proven unit throughout.

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But what about that offense, which has been Delaware’s Achilles’ heel in recent years?

Pat Kehoe’s ascent from being a UD quarterback afterthought – a distant third on the depth chart the past two years – to earning the starting spot is a credit to his determination to transform himself. He has earned the coaches’ faith and teammates' respect and admiration, which should not be undervalued.

Fortunately for Delaware, it has two proven fifth-year seniors – J.P. Caruso, who started last year’s final six games and is better now, and January transfer Darius Wade, who started six career games at FBS Boston College but hasn’t yet blossomed here – able to step in.

We’re quite spoiled with quarterback play around here. Over the last 40 years, Delaware has sent Jeff Komlo, Scott Brunner, Gannon, Andy Hall, Joe Flacco and Pat Devlin to the NFL. Oh, and Arena League phenom Matt Nagy is the coach of the Chicago Bears. Oh, and Billy Vergantino, the lone four-year starter in the bunch, still ranks as the favorite Wing-T quarterback to many.

Delaware has not had an All-CAA quarterback since Devlin in 2010, been the CAA’s worst passing team the past three years and only finished in the top five of CAA passing efficiency once after 2010 (fourth in 2013).

The Blue Hens have considerable depth and size up front – NFL scouts have compared it to a mid-major FBS offensive line – plus a bevy of proven backs and pass catchers. Their offensive success will come down to astute play-calling and precise execution, beginning at the quarterback spot.

What could derail Delaware?

Certainly, a spate of injuries, because depth is always precarious on an FCS team, and the defensive two-deep includes numerous freshmen. But offensive inconsistency certainly is the major concern.

So now has arrived once again.

The Blue Hens, who might do so wearing previously unseen blue pants or white pants or perhaps even blackish helmets (place hand over mouth here), appear capable of recapturing some of their ancient magic.

This time?

Really.

Contact Kevin Tresolini at ktresolini@delawareonline.com. Follow on Twitter @kevintresolini.