With former CAA Football member James Madison off to a hot start in its inaugural FBS season, thrashing Middle Tennessee in an elated Harrisonburg, it appeared that the CAA could use an optics-boosting weekend to open the 2022 FCS season. After all, perception of the conference had diminished some with the uncertainty wrought by JMU’s absence and by the expected learning curves of league entrants Hampton and Monmouth.
It was longtime members William & Mary and Delaware which delivered for the CAA and its image, recording the subdivision’s lone pair of FBS takedowns through Weeks 0 and 1 with wins over Charlotte 41-24 and over Navy 14-7, respectively. UD’s slugfest-style defeat of Navy helped the Blue Hens vault to No. 10 in this week’s Stats Perform FCS Top 25, while the previously unranked Tribe was propelled to No. 20 in the poll by its runaway triumph.
In all, CAA Football enjoyed a sound Week 1, with Villanova (against Lehigh) and Hampton (against rival Howard) winning as home favorites in FCS nonconference games, and Richmond and Elon turning in respectable showings at FBS Power 5 opponents. Elon outscored the SEC’s Vanderbilt 24-21 from the second quarter to the final whistle, though the Phoenix was unable to surmount the first quarter’s 21-7 hole.
The darlings of Week 1, William & Mary and Delaware next seek to fend off letdown threats in each squad’s home opener. The Tribe welcomes future CAA team Campbell; the Hens host Delaware State in the Route 1 Rivalry’s return to Newark.
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At Charlotte, upstart W&M demonstrated a more complete performance than Delaware’s offensive squeaker showed, but the Tribe has the stiffer Week 2 competition in Campbell. The Fighting Camels, feeling the momentum of the nation’s top-ranked recruiting class, look better equipped to slow William & Mary QB Darius Wilson, whose career-high 304 yards of total offense and two touchdown passes on Friday night equated to CAA Offensive Player of the Week honors. Campbell will lean on 2021 HERO Sports FCS Third Team All-American defensive lineman Brevin Allen to both pressure and run-fit the dual-threat Wilson, who is showing progress as a passer from his run-heavy 2021.
On the subject of running the ball, Delaware and its backfield-by-committee were unable to do much of it at Navy, mustering just 40 yards on 22 rushes when removing 27 yards lost on sacks of quarterback Nolan Henderson and when correspondingly subtracting losses on his pair of victory-formation kneel-downs. While it is true both that first-year head coach Ryan Carty’s offense is pass-happy and that triple-option Navy’s defense is engineered to stop the running game of Army West Point, the Blue Hens need to see their rushing figures improve versus Del State, if only to rest a UD defense that sweated out a dominant effort in the Annapolis heat.
The Hornets, however, hang their hat on defense. DSU returns all 11 starters from its 2021 unit that led the MEAC in total defense at 314.6 yards allowed per game. It largely stymied MEAC offenses’ aerial pursuits, topping the conference with its 188.8 passing yards yielded per outing. Takeaways were the Hornets’ signature; their 14 interceptions tied the league lead and aided a +6 turnover margin on the season, good for second in the MEAC.
Del State will need such disruptive play Saturday evening at Delaware to maximize its odds of a stunner, but the Blue Hens are guarding against the creeping, relaxed complacency that the high of Week 1 can bring, especially when coupled with UD’s 10-0 series record against its in-state foe.
“There’s no doubt we’ve talked about it,” Carty said of the Hens moving on from the celebration of their season-opening upset. “It’s really about the leadership that we have on the team and the mental focus we have and the way that we have our [game] week set up, that we can kinda wipe it clean after [Monday] morning at about 8:00 … Each week for us is a championship week.”
Concluded Carty later, after acknowledging the FBS win’s reinforcement of team strengths and belief, “It’s 1-0. If you don’t go out and you don’t go 2-0, people will forget about that first one pretty quick.”
After the CAA’s positive Week 1 overall, big top-20 winners William & Mary and Delaware hope to ensure that folks don’t forget about “that first one” anytime soon.
