Delaware head coach Ryan Carty was singing his starting quarterback’s praises in a crowded press conference room at Rhode Island Saturday afternoon. It’s a recurring refrain in Carty’s first season leading his alma mater, which is off to a 3-0 start that includes an FBS win.
“We all know what he’s capable of, right?” the coach, and former QB himself, said of Nolan Henderson.
Carty stopped himself.
“Maybe you guys didn’t. I did. I apologize. I know what he’s capable of, our teammates know what he’s capable of, everybody in our locker room knows that he’s one of the best quarterbacks in the country and usually, the best quarterback on the field.”
Henderson played as such in the Blue Hens’ 42-21 drubbing of ranked URI. He engineered an offensive eruption in which UD tallied 35 first-half points, dropping 28 of them in the second quarter to bury the Rams in their building.
Named the CAA Football Offensive Player of the Week and CFPA FCS National Co-Performer of the Week for his dominance, Henderson was sharp from the start in Kingston, completing a sizzling 22 of 25 passes in the first half on the way to a total day’s work of 379 yards and four touchdowns through the air. The Smyrna, Delaware native’s 315 first-half passing yards shredded Rhody and marked the most passing yards in a single half by a Blue Hen since the legendary Matt Nagy’s 358 yards in the first half against UConn in 1998.
Keying Henderson’s prolific performance was a Delaware offensive line that tightened up in the best sense of the phrase, allowing no sacks after yielding nine combined at Navy and against Delaware State to enter the Rhode Island game among the CAA’s worst pass-protecting bunches.
The turnaround in the trenches did not go unnoticed by Carty.
“Our offensive line was the key,” Carty said. “We have the ability to [allow zero sacks], but we also, you know, it’s part of football [to have some sacks]: We’re gonna throw the ball around and we’re gonna make sure that our offensive line continues to be the reason that we’re going to win football games and lose football games because they control the tempo up front. They set the tone for the rest of anything that works.”
Continued Carty on the line’s evolution, “That’s a lot of pressure for them, and so it took a while for them to settle into being a unit of five and having a couple of guys that can rotate in. And they did. I’m so proud of them.”
UD’s o-line, maligned in past years, has to continue being a point of pride for its head coach to maximize the probability that Henderson has more chances to wow on Saturdays. The graduate student signal-caller had ample time to find 11 different receivers at Rhode Island on his career day, which was balanced by the Hens’ season-best ground game that netted 231 rushing yards.
With Henderson hitting his stride in Carty’s up-tempo spread attack (the 379 total passing yards in the win over URI are the seventh-most in Delaware history and clear any Blue Hen’s single-game aerial sum since Pat Devlin in 2009), UD’s ability to keep Henderson on the field somehow just became even more paramount for its playoff positioning.
Although Henderson is a sixth-year player who has started for the Hens since an in-season change in 2019, injuries have precluded extensive playing time and starting experience. Debuting as the unquestioned starter, Henderson completed the 2020 regular season conducted in spring 2021 and played through Delaware’s spring semifinal run, but was banged up by consecutive trips to Jacksonville State and South Dakota State.
Fall 2021 collapsed for UD when Henderson’s season ended prematurely with surgery. Ironically, his absence began with Delaware’s loss that year at Rhody, one of several conference defeats that did in then-head coach Danny Rocco despite 2020-21’s CAA championship and automatic playoff bid.
With his show at Meade Stadium on Saturday, Henderson reminded Rhode Island what it had missed the season prior. He also, as Carty intimated, alerted the country that, especially in Carty’s pass-friendly scheme dating back to New Hampshire and Sam Houston throwers, Walter Payton Award consideration could be in order.
In the meantime, though, Henderson has done enough to arrive on the national scene. For that feat to translate into any more Blue Hens wins as their CAA schedule stiffens, they will be required to support their QB1’s durability.
Carty conveyed confidence in that regard.
“If we play around him very well and we make plays like we did today out wide and we block very well up front and we continue to get better, and better, and better at understanding the nuances of what we’re trying to do offensively … be multiple and variable, then this guy’s gonna be able to take it away.”
