It’s plain to see that when it comes to wanting a football winner, they don’t mess around at the University of Delaware.
This has been one of the more successful FCS programs. The expectations are sky high, and at least recently, the patience has been relatively low.
K.C. Keeler, who guided the Blue Hens to the 2003 1-AA (now called FCS) championship and two runner-up finishes, was fired after the 2012 season when the Blue Hens went 5-6. Keeler was a star linebacker on Delaware’s 1979 Division II national championship team as well.
So much for sentimentality.
In 11 seasons, he had a .623 winning percentage and guided the Blue Hens to the postseason four times. Keeler was replaced by Dave Brock, who went 21-25 before being fired midway through his fourth season. After Dennis Dottin-Carter finished the season as the interim head coach, Delaware hired Danny Rocco.
The five-year tenure of Rocco looked like Nick Saban compared to Brock. Rocco went 31-23, twice guiding the Blue Hens to the FCS playoffs. His 2021 team that played in the COVID-shortened spring season went 7-1 and advanced to the FCS semifinals. He was named the CAA Coach of the Year.
The fall version wasn’t so hot, finishing 5-6, and Rocco was fired shortly after the season-ending 21-13 loss to CAA champ and leading rival Villanova.
So literally, Rocco was fired in the same calendar year that he was named the CAA Coach of the Year.
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Now comes Ryan Carty, in his first head coaching job, a favored son returning to his alma mater. Carty was a backup quarterback during his career at Delaware, which included being a member of the Blue Hens’ 2003 national championship team. During the past four years, he was offensive coordinator at FCS power Sam Houston, where the head coach is none other than Keeler. SHSU won its first FCS title in the spring of 2021.
One has to admit, this is not the most conventional of stories – a school fires a coach (Keeler), who wins a national title elsewhere and has one of his leading assistant coaches hired by the school that canned him.
Might make a good sitcom plot someday.
Either way, Carty, known for his innovative offenses, both as an assistant at New Hampshire and SHSU, is now in the honeymoon phase. Once the Blue Hens open Sept. 3 at Navy, all bets are off as to how long the honeymoon will last.
BTW, could there be a more difficult way to debut as a head coach than to face Navy’s triple option in Annapolis, not to mention having to meet an FBS team on the road? Forget the fact that the Midshipmen are coming off a 4-8 season and have plenty of holes to fill, this should not be the easiest of openers for the new Delaware coach.
And then there is this other twist – adding a little more heat is that Delaware is expected to be good, possibly really good.
The Blue Hens were picked second in the CAA preseason poll to Villanova. Delaware has also seen its name in several national preseason rankings, including being No. 15 in the Hero Sports Preseason Top 25.
No extra pressure there.
Yet it probably beats the alternative. At least Carty inherits a team that is perceived to have the talent to immediately win. Actually, last year’s Delaware team could have been in the spotlight, had not injuries hit the Blue Hens hard. The biggest involved quarterback Nolan Henderson, who suffered a season-ending injury in the fourth game.
Henderson is a sixth-year student at Delaware, so he will provide plenty of experience and will no doubt be the subject of several graybeard barbs. Safety Kendrick Whitehead is the defensive leader and a preseason Hero Sports 2nd Team All-American.
This is a team that, if it can stay healthy, can make some noise.
And if they don’t, then the new head coach will likely hear plenty of noise in his direction, whether it is warranted or not.
