Not to be too cliche, but it really feels like just yesterday I was checking in at the athletic complex in August for camp. Now I’m sitting in my dorm room writing this a few days after we dropped our final game of the season.
This whole season was full of twists and turns for both myself and our team.
Coming into camp, I wasn’t even sure if I was going to be able to play. I took classes over the summer to get my GPA back in good standing and grades came back two days before camp started. Update, I got my GPA back into good standing.
After spending the whole past year taking classes online I was pumped up to be back with my teammates and some of my best friends.
Camp was tough, but then again it was fun and exciting to be back in the swing of things. What was weird was that it was my first real collegiate camp seeing that freshman year we had orientation and sophomore year was a wash because of Covid.
I came into camp buried on the depth chart which was discouraging. Pair that with a Covid-19 scare that made me sit out a day and I was pretty beat down. But, I began to feel better following our scrimmage against Dean College.
In the scrimmage I got around twenty five to thirty snaps and it was just a blast. It was awesome to be playing again against another team.
With the scrimmage ending, so did camp and we were thrust right into in-person classes for the first time since March of 2019. But before we really got into the thick of the semester, a few of my teammates and I took a weekend trip out to UConn and I really feel like this weekend was the one that built up our camaraderie and cohesion that we carried through the whole season.
After a Saturday morning practice, we packed up two cars and took off to Storrs, CT. It was a beautiful day so me, Mack Brown, and Hugh Wells drove through the backroads of Rhode Island and Connecticut with the windows down blaring everything from MGMT to Counting Crows to Future.
We were able to meet up with one of Hughs high school friends and later one of Cole Keefe’s high school friends and we just kind of let loose and unwinded. It was a weekend we needed before the season started up.
Following that weekend, it was time to lock in for SUNY.
Every year we open the season against SUNY Maritime, this time it was on a Friday night. There was an unreal feeling about being underneath the lights on a Friday, it brings you back to high school football and gets the butterflies in your stomach dancing.
We won the game off the back of our defense 14-6 with Cole Keefe having a big time pick six. It was awesome to start the season off 1-0 and keep the Chowder Cup in Buzzards Bay.
Typically week two for us is against Maine Maritime, but because they dropped their program we had to schedule a different out of conference game. We picked up the future ECFC Champs, Anna Maria.
Back to how the season was a rollercoaster, I really thought that I’d make the travel roster for our first away game against Anna Maria, but I didn’t. I was upset and discouraged by this and really thought about just walking away, but my dad said something that really stuck with me.
“Don’t make a decision now because you’re upset because later on, you’ll probably regret it.”
I kept this thought in mind and even brought it up in conversation with my therapist. She thought the same thing because in a lot of my prior sessions, I talked to her about how much I loved playing football and was excited to be back on campus.
We ended up losing to Anna Maria 23-13 and moved into conference play with a 1-1 record. But before we got into conference play, the boys had another field trip planned. This time to the Xfinity Center to see Thomas Rhett.
About twelve of us split up between two cars and hit the road for Mansfield and just had an absolutely unreal night. Thomas Rhett was great and we somehow ended up at URI to cap off the night. Spoiler alert, the drive back the next morning was not a pleasant one.
Going into conference play, we had Fitchburg State as our first opponent. We ended up winning 28-0 at home which was a pretty sweet start to conference play.
After that, the games in the conference kind of flew by.
For week four we headed west near my neck of the woods to Westfield State. The day didn’t start off too smooth as the buses rolled in late, but none of that mattered after we pulled off a nail biting 16-8 win.
It’s a pretty good feeling to go into someones house and pull off a win on their Family Day.
Going into week five we had a nice 3-1 record, but the next two games weren’t going to go our way. We hit the road and played against UMass Dartmouth for their homecoming and were beat 26-10.
The next week we were back home against Worcester State and we lost a 28-24 heartbreaker. We were up 24-7 at the half and just let it slip away.
Week seven saw another road game against an opponent we hadn’t beaten in six season, Western Connecticut State.
What was pretty cool about this game is that it was an overnight. We practiced at Bryant University on Friday to break the trip up and then rolled into Danbury around seven at night.
This overnight was another great opportunity for our team to get closer and that we did. It was just a great experience getting away from the Academy and being able to unwind.
The next day we squared off with Western Connecticut, a team like I mentioned before has had our number for over five seasons. And we won 22-20 off a missed West Conn field goal. It was unreal.
Our record moved to 4-3 and we had three of our toughest games remaining.
Framingham State, the MASCAC champs were next up and boy did we have a week. On either Tuesday or Wednesday the Academy lost power and classes got canceled through the whole week.
We still practiced in the high winds and rain and prepared for a battle. There were talks of moving the game to their place or even to Sunday, but none of us wanted that. We wanted to play in our conditions on our home turf.
Saturday morning rolls around and after a few days of living in the dark and eating off paper plates, we geared up for the game.
We ended up losing the game, but gave them a run for their money.
Another wrinkle thrown into that day was that it was the night before Halloween which meant it was the big party night at other colleges so Hugh and I hit the road back to Storrs, CT.
We pulled in around sixish and found out power was back at the school which was nice. We hit the streets of UConn dressed as Sopranos characters and had an unreal night. A great one to breakup the semester.
Week nine rolled around and we had Plymouth State on the schedule. We ended up losing the game 27-7 at their place on their senior day which sucked. We just came out flat and never got going.
Following the game, a handful of us went back to Cole Keefe’s house in New Hampshire and were able to eat good food, unwind, and watch college football. It was great.
And just like that, we were in week ten and readied for the Cranberry Bowl against Bridgewater State. We were 4-5 and BSU was 5-4.
The Cranberry Bowl is our biggest game of the year just about every year, it’s what you practice and play for.
It was our senior day and we wanted to send the seniors out on top, but we weren’t able to. The Bears beat us 35-7 after we started the game off up 7-0.
What seemed like a big loss had some upside for myself. I played in my first collegiate game. I played the last three offensive snaps of the game at center. I got my feet wet and made myself a true college athlete.
I made a lot of memories this year. I’ll truly miss the Friday night Pedialyte runs with my friends and the dinners in the mess deck where we were there until we got kicked out.
Until next season.