Fleming wants improvement in Year 4

KINGSTON — The CAA conference announced their preseason AllConference teams and predicted conference standings early last week, and it should come as no surprise that URI did not fare very well in the eyes of the conference prognosticators. Having won just a single conference game in each of their last three seasons, URI was finished to pick last again this year, and had zero players selected to the conference honor roll.

Head coach Jim Fleming has become accustomed to this sort of thing, having been at the helm of the team for each of the last three disappointing seasons. The results have not changed for the team since Fleming became coach, but last season marked a very minor shift for the team, as it appeared they became much more competitive across the board.

“Frustrating year,” Fleming said, at CAA media day in Baltimore, Md. “Year three, I thought we could turn the corner and put a winning product on the field. We played a bunch of young kids and had the injury bug on defense. At the end of the day, we we were ahead, tied, or down by seven in the fourth quarter of six football games.”

Wins were in URI’s grasp on many occasions, but nearly every time victory slipped away in late, painful fashion. There was a seven-point loss to Maine at the annual Homecoming game. A143 loss to Stony Brook on the road. Perhaps most painful, however, was the season finale against Towson.

“Our battle with Towson was heart- breaking, to lose on a 55-yard field goal with no time left,” Fleming recalled of the dramatic loss. “Make one play on defense, you win the Towson game. Opportunity on offense to seal the game with a first down [as well].”

There was also the 84-7 loss to eventual FCS champions James Madison, a loss so severe it garnered critical headlines across the state, as well as renewed calls to end the football program altogether.

URI picked their heads up after the big loss to JMU, taking advantage of an off-week to come back with a 44-14 win against Elon on the road.

“I thought our recovery from the James Madison fiasco, off-week, then come into Elon, be able to dominante a quality opponent on the road, was very indicative of the character of the football team,” Fleming said. “I thought there was a lot of growth for our group. Still been a group that is characterized by persistence as a common core value. Really looking forward to seeing how this edition comes out. I think it’s time. Time for us to turn that ship.”

If URI is finally going to put a better product out on the field, there is position that could potentially swing that one way or another: quarterback. Play at the position in recent years has been dreadful for URI, and last year was no exception. Jordan Vazzano was the starter for most of the season, and in nine games, the bulky QB threw seven touchdowns compared to 15 interceptions.

“It’s a critical component to winning football,” Fleming said of the position. “Jordan went through some tough times, not all his fault. There were a high number of turnovers that really kept us from winning football games. You look at a -16 turnover margin, and then at being competitive in the fourth quarter, it’s a weird mix.”

Everything Fleming said at the CAA media event last week indicated that the top spot on the QB depth chart still belonged to Vazzano. Despite that, on Friday the 6-foot-3 quarterback made the decision to depart the program.

Backing up Vazzano last season was Wesley McKoy, who had been the starter in the previous season. After dropping down the depth chart, McKoy opted to transfer out of the program at the conclusion of this year’s spring period.

To replace McKoy - and now Vazzano - Fleming and co. have brought in a pair of transfers from the FBS level, Tyler Harris and JaJuan Lawson.

“We had a transfer from our backup [McKoy], so we’ve replaced that,” Fleming said, prior to learning of Vazzano making an identical decision. “We’ve got two kids coming in that are transfer quarterbacks, that are going to have an opportunity to come in and compete, in addition to redshirt freshman Vito Priore.”

Harris joins the team from the University of Central Florida, where he saw playing time in just one season, as a redshirt freshman. He was 26-of-61 on pass attempts, throwing for four touchdowns in six games off the bench. Harris stands tall at 6-foot-4, and played his high school ball in Georgia.

Lawson never got higher on the University of New Mexico’s depth chart than third, and was mainly the team’s emergency backup.