Rams bounce back against W&M
URI handles weather conditions well to defeat visiting Tribe
KINGSTON – The University of Rhode Island football team has waited a long time for a season like this. Even deplorable weather conditions weren’t going to stop the Rams from enjoying securing their fifth win of the season – their most in a campaign since 2010.
Looking to stop a two-game CAA skid with William & Mary in town, the Rams prevailed against the Tribe and the conditions to take home a 21-10 victory.
“Crazy New England day,” URI coach Jim Fleming said. “Nor’easter coming in, we’re coming off two losses. Not exactly what we dialed up but if you sit back and look at our ability to handle the conditions and adversity, I think we did very well.
“It makes it a lot easier when you have a dude like Naim [Jones] you can hand the ball off to. Didn’t put the ball on the ground and played extremely physical.”
Jones is filling in for the injured Zoe Bryant, but he was far from a substitute on Saturday. The transfer had 37 carries in the win, fourth-most in a game in program history. He gained 163 yards, scored a touchdown and - even with the high workload and a wet football - safely secured the ball on each and every touch.
“I knew it was coming during the week,” Jones said of being the offensive focal point. “Worked on it a lot. Just played my role. It was good. My first game actually playing the whole game through. Glad I made it out healthy.”
The Rams won the turnover battle six to one, but strangely enough the Tribe took a 7-0 lead on their first giveaway. Ram defensive end Branyan Javier-Castillo picked off Ted Hefter, but running back Nate Evans wrestled the ball away from him and scampered 71 yards for the opening score.
“Freaky play,” Fleming said. “Castillo intercepts the ball and it gets ripped out of his hands. Looking at the curse of Meade.”
The Rams were far from cursed on Saturday.
Following the bad-luck play, the Rams evened the score when Shea graduate Momodou Mbye grabbed a fumbled punt in the end zone. Punting and kicking was an adventure for both sides, but Rhody managed to limit their mistakes in that phase of the game.
“We prepared everything in terms of how we were going to manage each special teams [play],” Fleming said, knowing the game would be played in poor weather. “We went through very detailed instructions and we still had a hard time.”
Mbye missed last week’s blowout loss to Stony Brook, and had five tackles in his return to the field. Another former Blackstone Valley standout, Cumberland graduate Andre Bibeault, fell on a fumble in the fourth quarter.
After allowing a staggering 354 rushing yards to the Seawolves a week ago, the Rams held the Tribe to 37 net yards on the ground and only allowed them to score on a field goal and the Castillo interception/fumble.
“You can’t discredit the fact that Momodou Mbye was back there,” Fleming said of the bounce-back performance by the defense. “That was a hole for us last week. We’re still waiting to get D.J. [Stewart] back. I thought Brian Campbell did a really good job filling in.
“We swarmed the ball well, we came up with timely turnovers. We were physical.”
The Tribe stubbornly stuck with the passing game despite the turnovers and conditions. Hefter and Shon Mitchell combined to throw three interceptions, including ones to Campbell and freshman James Makszin.
“It was a crazy feeling,” Makszin said. “That was my first interception in my career playing football. It was a shocking feeling.”
The Rams did a much better job of controlling the ball. They won the time of possession battle in addition to only turning it over once, on Castillo’s wild, wacky play.
Quarterback Vito Priore spent most of the game simply handing the ball to Jones, but did connect with Aaron Parker on a 67-yard score in the third quarter. He finished 7-12 for 94 yards.
“The credit when you look at the win goes to how we planned,” Fleming said. “We spent a lot of time preparing for even more wind than we got. Time of possession, 35 minutes, we burned up both wind quarters, when the wind is against you.”
With poor weather comes a need to adjust strategically. The Rams came prepared with a game plan that was detailed down to the coin toss.
“One of the bigger decisions in the game was what to do with the coin toss,” Fleming said. “We won it and deferred. I’ve been in wind games before where I’ve taken the wind. I didn’t think the wind [ was that bad] so we deferred.”
From the players’ perspective, rain and wind really just means one thing.
“The falls are a lot lighter,” said a shivering, smiling Jones.
Jones and his compatriots will have time to warm up this week, before traveling down to North Carolina to take on third place Elon next weekend.