Suspensions harsh blow to Blue Devils in NCAA playoffs

Happy Thanksgiving. The full story hasn’t been made public, but the violation of team rules committed by two Central Connecticut State University football players must have been serious because they have been suspended by Coach Pete Rossomando at the worst possible time.

Central has qualified for the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs and will meet New Hampshire on the Wildcats home field in Durham Saturday afternoon. Jacob Dolegala, who happens to be the Blue Devils’ starting quarterback and its most productive passer ever, and David Cinti, a center who rotates at that position, won’t be playing. A thorough examination of their offense was conducted by the school and the coach and they were found guilty of . . . who knows what? Like most universities in matters such as this, the nature of the rule-breaking was not divulged by Central officials.

Whatever the infraction, it had to be worse than that of the University of Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield last Saturday. In front of a sellout crowd, Mayfield gave Kansas players who had snubbed his friendly handshake extension prior to the game’s start, the crudest of non-verbal physical suggestions from across the field. His penalty for this is that he won’t be starting this week’s game against West Virginia. OU is favored in that one by 22 1⁄2 points.

Dolegala, a junior from Hamburg, N.Y., who prepped at football-famous Milford Academy, is, at 6-feet-6 and 235 pounds, a quarterback of perfect dimensions. He also has a good brain in his head, having made the Northeast Conference’s fall academic honor roll.

Sophomore Tanner Kingsley, from Woodland High School in Beacon Falls, has had little game experience but is expected to get the start in what many think is Central football’s most important game ever.

None of it makes sense to me. Having won eight games in a row and achieved a first (qualifying for the playoffs), one would expect major players to use better judgment. What a shame.

I’ve always rooted for Central’s sports teams, and even taught a sports writing course there for a couple of years in the 1990s. My friends at the New Britain University are mostly gone. Highly respected Bill Moore was athletic director when I began in the sports department of the Hartford Courant. He was a strong, able man who much later moved on to a similar position with Albany.

Bill Detrick, basketball coach, was a man of great ability who guided his team, which starred Gene Reilly, to the College Division final tournament in Evansville, Ind., in 1966. (The Blue Devils won two heart-bursting games in Syracuse and then Worcester, to get there.)

Bill Loika, football coach, had great success, and I well remember his final game, an emotional one, before retirement. He allowed me to sit very quietly in the locker room prior to the game, his final pre-game talk. When he spoke to the players, he always addressed them as “you men.’’ It was quite moving.

Lowell Lukas was one of my favorite Central people. He was the golf coach, assistant AD and the brother of the Hall of Fame trainer, D. Wayne Lukas. Lowell grew up in the upper midwest, rural Wisconsin, I believe. As a boy, Lowell would ride behind his older brother on the back of a horse to school. We had a number of good talks.

I have warm feelings for Central and I wish the Blue Devils and Pete Rossomando and his team, handicapped though they are, every possible success in Durham Saturday.