TCNJ comes out of opener with lessons learned

It was an emotional Friday night for The College of New Jersey football team.

This was the season opening football game before a crowd of 3,000, the beginning of the Casey Goff era and the anticipation that the trials of the past are history.

Things couldn’t have started better as the Lions led 10-0 and 17-10 at the half.

But, then many of the pitfalls of Division III football began to take control of the game.

There was an injury to senior quarterback Trevor Osler, and too many times the inexperience shown through and FDU-Florham scored four times in the second half to take a 38-24 win.

“There were a lot of bright spots,’’ said Goff, TCNJ’s firstyear coach. “Our tailbacks ran the ball well and we played well enough on offense that we should have won the game. From a defensive standpoint, it came down to being out of position on several plays and missing tackles. We found ourselves in a good position, but we couldn’t come up with the plays.’’

The schedule doesn’t get any easier for the Lions (0-1) as they take to the road to open the New Jersey Athletic Conference schedule at No. 11 Frostburg State, which defeated Stevenson 33-7 in its opener.

If there was a turning point in the opener for the Lions it was early in the third period when Osler went down with an injury.

“It was huge when Trevor went down,” said Goff. “A lot of the momentum we had we lost when he went down. When you have a senior quarterback that you are relying on and one that has really stepped up his game to lose him puts everyone in a bind.”

Osler, who Goff hopes to have back this week, finished 15-for-25 for 175 yards and a touchdown. Donoghue performed very well in his debut, going 10-for-16 for 95 yards and no interceptions.

TCNJ rushed for 149 yards, and that could be a good sign as there was concern about the running game coming into the season.

Khani Glover led the way with 73 yards on 17 carries and Connor Owen had 65 on 14 carries.

Ibn Bailey led the receivers with 64 receiving yards and Thomas Koenig had 60.

The Achilles’ heel was giving up the big play and allowing 593 yards through the air to the Devils.

“I didn’t have an answer on Friday night and I have to make sure that doesn’t happen again,’’ said Goff. “We as coaches have to look and see what adjustments we have to make. We have to make sure we have the best guys in position to win football games.’’

FDU-Florham got the tying score on a fourth and four from the Lions’ 19, and then on the next possession Malik Pressley, the heralded FDU receiver, took a pass and ran 88 yards for the deciding score.

Pressley had 16 catches for 271 yards and three touchdowns.

“There were situations where we had guys out of position in terms of coverage because they were trying to do things outside their responsibility,” said Goff. “We have to learn to play within our responsibility. We have to learn to live to play another down and not give up the big play.”