Blue Hens must rediscover offensive firepower before it's too late
· Yahoo Sports
It was just one Conference USA loss in a season that, up to now, consists of only one CUSA game.
As frustrating, humbling and surprising as Liberty’s dominance of Delaware was in a 30-14 win the night of Oct. 2 at damp Delaware Stadium, it isn’t fatal when it comes to the Blue Hens’ aspirations this fall.
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They now have 10 days to figure out why it turned out that way, because if they don’t, another loss in the next game Oct. 13 at Middle Tennessee is more likely to be ruinous.
What occurred against the Flames, who carried a 30-0 lead into the game’s last 10 minutes, certainly doesn’t bode well for the Blue Hens.
Coach Ryan Carty’s glum postgame expression was appropriate. He closed his comments to the media with a rather revealing confession.
“This is as poor offensively in a two-game stretch than I’ve ever been in my entire life,” Carty said. “That needs to change and, trust me, it will change. It will get better.”
That two-game stretch began with a 42-3 loss at Virginia, a Power 4 ACC school that has been in or near the national rankings the past two seasons.
Liberty is no slouch either as a Group of 6 heavyweight that three years ago took an undefeated record to the Fiesta Bowl.
Delaware is a second-year FBS level program, still in the process of developing the necessary brawn for life in that tough neighborhood.
On top of that, it has played the last 6½ quarters of those two games without quarterback Nick Minicucci, the preseason Conference USA offensive player of the year and one of the nation’s top passers last year.
The extent of Minicucci’s knee injury suffered at Virginia and his status for the Liberty game was not revealed all week by Delaware until his absence from pregame warmups made it clear. Carty did say after the game he’s “week to week for now” so could return sometime.
Carty surprised everyone by starting sophomore E.J. Archield Jr., who was fourth on a depth chart that Delaware does not publicly share but is apparent in practice, which is now also likely destined to be private only.
Ahead of him and behind Minicucci had been Braden Streeter, who stepped in for Minicucci when he missed three series with an arm injury at Vanderbilt Sept. 12 and then again at Virginia, as well as fellow junior Riley Trujillo.
Carty said that while Minicucci’s status as the No. 1 quarterback was clear, the others – which also includes promising freshman Tyler Bell – were fairly equal and “did enough to warrant reps’’ in preseason camp.
Archield had passed for 4,467 yards and 42 TDs and ran for 831 yards his last two high school seasons in Tampa, Florida.
“It just felt like he never had a chance to go out there and put it together,” said Carty, who gave Archield that chance last week. “He does such a good job preparing. He protected the ball so well. He threw zero interceptions the whole fall camp.
“That was something that was in my mind in a game like this. I thought we could do OK moving the ball if we just didn’t turn it over, and so that came into play. I wanted to see what he could do and there were some really positive things that he did.”
Archield completed 10 of 19 passes for 137 yards and carried four times for 18 yards in 2½ quarters. But he had the football knocked loose inside the Liberty 10 on what might have otherwise been a touchdown run when Delaware was only down 6-0, a pivotal moment.
Streeter and Bell each threw a touchdown pass during their late-game stints, and Bell’s 32 yards rushing led Delaware, which doesn’t say much about the production the Blue Hens got from their backfield or the guys up front blocking for them.
Delaware will spend the 10 days before its next game overseeing more quarterback competition in a quest to determine who might potentially be best at getting the Hens downfield and into the end zone better than against Liberty.
“We just have to execute,” said Carty, whose team was 3-for-17 on third- and fourth-down conversions. “There’s things out there that were open. We got rookie quarterbacks in there that maybe need to see it a little faster, and they will now because those experiential reps have happened.
“That’s not what I want to hear or anyone else wants to hear, certainly not what I want to say. I want to come in here and talk about how we won this football game with rookie quarterbacks.”
Delaware didn’t come close to doing that against Liberty and one of CUSA’s leading defenses, but it’s not too late yet, and more opportunities remain.
Contact Kevin Tresolini at [email protected] and follow on Twitter @kevintresolini. Support local journalism by subscribing to delawareonline.com and our DE Game Day newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Blue Hens must rediscover offensive firepower before it's too late