For senior fullback Kyle Van Fleet, this one’s about keeping it in the family. As he runs through pre-game warm-ups Saturday afternoon, Van Fleet will keep one eye fixed on the ulti-Sport Facility bleachers, searching the stands for his little brother Jamie, the stocky teenager with a shock of red hair whom Lafayette Head Coach Frank Tavani covets for his wild-man linebacking antics.

“Personally, there’s a little bad blood because [the Lafayette coaching staff] invited him down to this game and asked him to sit on their side of the field,” Van Fleet said. “I’m trying to get him to come to Georgetown.”

The fate of little Jamie, and the course of the 2007 Georgetown football team, may be decided when Tavani and the three-time Patriot League champs lope into town.

“I tell the guys that the most improvement as a football team comes between your first and second week,” said Georgetown Head Coach Kevin Kelly, who is still searching for his first league win. “The first week, you’re really not sure what you’re about, then you play a football game. Now we have a better sense of who can do what, how much we can handle scheme-wise, getting the right personnel on the field etcetera, we moved some things around this week, and we should have a better showing.”

Last week, the Hoyas dug themselves into a 14-0 hole at Stony Brook, rallied to even the score at 21, but fell behind in the fourth quarter and let the Seawolves scamper away with a 35-28 win.

Despite the discouraging start to the season, the offense ran smoothly. Senior quarterback Matt Basseuner completed his first 11 passes and finished the night with 226 yards through the air and 41 more on the ground. Van Fleet and sophomore running back Charlie Hougton combined for a total of 184 receiving yards as the Georgetown offense lit up the Long Island night skies.

“Offensively, I told them that we scored points, but we didn’t score enough – they had 35, we have to make sure we get 36,” Kelly said following practice Thursday morning. “We have to score more points than they do.”

It won’t be as easy this weekend against a vaunted Lafayette defense that returns a bevy of starters from last season’s championship squad. Among the group of head-hunters is senior linebacker Chris Bacon, who led the Leopards with six tackles in their season-opening shellacking of Marist last weekend. Add in junior linebacker Andy Romans, who forced a fumble in the 49-10 drubbing, and sophomore defensive lineman Andrew Poulson, who added two sacks, and you have a potential nightmare for a still-developing Georgetown offensive line.

“I definitely think we can get better,” Lafayette senior linebacker Mark Plumby said at the team’s media luncheon earlier in the week. “There were a couple of mistakes that we made and some things we need to touch up on but we’ll definitely be improving a lot and getting a lot more aggressive as the weeks come.”

Anyone who ventured to Easton, Pa., for the 2006 edition of Georgetown-Lafayette knows that the Leopards get better as the season progresses. In the penultimate game for both teams last November, Lafayette applied a 45-14 smack down to a struggling Hoyas’ squad. Senior defensive captain Stephen Smith knows that allowing 511 yards of total offense – as the defense did last year against the Leopards – is not a formula for success.

“I don’t have too many good memories about that game last year,” the senior linebacker said. “But that’s in the past. We have to come in with the mindset that from the first kickoff, we are going to win the game.”

With Lafayette junior wide receiver Shaun Adair returning that first kickoff, keeping that winning mindset will be easier said than done.

The 5-foot-11 burner took one to the house against the Hoyas in 2006, and was up to his old tricks again last week, returning a punt 78 yards for a score and amassing 111 total yards on three returns. Tailbacks Anthony D’Urso and Maurice White provide a one-two punch backfield and senior quarterback Michael DiPaola will look to exploit a Hoya defense that lost senior leader Mike Greene to a knee injury last week.

On paper, the odds seemed stacked against the Hoyas. But never doubt the mettle of a man defending his family.

“We have a lot of players on this team who are sick of losing and want to step it up,” Van Fleet said. “I think that this game against Lafayette is the perfect opportunity to get some respect.”

Kickoff is slated for 1 p.m. Saturday at the Multi-Sport Facility.