Kevin Kelly has been coaching college football for over 20 years, but when asked to remember a team that had suffered as many injuries as his 2007 Georgetown team, he had to think for a moment.
“I think maybe my first year at Navy,” the Georgetown head coach said, remembering his inaugural season as linebackers coach for the Midshipmen five years ago. Then he stopped.
“We’ve just a lot weird stuff and bad luck this year. That’s an excuse, but it’s also reality,” he said.
At times this season, Kelly’s weekly injury report has seemed longer than his two-deep roster. Senior linebacker Mike Greene sprained his MCL on the first play of the season. Charlie Houghton – the fleet sophomore running back and defending Patriot League rookie of the year – dislocated his elbow and has worn a clunky brace ever since.
Defensive lineman Dan Linehan’s ankle snapped like a twig earlier in the year, and sophomore Rick Cosgrove – who had worked his way up the depth chart from unknown walk-on to starting wide-out – saw his dream season turn into a nightmare when he broke his finger. Junior defensive end Chudi Obianwu has had a staph infection and mononucleosis. Last weekend, injury was added to insult when sophomore standout linebacker Scott Coffman went down with a season-ending leg injury in a 45-0 loss at Lehigh.
“It is something that just happens in this sport,” said Greene, who has come back from his early season sprain and filled in admirably. “But when you are playing a lot of young guys like we are, it makes it worse.”
This week, the hobbled Hoyas limp into New York for a non-conference game with Marist, one of the two teams Georgetown trumped during the 2006 campaign. The 1-8 Red Foxes are just as vulnerable this season as they were when the two teams met last October in Washington, D.C.
“We are disappointed right now, but we are working to get better every day,” Head Coach Jim Parady said. “Every day that we go out to practice I am amazed at how our players have been able to keep up the positive attitude.”
Other than a trip to San Diego – a game which Marist lost 38-17 – there has been little sunshine for Parady’s team this fall. The Red Foxes started the season with six consecutive losses, before finally downing LaSalle three weeks ago in Poughkeepsie. Since then, the team has suffered back-to-back bludgeoning at the hands of
Sacred Heart and Fordham.
Quarterback Stephen McGrath has three games with over 300 yards passing, but the Red Foxes have been unable to capitalize when it matters.
“We have got to do a better job of getting the ball in the red zone,” said Parady, whose team is 18-for-31 in the red zone on the season. “We have been great between the 20s, but we need to get better in the red zone.”
The Red Foxes’ offensive woes are due in part to their own rendition of the injury blues. During his sophomore season in 2005, running back Obozua Ehikioya ran for 1,017 yards and was named to the mid major all-American team. Since suffering a wrist injury early last season, Ehikioya has never been the same. The 5-foot-11, 220-pound back has only
365 yards on the season, and until junior runner Keith Mitchell broke loose for 107 yards in last week’s 33-0 loss to Fordham, the Red Foxes’ rushing attack was obsolete.
Georgetown enters Saturday’s 1 p.m. kickoff with offensive troubles of its own. The Hoyas were shut out for the second time this season last Saturday, and managed only 148 total yards in a game senior quarterback Matt Bassuener called the worst of his career.
“That was a strange game, and a lot of that was on me,” said Bassuener, who was picked off once and sacked twice against Lehigh. “We have to be able to have success in both running and the passing game. Balance. That’s the idea.”
With the cellar-dwellers of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference and the Patriot League doing battle, no league title is on the line Saturday. But when a pair of disrespected feather weights with just honor left to play for start slugging it out, anything can happen.
