The action between the Hoyas and the Buccaneers did not challenge Georgia-Florida or Oklahoma-Missouri for television coverage, so few outside of the 3,597 Charleston Southern hometown faithful in attendance saw Georgetown fall 24-10 for its sixth-consecutive loss.
But any Hoya fan that has been paying some attention to the patterns of his team’s 1-7 season could probably make an educated guess as to how the game played out.
The rare out-of-conference road game did not provide any change of pace for the Hoyas, who once again doomed themselves by committing costly turnovers down the stretch. Had Georgetown managed to keep the ball in its possession for the entire game, it could have possibly been the team that snapped the Buccaneers’ impressive winning streak, which now stands at 12 games. But junior quarterback Matt Basseuner threw two late interceptions that helped to prevent the Hoyas from exorcising their losing demons on Halloween weekend.
After six straight losses, and with the memory of Charleston Southern breezing past them like a gust of warm sea air, it may seem as if the Hoyas have hit rock bottom. But it wasn’t so long ago that Charleston Southern Head Coach Jay Mills and his Buccaneers were sinking in their own bog of futility. Mills arrived in Charleston in 2002 and suffered through two painful losing seasons before finally steering his team to a conference championship and its current unbeaten stretch.
If it can happen at this small Baptist school on the sandy beaches of Charleston, it should be able to happen for Georgetown Head Coach Kevin Kelly on the Potomac’s edge waters.
As sad as it is to leave the efforts of such talented senior leadership as senior defensive end Alex Buzbee and senior safety Derek Franks for dead, the Hoyas should begin to think in terms of 2007 and possibly 2008 for the resurrection of the football program. As is evidenced in the weekly introductions of fresh faces to the starting lineup, the Hoyas simply don’t have the experience to play with teams like Charleston Southern, which features veteran playmakers like senior quarterback Collin Drafts and junior linebacker Jada Ross.
Saturday’s action shows what a huge difference an experienced field general can make. Time and again, Drafts showed superior calm in picking apart a Hoya defense that has more new kids on the block than an early 1990s Billboard chart.
This time last year, Bassenuer was a defensive back picking up minutes on special teams. Who’s to say that with another off-season split between the film room and the practice field, he can’t emerge from his cocoon of insecurity to fly through his senior season with the grace of a monarch?
The work of the senior class will not go unremembered, however, for it has provided an ideal example of what Kelly expects from his young players. Had Buzbee, Franks and senior co-captain Liam Grubb had four years under Kelly the way Drafts has with Mills, the result of Saturday’s and many other games this season might have been different.
The class of 2007 deserves ample praise as it returns home for its final game on the Hilltop next Saturday – its homecoming game against Marist. Hoya fans should never doubt how bad they want it, either. For all of the shortcomings that Kelly’s inaugural squad may have, whether it is in practice or in a game, they do not seem to lack desire.
No matter how many losses stack up on the Hoyas, Grubb and Franks continue to demand perfection from freshmen in every practice drill. No matter how futile his effort seems, Basseuner continues to trade sunny afternoons lounging on Healy Lawn for film sessions in the dark, cramped football office. With each week, more of the underclassmen fall in behind them, for as Charleston Southern has demonstrated, the beauty of college football lies in the fact that anyone can go from being the league’s battered punching bag to its prized champion.