The Engineers did not start conference play well, getting thrashed 54-13 in the Liberty League opener as their woes against Hobart College continued. The loss moves RPI to 1-2, the first time since 1999 that they have had a losing record.
Things started out bright for the Engineers, as the defense forced two quick fumbles. Co-captains Ramses Jimenez and Brent Hanson each stripped the ball from the Statesman backs. The first was returned for a touchdown by Jimmy Motzkin, the second led to a quick 43 yard strike from Chad Wysocki to Dan Stephens.
But after the swift 13-0 lead, things fell apart. On the ensuing kickoff, Hobart returned the ball 79 yards deep into Engineer territory. “We had some momentum early, and then they ran that ball down to the five,” Coach King said. “That was certainly one of the turning points of the game.”
RPI never got back into the game. Hobart scored the next 54 points, and dominated on both sides of the ball. It was the worst loss that King can remember being a part of in his 15 seasons with the program.
“We made a commitment to stop the run”, King said after the game. “One of our biggest problems on defense was poor tackling. We missed dozens of tackles.”
Hobart pounded the heart of the Engineers’ defensive line gaining over 300 yards on the ground, and when King put more men in the box to stop the run, quarterback Shawn Mizro picked apart the secondary.
“We got burned trying to play man-to-man,” King acknowledged. “They’ve got two excellent receivers.” Although only making nine completions on 16 attempts, Mizro made them count by averaging 26 yards a pass including a 70 yard completion to set up a field goal right before the half.
Offensively, the Engineers never got anything going. Wysocki got the nod to start at quarterback due to some soreness in Frank Catellier’s injured shoulder. However, after the first touchdown pass, RPI could not find the end zone, even though they were newly painted in bright red.
“Some people run the ball to set up the pass, and in the past we’ve thrown the ball to set up the run,” King said. “We haven’t thrown the ball well enough to get anybody out of a run stopping defense.” King is optimistic about the return of Catellier, which could happen as soon as next week.
In the first half, RPI could not gain much on the ground, accumulating only 32 yards mainly from Otis Williams. It didn’t get much better until their last drive of the game, when Jay Bernardo contributed over 50 rushing yards to the Engineer’s cause.
Coach King has a niche deep in his heart for special teams. He focuses on them all the time, trying to improve in the field position game. Hobart owned that aspect of Saturday’s game, and King believed that hurt his team on both sides of the ball.
“Our returns didn’t give us anything” commented King about RPI’s special teams play. Coupled with the huge returns for Hobart that left the Statesmen with “always a short field to work with” caused trouble all game long for RPI.
Next week is homecoming for the RPI football team, as they host the Coast Guard Academy in the Shot Glass Trophy game. The past two years, the Engineers have easily dispatched Coast Guard, but this year they must forget the embarrassment of the Hobart game, while remembering their mistakes so they do not get repeated. King will have the tough task of getting the players back into the proper mindset this week at practice.
“You have to get back to believing in yourself, believing in what you are doing, and believing in your teammates. That’s a key thing this week, to start trusting one another again.”
