The Georgetown football team (2-5 overall, 0-3 PL) hopes the road to redemption against Fordham (4-3 overall, 1-1 PL) will come while on the road this weekend. Coming off a 27-10 loss to Monmouth, the Hoyas will attempt to win their first away game of the season against Patriot League foe Fordham.
With a rivalry dating back to 1890, Georgetown and Fordham’s games have been one-sided recently; the Hoyas have not beaten Fordham since 1983. For a team struggling with consistency, breaking their eight-game losing streak against Fordham would be a welcome change.
“We’re back in league play against a traditional rival we’ve played since we started playing football games,” Head Coach Bob Benson said. “I love playing up there in the Bronx, they have a rowdy crowd and atmosphere.”
Fordham Head Coach Ed Foley agreed.
“The atmosphere will be great since we’re renewing the Jesuit rivalry,” he said. “The priests have been coming down to the football office to offer encouragement. Georgetown has always been a big rival and now that we’re in the conference together, it’s going to be tremendous.”
Dealing with the hostile atmosphere will be just another obstacle for a Georgetown team still trying to execute a new offense that requires more option plays and mobility from the quarterback. After an encouraging 21-0 rout against VMI in the Homecoming game, the Hoyas could only muster one touchdown the following week against Monmouth. The Hoyas’ offensive sparkplug, junior tailback Kim Sarin, had a quiet game, rushing for only 39 yards while averaging 90 yards per game thus far this season.
“Last week was one of those games where everything went wrong,” Benson said. “We never had any momentum.”
Georgetown looks to reverse this trend by pressuring Fordham’s offense with various defensive packages and constant blitzes. It will be up to the Rams’ sophomore quarterback Derric Daniels to read the Hoyas’ defense and make quick plays at the line.
“We have got to pressure their quarterback and give him lots of things to think about,” Benson said.
Daniels is coming off a 16 for 37 passing game in which he threw for 282 yards and two touchdowns in a 35-20 loss to Lafayette.
“Derric Daniels is very important to our offense,” Foley said. “We go as Daniels goes. It’s a lot of pressure to put on a young guy.”
Georgetown senior quarterback Andrew Crawford has faced stress of his own trying to move the offense downfield. The tough defensive backfield he will find in Fordham will make things more difficult.
“I expect lots of movement in the secondary,” Crawford said. “They’ll get up on us and then fall back during pre-snap to give us lots of looks to try to confuse our offense. On film, it’s one of the best defenses in the league.”
For Georgetown to make a dent against Fordham it will need to exorcise its offensive demons against a team that’s overpowered them since before most people on this campus were born.
