After stringing together their first two-game winning streak since the 2012 season, the Georgetown football team (2-3, 0-1 Patriot League) failed to keep it alive as it fell 19-0 in its Patriot League opener to Colgate (2-2, 1-0 Patriot League). Two blocked punts by the Raiders, which resulted in a safety and touchdown, were too much for the Hoyas and their offense to overcome.
Georgetown found itself at a deficit early, after sophomore punter Harry McCollum’s punt from the back of the Hoyas’ own endzone was blocked for a safety that the Raiders an early 2-0 lead with 8:45 left in the first quarter. In similar fashion, Colgate extended their lead, as they blocked another McCollum punting attempt, with freshman linebacker Pat Afriyie returning it 10 yards for a touchdown to make it 9-0 Colgate with 5:11 remaining in the second quarter. Colgate sophomore running back Jake Melville’s 38-yard touchdown run with under one minute left in the first half gave the Raiders a 16-0 halftime lead. Sophomore kicker Jonah Bowman’s 31-yard field goal with 8:58 left in the game capped the scoring for the Raiders.
Georgetown Head Coach Rob Sgarlata acknowledged that ill-timed mistakes, such as the two blocked punts, prevented the Hoyas from getting back into the game.
“It affects you, it’s a momentum changer,” said Sgarlata of the special teams errors. “We’ve analyzed it and it’s like anything else in football, it’s all about alignments and techniques. We worked on it (in practice). It’s a huge focal point. We’ve re-assessed all of personnel that are on it. But we believe in the scheme and believe what we’re doing. We just got to do better this week.”
On the offensive side of the ball, the Hoyas, who amassed only 163 total yards, struggled to move the ball down the field due to lack of execution and unforced errors. Overall, junior quarterback Kyle Nolan completed 15-of-28 passes for 128 yards, while junior running back Jo’el Kimpela led the Hoyas rushing attack, gaining 41 yards on 10 attempts. The anemic offensive output was especially disappointing considering the success that the Hoyas had in their previous two wins.
“Offensively, we just had a couple of missed assignments. On every drive, we had something to stall it,” said Nolan. “That’s something we can’t do in order to keep moving down the field. We got to be more efficient and keep executing. We can’t have the missed assignments that we had.”
Despite their offensive struggles, the Georgetown defense maintained their consistent form, allowing the Colgate offense to enter the red zone only once, while also holding the Raiders to an impressive 2-of-12 on third down conversions and 1-of-3 on fourth down conversions. Melville’s touchdown run in the second quarter broke the unit’s streak of 10 quarters without allowing an offensive touchdown.
Senior defensive end Alec May, who earned Patriot League Honorable Mention for the week for his performance, led the Hoyas with eight tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss, one sack, and a forced fumble. May has now earned Patriot League weekly honors for his play six of the last eight weeks, dating back to last season, tying him for the program’s all-time record. Despite these impressive stats, May credits his success to his fellow defensive linemen.
“People don’t realize that when it gets to third down, and we’re in our nickel package, [Hunter Kiselick and Richard Shankle are two other great pass rushers. It makes it a lot easier when I get in the backfield and [the quarterback] has nowhere to go.”
May and the Hoyas will look to rebound this week when they host Harvard (2-0, 1-0 Ivy League) this Saturday at 12:00pm in the schools’ first ever meeting. Sgarlata acknowledged the challenge this matchup will provide for his young team, as the undefeated Crimson were Ivy League co-champions last year.
Under their Head Coach Tim Murphy, Harvard has always had a potent offensive attack. Entering this year, the Crimson failed to score over 30 points only five times over the last three years while never scoring less than 20 points. Through their first two contests, a 41-18 win over Holy Cross and 22-14 win over Brown, the Crimson have averaged 419.5 total yards of offense, including 189 rushing yards. This will present a challenge for the May and the Hoyas defense, one which he feels they’re ready for.
“We’re not worried. We’re just going to do our thing. Coach Luke Thompson, [the team’s defensive coordinator] preaches every week that we don’t really care what the offense is going to do, we’re just going to do our thing. We know we have the guys on defense to stop them.”
Sgarlata is not overwhelmed by the matchup eithere. He is confident in his team’s abilities regardless of the opposition.
“I’ve told the kids again and again, ‘it doesn’t really matter who we play. If we play our brand of football, we’ll be fine against any opponent on our schedule.’”
