Who will be under center when the Delaware Blue Hens run their first offensive play against Lafayette?
The quarterback situation – Delaware played three different quarterbacks, due to injuries, in last week’s 35-7 loss to Villanova – was this week’s No. 1 question surrounding Saturday’s Football Championship Subdivision, formerly Division I-AA, first-round playoff showdown at Delaware Stadium in Newark, Delaware.
Delaware, with an 8-3 record out of the Coastal Athletic Association, is ranked No. 12 in the coaches’ poll. Lafayette, the Patriot League champion at 9-2, is ranked No. 18.
The Leopards, of course, are well aware of the Blue Hens’ uncertain quarterback situation, but according to coach John Troxell, there are other more important concerns to address with his team.
“We don’t know who will play [quarterback],” Troxell said, “but whoever it is, I don’t think they’ll change the scheme too much.
“They have a real good tailback who’s twitchy and fast, and they’re big up front. I’ve said this forever, and it’s the old adage, but we want to be able to run the football and stop the run. That’s how you win games and that’s what we’ve done so far.”
Delaware coach Ryan Carty, not surprisingly, offered no definitive update on his team’s quarterback situation on Wednesday at his weekly news conference.
Carty said Nick Minicucci, a freshman from Don Bosco Prep (N.J.), was taking the majority of this week’s snaps at practice with another freshman, Daniel Lipovski, getting the remaining repetitions. Minicucci saw his most significant action of the season – after starter Ryan O’Connor and backup Zach Marker left with injuries – last Saturday against Villanova, finishing 9-of-21 for 55 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions.
Regardless of who is under center Saturday, Troxell said the key for his defense will be to limit Delaware’s top offensive threat, senior running back Marcus Yarns, who has gained 852 yards on 117 carries. Yarns also leads the Blue Hens with 17 total TDs.
Delaware, which averages 32.4 points per game, has passed for 2,873 yards and rushed for 1,769 this season.
“We’ve got to keep their tailback under 100,” Troxell said. “I said the same thing when we played Monmouth of the CAA. They had the Shirden kid [Jaden Shirden] who led the nation in rushing and we held him to 41 yards [in a 28-20 Lafayette win]. That’s really the reason we won that game. I don’t see it much different.
“We’re not going to change much. We do what we do. We want to keep it close, get into the fourth quarter and have a chance to win the game.”
Like the Blue Hens, Lafayette is relatively balanced on offense and is led by its No. 1 ball-carrier, sophomore Jamar Curtis.
Curtis, a 5-foot-8, 164-pounder, has gained 1,333 yards rushing and scored 12 touchdowns. Curtis is joined in the backfield by sophomore quarterback Dean DeNobile, who has passed for 1,833 yards and 18 TDs.
The Leopards, in Troxell’s second year at his alma mater, have exceeded expectations. They were picked fourth in the Patriot League’s preseason coaches’ poll and were 4-7 a season ago.
Lafayette finished 5-1 in league competition and earned the automatic playoff berth based on their 38-35 win over last year’s champ, Holy Cross, which also went 5-1. The Leopards clinched their postseason spot last Saturday with a come-from-behind 49-21 victory at archrival Lehigh.
They put eight starters on the all-league team that was announced Tuesday, and Troxell was voted as the league’s coach of the year while defensive lineman Jaylon Joseph was picked as rookie of the year.
“I think the biggest thing is you see a confidence,” said Carty, who played quarterback at Delaware, of Lafayette. “Those guys have been in a bunch of close games and they’ve won them. I think there’s something to be said about that. When it comes down to it, you’re going to have belief in each other and confidence. You can see that, it kind of pops off on tape.”
A senior, all-league linebacker Marco Olivas has endured the bad times at Lafayette and is now enjoying the good ones.
The Leopards were 3-8 in 2021 – John Garrett’s final season on College Hill and previously 2-1 in the COVID year in 2020.
“There’s been a lot of buy-in,” Olivas, a team captain, said. “The guys have bought into the culture of wanting to be a champion and realizing it’s something you have to earn every day. It’s not something you can say you want or act like you want. You have to actually go out and do it.
“This season’s been so great, so rewarding. We put in all the work over the offseason and through the season. There is a lot of pain and suffering that comes with it. But it feels so good to have that work finally mean something . . . . that Patriot League title and a chance at a run in the FCS playoffs.”
Troxell said that outside of Duke, Delaware will be as good as any team the Leopards have played this season.
But he’s confident his team can compete – and win. The 52-year-old Phillipsburg High School graduate is also certain Lafayette will remain a program on the rise.
“Marco said it the other day, ‘Why not us?,’” Troxell said. “Colgate’s made it to the national final [in 2003] and Holy Cross took last year’s champion, South Dakota State, to the fourth quarter [in an eventual 42-21 South Dakota State win]. That’s what you chase. My goal was to get us on the national stage and now it’s a matter of seeing us compete at that level.
“We’re going to play as hard as we can, as well as we can and see where we are. Hopefully, it’s good enough. If it’s not enough, we’ll have a good idea of what we need to do moving forward.”
Michael Blouse is a freelance writer.
FCS PLAYOFFS
Who: Lafayette Leopards (9-2) at Delaware Blue Hens (8-3).
When: 2 p.m. Saturday.
Where: Delaware Stadium, Newark, Del.
At stake: Winner plays at No. 2 overall seed Montana in FCS second round on Saturday, Dec. 2.
Series history: Delaware leads series 21-7. Delaware won most recent meeting, 37-0, in 2018.
