The inexperience of the University of Maine’s secondary was exposed during Saturday’s 48-17 Colonial Athletic Association football loss at Richmond, Virginia.
The 19th-ranked Spiders burned the Black Bears for 12 pass plays of at least 10 yards, including eight covering 20 yards or more. Among those were scoring hookups of 27, 75, 23 and 29 yards.
“They were overmatched, in a way, with some experienced receivers,” UMaine head coach Jack Cosgrove said of the Black Bears’ safeties and cornerbacks.
UMaine has been forced to fast-forward its safeties this season. After seniors Khari Al-Mateen, Axel Ofori and Patrick Pascal departed, junior free safety Davonte Burke suffered a second season-ending knee injury during the summer.
During Monday’s CAA coaches teleconference, Cosgrove revealed that Burke’s heir apparent, sophomore Darrius Hart, is out for the season with a right knee injury suffered after the Boston College game.
As a result, Sinmisola Demuren and Jason Matovu were thrust into the starting lineup. Mozai Nelson contributed, but suffered a season-ending knee injury last week, and Spencer Carey of Fairfield has played. All are second-year players.
“We’ve got the best we’ve got in there and we’ve just got to play through it, that’s all we can do,” Cosgrove said.
The Black Bears also are young at cornerback, where senior Sherrod Baltimore is the only upperclassman. Najee Goode, A.J. Dawson, Jeffrey DeVaughn and Tayvon Hall are all second-year players.
Cosgrove was quick to credit the talents of Richmond quarterback Kyle Lauletta and wide receivers Brian Brown and Reggie Diggs for Saturday’s performance.
“We couldn’t cover Diggs or Brown. We couldn’t match up with them on the back end,” Cosgrove said.
Richmond’s passing success was made possible in great part by its ability to neutralize the pass rush. The Bears, who registered 11 sacks in their first three games, had none Saturday.
Cosgrove said the Spiders often “max protected,” meaning they used at least one tight end and a running back in pass protection. That meant Lauletta usually had time to throw and that the secondary was forced to track down Richmond’s speedy wideouts.
“They protected the quarterback. We didn’t get a sack, [and we] didn’t get a lot of hits on him,” Cosgrove said.
As UMaine prepares for Saturday’s CAA game at Albany, there are no quick solutions to the lack of experience in the secondary.
The Black Bears know they have to adopt a particular defensive approach.
“We’ve got to be more conservative,” Cosgrove said. “We learned a hard lesson in that regard.
“We got flat-out beat in some coverages — double moves, the post-corner, the corner-post,” he added.
The defensive linemen and linebackers must be able to disrupt quarterbacks, while the safeties and cornerbacks need to continue to develop their physical skills and film-study abilities to be better prepared to perform.
“We’ve just got to do a better job with what we’re doing back there. We’ve got to keep coaching these young men and make them better.”