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LIU Sharks Football caught in a riptide of tough non-conference play

Last updated on Oct 7, 2024

By Mike Voltaggio, Staff Writer

LIU’s football team finds themselves struggling to pick up their first win of their 2024 campaign four weeks into their season. The Sharks began their 2024 off-season and fall camp with high hopes and fresh faces on the squad after losing some of their key players such as Devon Wells, Owen Glascoe, and Eric O’Neil to the NCAA transfer portal as well as graduation.

Sharks Quarterback and redshirt sophomore Luca Stanzani had this to say about the team’s new additions as well as returning players who were key to making a big impact. 

“There are a lot of players to keep an eye on this upcoming season, Mike Love is back, number five, he was a key piece of the receiver room last season, unfortunately, he was a little banged up last year. We have a freshman, Cory Nichols who will be an important piece to our offense. A new running back, Ludovick Choquette, and some more transfer receivers and tight ends that are going to help us.”

When asked the same question, Head Coach Ron Cooper highlighted the defensive newcomers.

“We brought in Liam McCormick, he’s a transfer defensive lineman from Florida State, he’s also a Long Island Native. We beefed up our linebacker corps with guys like Maurice Willmer and we added a few weapons on the offensive side as well.” 

With their roster set, the Sharks faced yet another extremely difficult year of non-conference games, but the mentality has never changed since Cooper took the reigns to the LIU program three years ago 

“We want to start fast,” Cooper said. “We want to start our conference games hot by winning the non-conference games and we do that by putting the best team we can out on the field.” 

Cooper also discussed the differences he’s seen in his team over the past three seasons.

“Our football team is maturing. They understand what is expected of them. I don’t have to talk to them about a lot of the little things I had to talk about over the past two years. They understand that our schedule is very competitive and each game will be very competitive, but we have a chance to do something real special, but it can’t just be talked about. We have to work to get it done and our guys are working hard,” he said.

Stanzani shared a similar opinion about the tough schedule.

“We’ve been preparing for it since the spring,” he said. “We don’t like to think about who we’re playing. We just know that we have to be ready and bring the juice each day.”

One thing was for certain for the Sharks heading into their non-conference matchups, they had the attention of the opposing coaches and none of them were going to take LIU lightly.

The University of Albany Great Danes Head Football Coach Greg Gattuso shared his opinion of the sharks ahead of their week one matchup on Saturday, August 31.

“I know the NEC very very well and I know the talent level and the coaching prowess. We understand that there is a good football team coming into our house. They’re well coached and they got guys who can flat out play ball,” the 2023 AFCA FCS Coach of the Year said.

After a fierce, gritty game against the Great Danes, the Sharks found themselves on the losing end of a nail-biter, falling 21-27.

With their opening game in the rear-view mirror and their attention focused back to the drawing board, the Sharks faced an even greater challenge the upcoming week taking on the TCU Horned Frogs, an FBS team that saw themselves in the College Football National Championship just two years prior.

Even with the large gap in competition, TCU Head Coach Sonny Dykes wasn’t going to take any chances even against an FCS school like LIU, and says that the tape showed a different outcome than the scoreboard during LIU’s game against Albany.

“When you put on the tape and watch LIU play Albany, you can see that LIU dominated the game in a lot of ways. I have no doubt that they will be a very good football team and that they are going to have an excellent year.,” Coach Dykes said. “We know that they can play at a very high level.” 

The Sharks week two matchup was a very different outcome compared to week one. The Sharks were decimated by the Horned Frogs, the final score being 45-0. With the brutal loss behind them, LIU came back to their own competition bracket as they ramped up to face the Hawks of Lehigh University and were hoping that this game would be the turnaround they needed.

With his team coming off a dominating 49-13 victory over another NEC opponent, the Wagner Seahawks and looking to make it two in a row, Lehigh Head Coach Kevin Cahill gave his take on the Sharks.

“I think this team is much better than their record. I think they are incredibly coached, very sound and very athletic. I’m going into this game extremely impressed by what LIU has done thus far,” he said.

It was more of the same for the Sharks after dropping another close game and making it three straight losses to non-conference competition. With his team reeling, Coach Cooper shared his comments. 

“I saw our guys these last three weeks play hard and there were definitely games that we could have won and should have won. We had a lot of opportunities to win against Albany and against Lehigh, but we can’t go back and redo the ‘shoulda coulda woulda,’ but there were still a lot of positives from those games. Looking forward, we know that our opponents can only put 11 guys on the field at a time just like us and we aren’t focused on winning right now, our main focus is that we all do our jobs and play the best we can play.”

Courtesy of LIU Athletics

Heading into their week four homecoming matchup against non-conference opponent, the then 2-1 University of Rhode Island Rams, the stands were packed with over 2000 screaming Sharks fans. The game was back and forth throughout with LIU holding onto a narrow 21-14 lead with just over 4:30 left to go in the fourth quarter, but a heartbreaking fumble on their own one-yard line would catapult the Rams to the game-tying touchdown. A punt on LIU’s subsequent drive would lead to Rhode Island once again punching it in the endzone to take the lead 28-21. With just over a minute left in the final quarter of play, the Sharks found themselves dead in the water as they struggled to get the ball moving. As the clock ticked down to 0:00, LIU’s hope for a non-conference win would slip right through their fingers taking their record to 0-4 to start the season.    

The Sharks will look to right the ship and pick up their first non-conference win in 4 years next week on the road against another CAA opponent, The Villanova Wildcats in their pursuit of a Northeast Conference championship and a deep run in the FCS playoffs.    

Courtesy of LIU Athletics

The quoted material contained in this article was courtesy of LIU Sports Radio and their weekly coverage of LIU Sharks football on 88.1 FM WCWP. 

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