As we savor leftover turkey, family gatherings and holiday lights this day after Thanksgiving, let’s also relish the best regular-season finish in 130 years of football at the University of Rhode Island.
In case you missed the news, the Rams are 10-2, 8-0 in the Coastal Athletic Association and outright champions for the first time since 1985. Last year, they also had a 10-2 finish, and they shared the title with Richmond.
Whoa! Wait a minute! A two-year, 20-4 regular season record and back-to-back conference championships? At URI? Are you kidding? Isn’t this the school where not so many years ago officials had to quell cries of “Drop football!”? The school that a decade or so ago considered leaving the CAA for the lesser Northeast Conference?
Yes, that URI. And I am not kidding.
The Rams are seeded No. 9 in the 24-team NCAA Football Championship Subdivision playoffs and will welcome Central Connecticut to Meade Stadium Saturday at noon for a first-round rematch of the 2024 tournament. Rhody prevailed, 21-17, in that one but lost to Mercer in the second round.
As great as last year was, this year is even better. After losing to Brown 28-21 on Oct. 3, the Rams won their next six games. They have won 14 straight at Meade Stadium and are 15-1 in their last two CAA seasons.
“When we stubbed our toe versus Brown, that was a devastating loss because it’s Brown,” Rhody coach Jim Fleming said. “It didn’t affect us in conference, but it was a wake-up call for our guys. They really took control of the team at that point in time.”
In their regular season finale, a 38-10 romp over Hampton last Saturday, URI generated 613 yards of total offense. That’s only 9 yards off the school record set against Maine in 1991. Garth White broke the program record for points in a single season by a kicker. He has 85 and will most likely add to that total on Saturday. Wide receiver Dameon Reilly holds the record of 102 points set in 1985. Antwain Littleton Jr. rushed for 148 yards and two touchdowns. Littleton, a Temple transfer, has 1,095 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns this season.
There’s more. The CAA announced its award winners this week. Fleming is the coach of the year. Linebacker A.J. Pena is the defensive player of the year for the second time. Quarterback Devin Farrell, wide receiver Marquis Buchanan of Providence, and tight end Connor Finer are first-team All-CAA. So are Pena and cornerback Ayinde Johnson. Littleton, wide receiver Greg Gaines III, offensive linemen Tre Alexander and Brock Bethea, and linebacker Rohan Davy made the second team. Third-teamers include offensive linemen Christian Smith, defensive lineman Case Mankins and linebacker Moses Meus of Pawtucket. Offensive lineman Thomas Buxton and safety Andre Depina-Gray of Pawtucket received honorable mention.
Speaking on the weekly CAA conference call Monday, Fleming praised his players for meeting the high expectations of them this season.
“To do anything back-to-back is difficult. What it says about our program is you raise the bar of your level of expectation both internally and externally. Our state is looking at us. Our government has invested heavily in our program. There’s a lot of interest in Rhode Island football that might not have been that way 12 years ago,” he said.
URI football has come a long way since Fleming took over. The first few years were rough. His record after four seasons was 7-38. After a winning season in 2018, a 2-10 record in 2019 stung. But URI has posted five consecutive winning seasons.
“There’s more of a sense of responsibility to all the people who follow us, support us, to present a good product and present a winning product. We’ll carry that with us as we go into the playoffs,” Fleming said.
Fleming and his staff have succeeded in this era of free agency in college sports — say, transfer portal and Name, Image and Likeness money. They have attracted talented players to Kingston, kept many of them on campus and replaced those who leave.
Nobody on URI’s Kingston campus is prouder of Fleming and his players than athletics director Thorr Bjorn. He hired Fleming in 2014 and supported him during those long losing seasons.
“The partnership Jim and I developed is something that will last a lifetime,” Bjorn told me when we spoke Monday morning. “When we struggled, he said ‘I’m willing to take this on. . . . I’m sticking with it.’”
Fleming is 66, and Bjorn hopes he will finish his coaching career at URI.
“The culture he has built is really special. He has built himself into a hall of fame coach,” he said.
Why, then, is Bjorn leaving URI and euphoria for the disaster that is University of Massachusetts football? He starts Monday in Amherst as senior deputy athletic director and chief administrative officer. His Mission Impossible: to restore respect and winning to the worst Division I football program in America.
UMass has endured 15 consecutive losing seasons, finished 0-12 this season and is dead last among the 136 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision. For those achievements, coach Joe Harasymiak is receiving $1.22 million this year. His boss, and Bjorn’s boss as of Monday, Ryan Bamford, earns $830,473. He has been AD since 2015 and has hired three head football coaches.
Bjorn told me he wasn’t looking to leave Kingston. He had signed a new contract in July. Meade Stadium, home of the Rams, is about to be overhauled. URI football has never been better.
But Bjorn is a UMass alum. He played football there. He worked there before taking the URI job in 2007. So when Bamford laid out the plans for football, Bjorn was intrigued.
“When I came to Rhode Island, it was the same thing. People asked, ‘Why Rhode Island?’ When I heard Ryan’s plan, that excited me,” he said.
Bjorn is 58 and expects this will be the last stop in his career as an athletics administrator. Plus, it’s a way to repay the University of Massachusetts.
“I wasn’t a great football player,” he said, “but UMass provided me with an education and helped make me who I am today. I want to try to give back. We did it here. UMass won’t be that different.”
Bjorn attended his final URI football game as athletics director last Saturday. With his family by his side, he was honored for 18 years of “leadership and love.”
Thorr Bjorn will not be in Kingston for the playoff game on Saturday because his youngest daughter is getting married. As special as last Saturday was, this Saturday will be even more so. And if URI wins, that victory will be icing on the wedding cake.
