URI Pounded By Monmouth In Opener 41-6
Saturday, September 08, 2012
Maybe it’s a good thing that URI football decided not to join the Northeast Conference after all.
Saturday, the Rams opened up their 2012 season on the gridiron in New Jersey against (0-1) Monmouth. After 60 minutes of football, the Rams took the long, quiet bus ride home from West Long Branch, New Jersey after being defeated soundly by the Hawks 41-6.
Rhode Island fell behind right from the get go when Monmouth moved the football 85 yards on 13 plays on their opening drive for a score. Kyle Frazier’s 8-yard pass to K.B. Asante put the Hawks up 7-0 just over 5 minutes into the game.
The Rams would get a field goal on their second drive of the game after recovering a Monmouth fumble at the Hawks’ 12-yard line. But the Hawks would dominate from that point on.
Monmouth rattled off the game’s next 31 points scoring on their next 6 drives to blow the game open.
The Rams were dominated in every phase of the game. The Hawks has 25 first downs to URI’s 11. Monmouth ran for 272 yards on the ground to the Rams’ 49. The Hawks 267 passing yards as well. Rhode Island had only 148. Total yards in the game: Monmouth 539 URI 197.
Rams’ junior WR Ramadan Abdullah had a career-best 87 yards receiving on 7 catches. But Rhody’s star of the game was their punter Tim Wienclaw, which is never a good sign. Wienclaw averaged 46 yards per punt on his 5 punts Saturday afternoon.
In all due respect to Monmouth, they’re not exactly CAA material which has to make you concerned about what lies ahead for URI this season. Rhode Island will open up CAA play next Saturday at 3:30pm in Philadelphia against Villanova.
Rhode Island will have to play significantly better next week just to hang around with the Wildcats. The good news is, it seems hard to imagine that they could play any worse than they did in the opener.
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