Maybe this will get the Dutchmen on the scoreboard the next time they play the no. 1 team in the land…

Forgive one more foray into the world of pop culture, but this was too good to resist. If you’re not watching Glee every Wednesday night on Fox, you’re missing the most inspired, creative, hilarious and all-around brilliant show network television has offered in quite some time. This is from Wednesday’s episode, when the slumping McGinley High School football team—quarterbacked by a player sporting uniform no. 5, isn’t it ironic?—resorts to catching its opponent by surprise with a last-second dance routine.

Regardless of who lines up behind center tomorrow, history suggests the Dutchmen won’t have to dance for their points against Western Michigan. The Dutchmen have gotten on the board against I-A foes Marshall (losses of 45-21 in 2003 and 54-31 in 2006) and UConn (a 35-3 loss last year). And they did a lot more than just score in 1999, when the Dutchmen went on the road and beat Buffalo (20-13) and South Florida (42-23), each of whom were transitioning from I-AA to I-A.

Of course, as discussed yesterday, a lot has changed in 10 years. A week after one of the most disheartening losses in program history, it’ll be encouraging if the Dutchmen can merely remain competitive against Western Michigan and generate some momentum heading into the rigorous portion of the CAA schedule. Of the Dutchmen’s final seven games, three are against teams currently in the top 15 of the coaches’ poll and another two are against squads that collected votes in the most recent poll.

Remarkably, the Dutchmen also received votes this week in both the coaches’ poll and the media poll. Alas, even that silver lining provides a reminder of the changing times for Hofstra football: The Dutchmen were tied for 57th in the media poll, one vote behind Old Dominion, which has played 668 fewer games all-time. Ahh, to be an overachieving newcomer to I-AA.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

The Debut of the 1994 Time Machine

The original plan this fall at Defiantly Dutch was to celebrate all things 1994-95, not just that year’s Flying Dutchmen football team. So of course here I am debuting that feature a full six days before October dawns! Hooray chronic attention deficit disorder!

Anyway, I arrived on campus in late August 1994 determined to make up for some lost time. Going away to college a year earlier was a particularly big deal for someone who attended community college for two years and, at almost 20 years old, still hadn’t spent a whole lot of time outside of a hometown in Connecticut that was about as far removed from the hustle and bustle of Long Island as humanly possible.

I was just beginning to overcome my natural shyness (I know, I know, nobody else believes it either) and was in the process of really getting comfortable at Hofstra in the fall of ’93 when my sister was involved in a serious car accident in October. She was OK, thankfully, but even after she got out of the hospital and went back to school (where she made the honor roll while I had to drop a math class to maintain a 2.5), I found the pull of home harder and harder to resist. I went home almost every weekend the rest of the fall semester and every other weekend or so in the spring.

But by the summer of 1994 I knew I was ready to dive in. I was comfortable at the newspaper, had established a familiarity with the campus as well as the sports I was covering and was prepared to immerse myself in Hofstra. I had great friends and I figured this might be the year I finally met Her.

Those were high expectations to meet, but the 1994-95 school year—and the fall of 1994 in particular—was everything I thought it’d be and a whole lot more. The success of the athletic department and the football team in particular provided plenty of inspiration and fuel for an aspiring sportswriter. I came to understand that the friends I’d made at Hofstra were as loyal and ever-lasting as the ones I had at home.

Popular culture seemed to understand the magnitude of the moment, as well, and provided incredible sights and sounds that served as an unforgettable soundtrack. I am a firm believer that college provides that Time for everyone, that perfect era in which everything is intertwined and related. But as good as your Time might be, you’ll just have to trust me when I tell you the fall of 1994 was the best time ever to be a music fan, a moviegoer and a fan of “The Simpsons.”

Don’t believe me? Within a three-day span 15 years ago this week, R.E.M. released Monster and the movie The Shawshank Redemption hit theatres. And it only got better from there.

Who knows what kind of tricks my memory is playing on me, but I’d swear on a stack of 1994 media guides that the video for R.E.M.’s “What’s The Frequency Kenneth” had its world premiere the day classes began. I remember watching the video in my dorm room and thinking that the soaring opening licks and the odd yet inescapable buoyancy of the song summed up the immediacy of the moment and the grand potential of the year to come. Or maybe it was the perpetually dour R.E.M.—fresh off one of the most depressing records ever, Automatic for the People—rocking out that proved anything was possible, I don’t know.

(I know, I know: The last thing R.E.M. ever wanted to do was inspire some hair metal-listening kid from an idyllic home in the suburbs, but that’s what Michael Stipe & Co. did there.)

The song would also become a defining one for our group of friends. One late night at The Chronicle, as we cranked the song, the news editor blurted out “Leavitt”—the last name of his top writer—instead of “Kenneth.” It made syllabic sense and, at 3 am, the type of hilarious sense that is unexplainable outside of a newsroom.

Leavitt was also the last name of the girl on whom I was beginning to develop a mad crush. A couple weeks later, we had our first date, and a couple weeks after that, I made her a mix tape (look it up, you damn iPod-listening kids) that I dubbed “What’s The Frequency Leavitt?” You may have guessed by now she is in fact Her.

The farther back 1994-95 is in the rear-view mirror, the more fond the memories become, because adulthood is a constant reminder of how often seemingly perfect moments and opportunities turn out to be something far less than that. Hopefully, these occasional forays into the pop culture world of 15 years ago will remind you of your Time as well, even if it wasn’t the fall of 1994.

And you also get my humble apologies if this bores you to tears, but I can assure you, even if this sucks in a really large way, it’s still better than 1994 eyesore Natural Born Killers.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

Fifteen years ago today: Lafayette

Fifteen years ago today, the Flying Dutchmen traveled to Fisher Field and made Lafayette pay for its pregame shenanigans.

Editor’s note: “Fifteen years ago today…” is a feature we’ll be running all fall at Defiantly Dutch as we look back on how the unforgettable 1994 football season unfolded. I’ll add quotes to note and other random memories of the games as well. Our first entry, in which we reflect on the games against Butler, Bucknell and Fordham, can be found here. Today: A recap of the 27-6 win over Lafayette Sept. 24.

Sept. 24, 1994

Hofstra 27, Lafayette 6

QB Carlos Garay, back in the starting lineup after missing a game with a separated left shoulder, threw for 184 yards and two TDs and RB Hayward Cromartie rushed for 166 yards and a score as the Dutchmen came back from an early deficit to trounce Lafayette in Easton, PA. Garay’s nine-yard TD pass to Michael Wright gave the Dutchmen the lead for good at 7-3 late in the second quarter. A 35-yard TD pass to Wayne Chrebet shortly before the half increased the lead to 14-3. Cromartie’s nine-yard TD run in the third quarter gave the Dutchmen a 21-6 lead. It was the third straight 100-yard game for Cromartie, who entered the season with two 100-yard efforts in his first two years. Freshman Jeff Yeakel racked up 112 yards on six returns (three punt returns, three kickoff returns).

Quotable: “Everything started to click. Everybody got the feel of what was going on. We got the momentum.”—Garay

“[The Dutchmen are] a damn good football team.”—Joe Gardi

Other random memories: I didn’t cover this game—I was home that weekend for my birthday, I think—but Nick Renzetti’s game story in The Chronicle alludes to some funny business perpetuated by Lafayette coach Bill Russo, whose decision to hold a practice at Fisher Field the day before the game forced the Dutchmen to get to Easton hours earlier than they’d anticipated. “There was a lot of foreplay involved before that game,” Gardi said. Thanks for THAT visual, Joe.

With the win, the Dutchmen “moved” to no. 43 in the I-AA poll with 13 votes. Not to play spoiler or anything, but I’m willing to bet you they got a lot more votes a week later.

Next game: vs. New Hampshire, Oct. 1 (Homecoming)

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

When it comes to football, the CAA and scholarships, breaking up is hard to do--but necessary

That Jennifer Aniston is really hot is a secondary reason I posted this photo. OK maybe not.

The following is not solely a reaction to the Flying Dutchmen’s 47-0 loss to Richmond Saturday. It’s a truth that would have been easier to ignore or conceal had the Dutchmen been more competitive in defeat, but one that is more stark and obvious following such a one-sided thrashing.

But it’s time. Enough is enough. Enough with the pretense that Hofstra can compete any longer at the highest level of Division I-AA football.

I realize such a stance will inspire unhappiness (at best) from the small but loyal army of football supporters. Nor am I saying Hofstra should drop football entirely (more on that later), or that the coaches suck or the players stink.

But the current arrangement is not working, on multiple levels. To watch Hofstra in the CAA is like watching a loveless marriage or a workplace relationship lacking any cohesion. It cannot go on forever like this, so at some point, someone has to say it’s not you, it’s me or utter something about how the chemistry just isn’t working, and wish the other good luck with no hard feelings attached.

As noted multiple times this calendar year, the CAA cannot simply add to the current roster of 12 once Old Dominion and Georgia State complete their probationary periods at I-AA. Nor are the CAA’s decision-makers likely to display much patience with programs that can’t keep up with the conference’s record-setting pace.

And a pretty clear line between the haves and have-nots can be found here: The only three CAA schools to suffer shutout losses to I-AA opponents since the start of the 2007 season are Hofstra, Northeastern and Rhode Island.

Hofstra is the only school to suffer multiple shutout losses to I-AA opponents, and the three blankings at the hands of CAA schools in the last 11 games are as many shutout defeats as the program absorbed in the preceding 328 contests dating back to 1978. At some point, the CAA is probably going to clear its throat and ask Hofstra if it can have “The Talk.”

I’m pretty sure the decision-makers at Hofstra are well-aware of this, and have already held some internal version of “The Talk” and pondered how to tactfully tackle the giant elephant in the room.

Supporters of the football program have long been worried about its long-term prognosis, but I didn’t really begin wondering too until Jack Hayes’ interview with WRHU on May 31. Asked to summarize the 2008-09 season for Hofstra athletics, Hayes mentioned nine squads by name and spoke generally of how many teams displayed improvement that was largely produced by underclassmen.

He did not mention the football team, which seemed to be a particularly glaring omission given the one positive to come out of last year for the Dutchmen gridders was how many underclassmen got valuable playing time in a rebuilding season. (The interview is no longer available on the WRHU blog, but I transcribed the entire Q&A and have the quote here if you’re interested)

Now Hayes didn’t mention the cross country teams, or the tennis teams, or baseball, either. But that’s precisely the point, isn’t it? It’s one thing to be irrelevant and a blip on the bottom line. It’s quite another to be irrelevant and to account for a giant chunk of the entire athletic budget.

To even take a cursory look at the numbers is to be glad you’re not in the shoes of Hayes or President Rabinowitz. According to BasketballState.com, the athletic department budget at Hofstra in 2008 was a little more than $19.5 million. The highest-profile program on campus, the men’s basketball team, had an operating budget of just beyond $1.85 million. But the scholarships alone for the football team cost almost $2.7 million.

I-AA football is a monetary eyesore even for the most successful programs in the land. “Football costs at this level, and the benefits you get are not financial,” Richmond athletic director Jim Miller told the Richmond student newspaper, The Collegian, last October, a mere two months before the Spiders won the national championship.

The benefits of I-AA football are certainly not being felt within the Long Island community. Twenty of the top 35 all-time football crowds at Hofstra/Shuart Stadium have occurred during the Dutchmen’s 18 seasons at I-AA. Twelve of those occurred on Homecoming. So once every other season or so, Long Islanders show up to a Dutchmen game in droves—or waves, or at least groups—for the actual football.

It’s too bad, because there’s plenty of pageantry to be enjoyed at the I-AA level. The food smells just as good during the pre-game tailgate parties. The sounds and sights of the game are far crisper from your seat at Shuart Stadium than at, say, Rutgers Stadium. And, once again, if you’re a pure sports fan, you have got to love the idea of a college football national champion being determined on the field, not by equal parts computers and politics.

But it’s been close to two decades now and it’s just not working. The New York sports fan—spoiled by the expectations, success and coverage that accompany the area’s professional sports teams, the Islanders excepted—is a snob. Watching a local team compete in a sport whose national championship game is played on a Friday afternoon or evening on ESPN just doesn’t do it.

The community not being inspired by I-AA football was a surmountable hurdle in the 1990s, when Hofstra’s power brokers were football alums who wanted to see the program race up the ladder. And under the direction of the likes of James Shuart, Harry Royle and Joe Margiotta, a program that began the decade as a Division III power ended it a regular visitor to the I-AA playoffs.

But the folks in power no longer have any ties to the football team. And if the program is not benefiting the president and athletic director who have made personal investments in it, then does it really have a chance to succeed?

It’s always dangerous to try to gauge the emotions of an entire football program. But is it too much to wonder what kind of effect the tepid support of the administration—or at least the perception thereof—for the program has on the Dutchmen?

How is it that the Dutchmen are on equal footing—financially, at least—with the top programs in the country yet farther away than ever before? How is it that the 1994 team handed Yankee Conference champion New Hampshire its only regular season defeat—by three touchdowns, no less—yet the Dutchmen have lost their last two games to a no. 1 ranked team by a combined score of 103-0?

Is it that crazy to think the Dutchmen of 15 years ago were fueled as much by the passion and support of President Shuart & Co. as Joe Gardi’s declaration that Hofstra could run with the big dogs?

The Hofstra football dilemma is another example of college athletics providing a life lesson. At some point in your career, you will be inherited by a new boss who wants to put his or its own stamp on the company. Perhaps the new boss man will decide you’re a building block. More likely, he or it will want his or its own people in there and either outright fire you or make things so difficult you have no choice but to leave. They say it’s not personal, and of course you take it personally, and the fact it occurs every day in every state in every walk of life doesn’t diminish the upheaval it causes. But that’s life.

And that’s what’s happening here. There are no bad guys. Just an administration that wouldn’t have had the football team in mind when it leaped to the CAA.

Now, for the betterment of everyone involved—the players, the coaches, the conference and yes, even the fans—it’s time to find a solution, one that I certainly hope still includes football at the non-scholarship level. No longer mingling with the Richmonds and Delawares and Montanas of the world will be a difficult pill to swallow for those who took—wait for it—pride in the rise of the football program, but past glory isn’t getting these Dutchmen anywhere nor is it resonating with those currently in charge.

Perhaps, in these toxic economic times, Hofstra will be far from the only I-AA school to deemphasize the program, and maybe those schools can compete in an NIT-like tournament to determine a champion of the new division. Or maybe the non-scholarship league we envisioned in May will not only form but eventually earn an automatic bid to the I-AA tournament, where the conference champion will have an opportunity to make a Colgate-type run.

There can still be football at Hofstra, and the pageantry of I-AA football can still be enjoyed by those who are aware of it. But the journey that began 15 years ago is coming to an end. And quite frankly, the sooner it happens, the better.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

Bits and Bytes: Meanwhile, Luke Bonus and Charles Jenkins are probably having lunch in the Ratt

An unidentified Kansas basketball player, left, and football player get serious about their brawling in this file photo.

Fifty-one days until the opening tip at Allen Fieldhouse and the pressure of having to play the Flying Dutchmen as the no. 1 team in the country is getting to the Kansas Jayhawks. Twice in the last 48 hours, members of the Jayhawks’ basketball team have fought members of the football team on campus.

One of the brawls left Tyshawn Taylor, a starter on the basketball team, with a broken finger that could sideline him until after the start of practice. Taylor didn’t exactly cover himself in glory before the incident, either, with a Facebook posting in which he used a racial term and promised to “mug back” anyone who mugged him.

With the Jayhawks football program beginning to experience the type of success enjoyed annually by the men’s basketball team, I imagine this is a more violent version of the Alpha Male ding-a-ling swinging that goes on at places like UConn, where Jim Calhoun and Geno Auriemma went years without talking because each feels threatened by the other’s success.

In other words, it’s something inconceivable here, where the baseball and football teams usually fill in the student section at basketball games to make it look like people are actually showing up. The closest thing we’ve had to a skirmish between programs is Joe Gardi hilariously telling Jay Wright that he might be the man on campus after a winning season but that Joe was still “The Show.” Ahh Joe.

Anyway, add the fighting nature of the Jayhawks’ basketball team to the chemistry-busting potential of the Henry brothers and I’m really beginning to like the Dutchmen’s chances of knocking off the distracted Jayhawks come Nov. 13.

Of course, let’s give Kansas some credit. There are worse ways for the members of its student body to get into trouble and end up in the national spotlight. And I guess we’ll just leave it at that, won’t we?

Some other bits and bytes:

—Your good friend and mine Mike Litos decided it was a good idea to taunt me—and by extension, all of Dutch Nation, snort—by not only debuting his Hofstra preview at the same time as his Mason preview but also by picking Mason ahead of the Dutchmen. (Click the link to see how little Litos thinks of the Dutchmen!) Clearly Mike has missed the “Do Not Taunt” signs strung up all around this here blog.

Amazingly, Litos is not the only one underrating the Dutchmen. The annual previews from Lindy’s and Athlon also have Hofstra ranked below first (I’ll debut my now-annual running tally on the preseason predictions soon…amazingly, I didn’t begin doing that last year until late October). That’s OK. Those of us in Dutch Nation (where there is always plenty of room on the bandwagon!) are used to the damn liberal media being against us.

In all seriousness, if you haven’t checked out Litos’ previews, do so. His obvious hatred for Hofstra aside, nobody is better-informed, more plugged in or, quite frankly, more excited about the upcoming CAA season than Litos. Even if he doesn’t like us.

—I’ve spent the last couple days pondering and fine-tuning a football post that has required a good bit of massaging. Hopefully you’ll see why tomorrow. But in the meantime, I’ll say, no matter how bad things may seem for the Dutchmen, they’re still in better shape than Indiana State. Hmm. Is it too late to schedule Larry Bird U. for Homecoming?

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

Payback is a Bonus

Every single time he trots out to the practice field, Hofstra middle linebacker Luke Bonus recalls how he felt during December 2004, when the high school senior was told by then-Hofstra coach Joe Gardi that the school—the only one to even minimally recruit the undersized Bonus, who is listed at 5-foot-10 and 205 pounds—was no longer planning to offer him a scholarship but that he was still welcome to apply to the university and walk on to the football team.

“Most every school I’m playing against was a school that said I couldn’t hack it,” Bonus said. “Including the one I’m at. So I come out to practice with a chip on my shoulder.”

Gardi retired after the 2005 season, which Bonus spent on the sidelines as a redshirt freshman, and his replacement, Dave Cohen, not only made Bonus a starter but also granted him a full scholarship prior to the 2006 season. Still, if Bonus gets fired up for practicing for a coaching staff and against a bunch of teammates who had nothing to do with his recruitment—or, as Bonus calls it, the “lack thereof”—imagine how he’ll feel Saturday, when Hofstra visits top-ranked Richmond.

An ex-Richmond coach has a pretty good idea of what’s in store for the Spiders. Bonus took great pleasure the previous three seasons in tweaking former Hofstra defensive coordinator Mike Elko, who now serves in the same capacity at Bowling Green and was on the Richmond staff when Bonus was in high school.

“I used to like to tell him, because he was at Richmond before I came here, ‘I love playing for you because you didn’t recruit me,’” Bonus said Thursday. “So everyday, I’m getting to prove him wrong. Every game is something to me that I have to prove to somebody. Every team that I look at on our schedule is a team that said I wasn’t good enough, [that] I couldn’t hack it. And I love it. It’s something I get to go out on the field with every day. I don’t need any extra inspiration.”

Bonus’ emergence from walk-on to All-CAA player and All-America candidate is remarkably similar to the story penned at Hofstra in the early ‘90s by Wayne Chrebet, who put Hofstra on the map when he followed a brilliant senior season with the Flying Dutchmen in 1994 by making the Jets as a rookie free agent the following summer and eventually becoming one of the most successful and beloved players in franchise history.

Long before he was a household name, though, Chrebet was an undersized New Jersey kid whose football career almost ended with his high school graduation because even Division I-AA programs would not look beyond his unimposing 5-foot-10, 180-pound frame. Chrebet’s father sent tapes of his son to several area schools and Hofstra—which was years away from awarding football scholarships as it began the transition from Division III to Division I-AA during Chrebet’s freshmen year in 1991—finally offered Chrebet a chance to play.

Bonus’ father also sent footage of his son to Hofstra and other schools, but Bonus—who earned all-state honors in New Jersey as a senior and holds the Shawnee High School record for career tackles—was ready to leave football behind when it looked like the opportunity to earn a scholarship to Hofstra had disappeared.

Pep talks from his parents convinced him to give it a year, but like Chrebet—who caught just 36 passes for 309 yards his first two seasons and pondered transferring—Bonus didn’t get much of an initial opportunity. He thought about quitting once again after a frustrating redshirt freshman season in which he was shifted to safety but decided to give it one more season after Cohen arrived and moved him back to linebacker, where he won the starting job during training camp and immediately began paying back the programs that ignored him a couple years earlier.

Bonus led Hofstra in tackles as a freshman and a junior, earned All-CAA honors last year and has collected 10 or more tackles 14 times in 37 career games, including last week against Bryant. He was named team MVP last year and selected a captain this season as much for his passion and production on the field as his efforts off it: Bonus has been named to the conference’s all-academic team in each of his three seasons.

“He just plays snap to whistle as hard as anyone I’ve ever coached,” Cohen said. “He’s just relentless. He’s very bright, he’s over a 3.2 [GPA] student, he’s a complete person. And then you add that relentlessness, that motor that never stops, it just creates someone very fun to coach.”

Now, the guy who needs no extra inspiration may be on the verge of providing some, a la Chrebet. Bonus was just eight years old when Chrebet played his final game at Hofstra, but he was familiar with Chrebet’s tale long before he began following in his footsteps. As a teenager in 1999, Bonus read Chrebet’s autobiography Every Down, Every Distance.

“You always heard about Wayne Chrebet, a small kid, this school Hofstra,” Bonus said. “And then everyone was saying ‘What’s a Hofstra? What is Hofstra?’ But it was always kind of how I knew about it. [It was] a turning point for me to really look at this school.”

Bonus met Chrebet during his redshirt season in 2005, when Chrebet would occasionally stop by practice during his final year with the Jets. “It’s the ultimate complement, man, [for] someone to tell me that I’m compared to someone like Wayne Chrebet, who is obviously a legend at this level [and] especially at this school,” Bonus said.

Between Bonus’ resume and the success of Chrebet and other recent Hofstra alums in the NFL, there seems little doubt Bonus will elicit some interest in the months leading to April’s draft. He may not have to take a Chrebet-path like to the NFL, but the slights of 2004 and 2005 will nonetheless keep Bonus as hungry as ever.

“I think that the walk-on process, as tough as it is, I really believe it’s a great gauge for people,” Bonus said. “When I first came in, I didn’t get the feeling that I was needed here, you know what I mean? I didn’t get that feeling at all. But I grinded through it and obviously I worked my way to the top.”

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

Fifteen years ago this week (and last week and the week before that, too)

Wayne Chrebet would have a lot more people to talk to than just me and two guys from Newsday by the fall of 1995.

One of the things I planned to do this fall was to take a look back at the 1994 Flying Dutchmen football season by recapping the games as they unfolded 15 years ago. I thought it would be a cool way to kind of measure how the momentum built that season, from a pre-season in which Joe Gardi expressed quiet confidence to a perfect September to an October in which the unbeaten Dutchmen surged into the national rankings and into the playoff picture before a heartbreaking loss to Towson and, finally, a November that began with long-shot playoff hopes and ended with the unforgettable tie at Delaware.

Of course, me being me, here it is, mid-to-late September, and that feature has yet to debut. But today’s the day! Hey give me some credit. At least it’s not November yet.

It was 15 years ago today the Dutchmen beat Fordham, 30-20, at what was then called Hofstra Stadium, so we’ll start with that game and also recap the first two games of the ’94 season. I’ll add quotes to note and other random memories of the games when I have them, which should be for every contest except the season opener at Butler, when the Dutchmen were pounding Butler while I was pounding beers and dodging the cops busting underage drinkers at Bogart’s. That’s actually true, by the way. Ask Sully Ray.

Sept. 17, 1994: Hofstra 30, Fordham 20

The Dutchmen started slowly in their home opener but finished with a flurry in improving to 3-0. WR Wayne Chrebet led the way with 205 yards receiving and four TD catches, the first of which was a 42-yarder that tied the game at 7-7 late in the second quarter and the last of which was an 85-yard strike that buried the Rams in the fourth quarter. Chrebet’s other scores went for four yards and 60 yards. Kharon Brown made his first collegiate start at QB in place of an injured Carlos Garay and threw for 380 yards. RB Haywood Cromartie rushed 28 times for 133 yards. On defense, Pat Shanahan recovered a fumble that led to the Dutchmen’s second TD late in the first half.

Quotable: “I really feel that we were looking beyond Fordham. I mean, we had something like 580 yards [actually 548] in total offense. If we put that many yards on the board, we should win by something like 80-0.”—Joe Gardi

Other random memories: I remember waiting outside the locker room for Chrebet, who peeked his head out, saw three reporters waiting for him, grinned and said “Oh man.” Who knew he’d be greeting far larger throngs of reporters a year later?

Next game: Sept. 24 at Lafayette

Sept. 10, 1994: Hofstra 45, Bucknell 21

QB Carlos Garay accounted for more than 300 yards in total offense, but the story of the day was the Dutchmen defense, which forced six turnovers. Herve Damas returned a fumble 13 yards for a TD and the Dutchmen mounted scoring drives after three other turnovers. Safety Pat Clark had two interceptions, increasing his season total to five after just two games, and Marcellus Payne also recovered a fumble. Garay threw for 208 yards and one TD—a 33-yarder to Wayne Chrebet—and also rushed for 106 yards and another score. WR Michael Wright and RB Haywood Cromartie (136 yards rushing) had TD runs.

Quotable: “Forcing turnovers and converting them is a sign of a good team. It’s nice to see us putting points on the board after opponent’s turnovers.”—Joe Gardi

Other random memories: As I wrote when the Dutchmen faced Bucknell last October, this was my first Hofstra road trip and I passed the time on the spirit support bus by listening to a Cheap Trick tape on my Walkman. Sigh. I am so old. I also continue to regret not getting one of the “Hammer Hofstra” buttons that Bucknell was handing out to fans as they entered the game.

Sept. 3, 1994: Hofstra 41, Butler 0

WR Michael Wright scored three TDs—two rushing and one receiving—and the Dutchmen recorded the program’s first road shutout of the Division I-AA era in blanking Butler. Wright caught an 11-yard TD pass from Carlos Garay, who was making his first start since Sept. 19, 1992 against James Madison, and made his only two carries count by rushing 13 yards and 36 yards for scores.

Quotable: “So far this year, I’m very excited about our offense. We’ve moved the ball in practice this year as well as we have in the last five years. We’ll score a lot of touchdowns.”—Joe Gardi previewing the Dutchmen in the week prior to the Butler game

“We’re not thinking of anything but winning. We’re not making predictions, but we know we can be a good football team.”—Gardi

Other random memories: Have I mentioned beer?

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.