Despite tough season, Northern Colorado football still in win-now mode down the stretch
The University of Northern Colorado football team has faced a tough 1-8 season so far this year, but they're determined to keep fighting through every game ahead.
"We're giving everything we've got to win every single game we have," coach Ed Lamb said Tuesday afternoon in his midweek news conference. "And we'll continue to do that. There is no sacrificing the now for building for the future in terms of playing time."
As the season has gone on, Lamb has been steadfast in his belief that he has a responsibility to the seniors on this year's team. A responsibility to put them in the best positions to end their career with as many wins as possible at UNC — meaning there is no thought of sacrificing the best chance to win this season in the name of developing younger players for future years.
"I explained to the whole team: If we've got young guys getting in there, it's because the game at that point is not on the line," Lamb said.
That was the case for most of the second half of the Bears' 59-7 loss last week at UC Davis. In that game, 69 players took snaps for UNC — the first playing time of the year for a handful of underclassmen.
With only three games remaining, fresh faces throughout programs across the country will start making appearances on the field. That is in part due to a rule change implemented in 2018, in which the NCAA decided to allow players to play in up to four games and still maintain a redshirt.
Redshirting allows a player to still be around the team and part of the program without using a year of eligibility. Prior to 2018, playing even a single snap would burn the redshirt year.
Throughout his tenure at UNC, Lamb has been consistent in his belief that for the Bears to be able to compete in the Big Sky Conference, they need to do a better job of retaining upperclassmen. The best way to do that, Lamb believes, is through recruiting in-state high school players and building a regional cohesiveness, choosing to develop those young players instead of bringing in more proven college players through the transfer portal.
Last season, UNC had just four seniors on its roster of more than 100.
With the COVID-19 pandemic granting everyone an extra year and ever-changing NCAA transfer rules, years of eligibility remaining is becoming harder and harder to track. Because of that wiggle room, this year's team has somewhere between eight and 11 seniors.
"There's always a bit of a moving target when it comes to the exact number of seniors, because some guys have a year (of eligibility remaining), but they've graduated," Lamb said last week ahead of the UC Davis game. "So we might have eight, we might have 10 or 11."
Key to his efforts to retain seniors in future years, Lamb is committing fully to winning for this year's senior class.
"We are 100% serious about winning for the seniors," Lamb said. "I acknowledged to the seniors, in front of everybody, that perhaps had I been more portal heavy or transfer heavy with our recruiting, trying to build the program that way, we may have had more of an opportunity to win games this year, and that weighs heavily on me. I didn't expect to lose as much as we're losing."
Lamb said Tuesday that the losses piling up has led to the team losing a bit of confidence, leading them to hesitate early in games instead of just going out and playing.
"I think we're tight," he said. "We're looking for signs early in the game of whether or not we're going to be in the game, and that's just no way to play football."
Who's flying the plane?
When UNC takes on Eastern Washington this Saturday at Nottingham Field in Greeley, there will be questions at the quarterback position for both teams.
EWU junior Kekoa Visperas — a Big Sky All-Conference Honorable Mention player a season ago — has led a high-powered Eagles offense for most of the season, but missed last week's game at Montana State due to injury.
In his place, senior Jared Taylor — who has played in every game beside Visperas in a role akin to UNC's Hank Gibbs' before his injury — filled in admirably as the full-time signal caller last week, throwing for 144 yards and two touchdowns and adding 61 yards on the ground in a near-upset against No. 2 Montana State. That game was tied at 28 late in the third quarter before the Bobcats scored two unanswered touchdowns to win 42-28.
For the Bears, Kia'i Keone has been the guy for the past five weeks, ending a carousel of starting quarterbacks that started when Peter Costelli went down with a knee injury in Week 2 at Colorado State.
On last week's episode of "Football 52," a weekly podcast Lamb does with local radio personality Brady Hull, Lamb mentioned Costelli was "hopeful" to play against UC Davis. He travelled with the team and was dressed but didn't see any playing time in that loss.
Late in the game, however, Jonah Chong — who hadn't seen the field as a quarterback since Week 4 at Stephen F. Austin — played in relief of Keone. Though against primarily backups, Chong rushed for 64 yards and led the Bears offense on its only touchdown drive.
On Tuesday, Lamb would not commit to a starter for this weekend but said all three will be in consideration.
"The competition will be open this week," Lamb said.
