COLLEGE FOOTBALL: JC Gaughan excited about final season at Colgate

Sep. 5—JC Gaughan is going to enjoy every minute of this college football season.

In his years at Colgate University, the North Pocono graduate has faced individual adversity, dealt with a shutdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and struggled on the field as a team. He's handled everything with class and integrity. So much so, that his teammates elected the fifth-year senior a team captain in 2022, and on Saturday night, Gaughan led the team with five total tackles in an opening-week 41-10 loss to Stanford.

It's all been an experience he will never forget.

"I am very pumped up for this," said Gaughan, who is a political science major. "I am always excited about a season, but I am relishing this and am trying to take in each moment and make sure that I am focused on what we need to do every week.

"This Colgate team is one of the most talented I have seen. Every year, we want to play for a Patriot League title. Our theme is to take it game-by-game. All of our focus has to be on that."

After having an outstanding career at North Pocono at linebacker, Gaughan committed to Colgate. In his first season with the Raiders, while he had hip surgery and redshirted, he was a member of a Patriot League championship-winning team.

The next season, however, Colgate lost its first seven games and finished 4-8 overall.

Gaughan started 10 of the 12 games, which included his first against William & Mary. He tied for fifth on the team with 49 tackles, 26 solo stops, 5 1/2 tackles for loss, and a season-high six tackles four times, including against Air Force.

Poised to get the program back on track in 2020, Colgate and the Patriot League did not compete in the fall because of the pandemic.

"I am staying optimistic for the spring. I wish we could play, because I only have a certain amount of years to play this game. For now, I am just going to keep working out. You can't let off the gas," Gaughan said in July of 2020, after the announcement that there would be no season.

Colgate and other Patriot League schools tried to have a season in the spring. It didn't go well. The Raiders had only two games; the first was a 24-10 loss to Lafayette. Gaughan had three tackles against the Leopards, but a shoulder injury that first plagued him in 2019 kept him out of the second and only other game against Fordham.

"I had a torn labrum against Dartmouth, and I just braced it and finished my sophomore season," Gaughan said. "I tried to push through that in the spring season in 2021, and in the first game against Lafayette it got torn up pretty bad, so I went and got the surgery.

"Last season, I really wasn't ready to start playing yet at the start of the season. I took on more of a role on special teams, and I committed to that role."

Colgate finished 5-6 overall and 5-1 in the Patriot League. Gaughan excelled and earned a spot on the All-Patriot League second team as the special teams non-specialist player.

Energized and feeling he had more to give, Gaughan returned to Colgate for his fifth season.

He plays with energy and a passion for the sport. His teammates recognized that and voted him a captain along with quarterback Michael Brescia.

"Knowing that the guys look to me in that way and trust me in that way is quite an honor," Gaughan said. "Knowing the history of this program and the great people who came before me, and those who will come after me, it is the highest achievement of my athletic life. I just want to be myself. At the end of the day, they elected me for who I was as a player and a leader.

"I can help steer the ship in the right way and make sure the young guys know the ropes, and help the older guys set examples. We all want this program back where it should be."

After the Stanford game, Colgate plays at Maine and at the University of Pennsylvania before opening its Patriot League schedule with the team's first home game against Holy Cross on Sept. 24. In addition to games against Cornell and the conference schedule, the Raiders also play at Army on Oct. 15.

"After my sophomore year and last season, where we fell one game short of the league title, we had to look inside ourselves to restore Colgate's championship culture," Gaughan said. "I am proud of the guys who have worked very hard. I wanted to come back because of the guys in the classes below me.

"This experience at Colgate is more than I could have ever asked for."

Contact the writer: jbfawcett@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9125; @sportsTT on Twitter