Delaware seeks to avoid unwanted homecoming history vs. Morgan State

Delaware has never lost three straight homecoming football games since launching the annual alumni gathering on a fall Saturday in 1955.

The Blue Hens will be trying to avoid such a fate Saturday when Morgan State visits, though the 2-4 Bears are significant underdogs against the 5-1, No. 13-ranked hosts.

Kickoff is at 3 p.m. at Delaware Stadium, where previous UD grads will gather for pregame revelry.

They’ve celebrated football victories as well on most homecoming days, with Delaware going 47-19 in such games, though the Hens have lost the last two to Richmond 35-25 in 2019 and James Madison 22-20 in 2021.

There was no homecoming game during the 2021 spring season, when crowds were limited due to COVID-19 protocols.

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Delaware’s last two homecoming victories have been particularly notable – a 40-36 triumph over Towson in 2018 in a showdown of Top 25 teams and a 42-35 overtime thriller against Richmond in 2017 in former Blue Hen coach Danny Rocco’s first game against his old school.

Here are six other memorable UD Homecoming wins, one from each of the six decades from the 1950s to the 2000s:

1950s

Delaware 20, New Hampshire 18 (Oct. 15, 1955): This was Delaware’s closest win during an 8-1 season under coach Dave Nelson. With 6,500 fans turning out in gray, damp weather, the Blue Hens stopped UNH three times inside the UD 20 in the first half, including a goal-line stand, to set the stage for the win. Quarterback Bob Hooper scored on a 1-yard run to give Delaware a 6-0 halftime lead. Jimmy Zaiser’s 60-yard punt return and Bob Moneymaker’s 3-yard run on fourth down provided second-half touchdowns and Hooper kicked decisive extra points after each.

1960s

Delaware 28, Massachusetts 23 (Oct. 5, 1968): Under third-year coach Tubby Raymond, Delaware was beginning to round into a national title contender in 1968, when it would go 8-3 and lose just to Villanova, Buffalo and Rutgers. The victory over two-time defending Yankee Conference champ Massachusetts, in front of a record Delaware Stadium crowd of 13,261, was the biggest of Delaware’s regular-season wins, and certainly the most dramatic. Delaware scored twice in the final 4:18. Bob Buckley, who had just come in for injured starter Tom Dimuzio, passed 25 yards on fourth-and-2 to Ron Withelder for one touchdown and then scored the decisive points on a 1-yard sneak with 2:34 to go. In between, Bob Masin recovered a UMass fumble at the visitors’ 45-yard line. Dick Kelley rushed for 217 yards, three shy of the UD single-game record.

1970s

Delaware 47, C.W. Post 19 (Oct. 20, 1979): C.W. Post arrived with the No. 3 defense statistically in NCAA Division III. But the Blue Hens, en route to a 13-1, national championship season, shredded it through the air. Quarterback Scott Brunner threw only 17 passes, completing 10, for 239 yards. But five were for touchdowns, tying Tom DiMuzio’s school record, with two in the first 5½ minutes – an 8-yard throw to halfback Lou Mariani and a 50-yard strike to tight end Jaime Young. Delaware piled up 519 offensive yards, with Young’s three catches covering 112 yards and halfback Gino Olivieri’s 59 yards on 11 carries leading Hen rushers.

1980s

Delaware 35, Maine 28 (Oct. 28, 1989): Delaware, celebrating 100 years of football, was a Yankee Conference also-ran in a 7-4 season but this victory was a classic, coming against the previously unbeaten and fourth-ranked Black Bears and eventually costing them sole possession of the league title. With a throng of 22,904 on hand, Delaware never trailed and took the lead for good on Daryl Brantley’s 9-yard TD run with 14:55 left and added insurance on quarterback Bill Vergantino’s 12-yard keeper with 8:54 on the clock. Maine, with future NFL quarterback Mike Buck becoming the Yankee’s all-time total offense leader, scored with 1:22 left. But Delaware snared the onside kick to secure the win. Brantley rushed for 119 yards and Gil Knight 91. “This is my happiest moment in sports,” Vergantino said afterward.

1990s

Delaware 15, Richmond 0 (Oct. 14, 1995): Delaware was unbeaten Yankee Conference champion in 1995, when its only regular-season loss was at Navy and its season ended in a I-AA quarterfinal defeat at McNeese State. The Homecoming win over 12th-ranked, previously unbeaten Richmond on a muddy field was among the Blue Hens’ most satisfying, if unusual. No. 8-ranked Delaware was limited to 271 total yards, well below its season average. Delaware got its only touchdowns on Eddie Conti’s 15-yard reception from Leo Hamlett in the first period, which was set up by Conti’s 46-yard punt return, and Pat Williams’ 1-yard run in the fourth after a Richmond fumble at the UD 15. But Delaware’s defense outdid Richmond’s, limiting the Spiders to 166 yards in its first shutout against a I-AA foe in 10 years.

2000s

Delaware 43, Maine 38 (Oct. 2, 2004): Delaware’s 560 total yards were the most in its past 45 games and the Blue Hens needed every inch in a win that helped pave the way for the defending I-AA champs to return to the NCAA playoffs. “These are the kind of games that decide your fate,” coach K.C. Keeler said prophetically afterward. A crowd of 22,030 on the overcast day was glued until the end, as Niquan Lee’s 1-yard touchdown run put No. 4-ranked Delaware ahead with 45 seconds left. Kyle Campbell batted down a Maine pass in the end zone on the final play. Eighth-ranked Maine had erased a pair of 20-point second-half deficits to go up 38-37 on a field goal with 7:12 left. Justin Long set a school record with 16 catches, which covered 236 yards, second most in UD history. Quarterback Sonny Riccio set school marks with 33 completions on 51 passes. They covered 415 yards, No. 3 all-time.

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This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: UD football hopes to avoid third straight homecoming defeat