Next 3 football Saturdays could be true reflection of and reckoning for Blue Hens

The thuds and thumps will commence just after 1 p.m. Saturday at Delaware Stadium when the Blue Hens and William & Mary resume their football association in a CAA skirmish.

Delaware is beginning an important and revealing three-game stretch. As the Hens try to bring down 20th-ranked William & Mary, there’s an important question that should be asked as the 2021 season begins its November culmination.

Is Delaware getting enough bang for its buck?

The Blue Hens’ spring success, when they went 7-1 and reached the NCAA Tournament semifinals, has not carried over to the fall.

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In some ways, the spring season was an outlier, as not all football programs had the personnel and/or resources to sustain a first-rate approach with COVID-19 lurking. That’s why so many cut their seasons short.

That should, in no way, detract from what Delaware did.

In particular, the Blue Hens’ NCAA quarterfinal win at Jacksonville State in May was as impressive as any of their previous November or December postseason conquests. Ending the long victory drought against Villanova was equally satisfying and noteworthy.

Certainly, some injuries have played a role in Delaware’s bid for an autumn reprise, as the Hens are 4-4 going into Saturday’s duel with the 6-2 Tribe.

Nolan Henderson’s absence the last 4½ games has been particularly glaring, because very good quarterbacks are the hardest players to replace. But the Blue Hens have also been undermined by injuries on the offensive line and on defense.

All football teams have injuries and must replace players. At this stage, in Danny Rocco’s fifth season as coach, Delaware should have the talent, depth and experience to provide able fill-ins.

At quarterback, for instance, Rocco and his staff have given scholarships to four high school recruits since Henderson arrived, plus added transfer Zach Gwynn, who wasn’t recruited out of Salesianum but demonstrated his overlooked promise at East Carolina, then at Delaware after transferring.

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Nonetheless, Delaware, which has scored 20 points or fewer in six straight games for the first time since 1960, finds itself in a perilous spot this Saturday and on the subsequent two at Richmond Nov. 13 and at home against troublesome Villanova Nov. 20.

The Hens certainly have the personnel and potential to win all three and stamp a 7-4 finish into the history books. It wasn’t what they envisioned, but it would be impressive. Winning two of three would at least earn them a winning record.

Anything less would saddle Delaware with its second losing record in three years and be legitimate cause for concern about the program’s future.

Delaware is annually among the top-three spenders nationally in FCS football, with $7.7 million in expenses for 2019-20, according to U.S. Department of Education Equity in Athletics data. The annual leader, CAA rival James Madison, is leaving for the FBS Sun Belt Conference.

That is not a path Delaware seems likely to follow, primarily because there’s really no ideal FBS place to go. After paid attendance at last Saturday’s game against Dixie State was 8,391, the smallest for a regular-season game with full capacity permitted at Delaware Stadium in 54 years, it hardly seems there’s a market for a move up anyway.

With the Whitney Athletic Center’s recent opening and the Field House as an indoor practice setting, Delaware has facilities few can match at the FCS level.

Rocco signed a 5-year contract when he was hired at Delaware after the 2016 season. He has since been extended one year, through the 2022 season, due to COVID-19 and the havoc it wreaked on the university. Rocco also took a 5-percent salary cut as part of UD’s pandemic-related cost slashing last year.

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According to the university’s latest tax filings, Rocco had $588,198 in earnings, including non-taxable benefits and deferred compensation, in 2019, certainly putting him among the nation’s highest paid FCS coaches.

Rocco, the CAA’s spring coach of the year, hasn’t had the same success at Delaware, despite almost unlimited resources, as he did as coach at Liberty (47-20 from 2006-11) and Richmond (43-22 from 2012-16). His Delaware teams are 30-21.

He, his staff and the Blue Hens still might find the right concoction of efficiency, execution, smarts and savvy to provide a memorable flourish to finish this season and carry over to the next. All are, undoubtedly, quite capable.

But these next three weeks are also a reckoning of where Delaware football is, where it’s going and how the investment is paying off.

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Kevin Tresolini

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Next 3 football Saturdays a reckoning for Blue Hens, coach