Allen Lessels' College Football: Northeastern Nightmare still lingers

DURHAM – It was the kind of game, the sort of performance, that stirs emotions two years later.

Northeastern University comes to Cowell Stadium with a 1-6 overall record to play New Hampshire, ranked No. 8 in the country at 6-1, tomorrow at noon.

The last time they came to town, on Nov. 3, 2007, the Huskies were 1-7 and UNH was No. 8 and 6-2.

And Northeastern proceeded to totally dominate the Wildcats on the way to a 31-13 upset.

"It still gives me nightmares going back to that," said UNH coach Sean McDonnell.

The numbers were stunning. The Huskies ran the ball behind big Maurice Murray. And then ran it some more.

Murray finished with 206 yards and three touchdowns on 55 carries and Northeastern had the ball for an astonishing 48 minutes and 13 seconds. That means UNH had it for 11:47.

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"Coach reminds us all the time what happened when they came up here and basically beat the crap out of us," UNH senior captain and linebacker Sean Ware.

"It was very humbling for us as a program that day, especially up front," said defensive coordinator Sean McGowan. "You remember those days. You remember the Northern Iowa days as far as getting pounded. That's what they did to us. They pounded us that day."

Three weeks after Northeastern put up 282 yards of rushing on the Wildcats, Northern Iowa put up 256 rushing and 570 total and finished off the career of Ricky Santos in Cedar Falls, 38-35.

McDonnell and McGowan and the coaching staff vowed to get better on defense, get bigger up front, thanks to losses like those two. McDonnell and strength and conditioning coach Paul Chapman got together to revamp their approach.

"We altered some things we were doing in the offseason," McGowan said.

The players bought into it.

"I think that's one of the reasons we've had success," McGowan said. "We're a little bigger up front. We're a little stronger up front. We have some kids who remember when they kind of got thrown around a little bit and that was not fun."

The Wildcats allowed 443 yards of offense, 187.7 of them rushing, a game in 2007.

So far this year, they are allowing 103 yards rushing a game, 263 of total offense.

They remember.

"It was brutal, we couldn't get off the field," McGowan said.

"That wasn't very fun," said junior defensive tackle Steve Young. "We've got to try not to have that happen again."

Northeastern, by the way, beat Towson, 27-7, for its first win of the season last Saturday.

Running back John Griffin, a 6-foot, 205-pound junior, carried 29 times for 200 yards.

HARVARD MEN: Dartmouth, its 17-game losing streak history thanks to last week's 28-6 win over Columbia, now will look for its first winning streak since 2003.

The Big Green, 1-5 and 1-2 in the Ivy League, have not won consecutive games since they put together a four-game win streak in the second half of that season.

That's also the last season Dartmouth beat Harvard, its opponent tomorrow at noon in Harvard Stadium.

The Big Green won the 2003 game, 30-16, for its only win in the series in the last 12 years.

Harvard is 4-2 overall and 3-0 in the league and last week beat Princeton, 37-3.

Sophomore running back Nick Schwieger was the Ivy League and Sports Network player of the week for his school record 242 yards on 29 carries against Columbia and also won the Gold Helmet award.

He's up to 608 yards on 129 carries for the season, an average of 4.7 yards a carry and 101.3 a game.

Last year, Dartmouth had 434 yards of rushing as a team for the season.

HAWK TALK: St. Anselm, 2-6 overall and 1-5 in the Northeast-10, closes out the season with home games at noon against New Haven tomorrow and Southern Connecticut next Saturday.

The Hawks will try to snap a four-game losing streak tomorrow.

New Haven quarterback Ryan Osiecki, who transferred in after redshirting last year at the University of Louisville, has passed for 2,265 yards and 16 touchdowns and has been intercepted eight times.

Hawk freshman quarterback Michael Pierce, a transfer from New Hampshire, has thrown for 2,051 yards and also has 16 scoring passes. He's been intercepted six times.

New Haven is 4-4 and beat Pace, 49-27, last week.

ON THE REBOUND: Plymouth State, 6-2 overall and 4-1 in the Boyd Division of the New England Football Conference, will be out to rebound from last week's 20-9 loss to Curry when it hosts MIT tomorrow at noon on Senior Day at Currier Field.

The Panthers, who had a six-game winning streak broken at Curry, beat MIT, 27-14, last season.

J.J. Brooks, the junior quarterback from Seabrook and Winnacunnet, leads Plymouth in rushing with 565 yards on 131 carries and has nine rushing touchdowns. He has completed 58 of his 107 passes with 14 touchdowns and five interceptions.

Ty Long, a freshman out of Dover, has averaged 5.6 yards on his carries (88 for 493 yards) and has three scores.

Derek Li, a junior defensive back out of Hudson and Alvirne, has 20 tackles for MIT, which is 1-6 and 1-4.

Allen Lessels covers college football for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Sunday News. He may be reached at alesssels@unionleader.com.