WORCESTER, Mass. — Kevin Decker, the quarterback who led the University of New Hampshire football team to an eighth straight playoff appearance last year, jumped around and cheered and exuberantly greeted his former teammates as they left Fitton Field and got to their locker room door.

There was much to celebrate about the Wildcats’ dominating performance in a 38-17 win over Holy Cross on a gorgeous Thursday night for football.

UNH coach Sean McDonnell and his coaching staff will certainly find plenty to work on — the kicking game comes quickly to mind — with their next game looming against the University of Minnesota of the Big Ten conference next Saturday afternoon in Minneapolis.

But they showed on Thursday night that they have plenty of pieces with which to work.

For starters, given the caveat that it’s based on a single opening night, the Wildcats appear to have guys in line to fill in for Decker.

McDonnell raved about the job redshirt freshman Sean Goldrich, who had never played in a college game, did securing the football and directing the offense in his debut.

And rightly so.

“For a freshman coming in, it was probably above my wildest dreams how he played,” McDonnell said. “I’m happy for him.”

McDonnell praised the guys around Goldrich, too. Guys like running backs Nico Steriti and Chris Setian and wide receivers Joey Orlando and R.J. Harris, who each had 102 yards in catches. Orlando had a pair of touchdown grabs and Harris one.

“And the offensive line did a nice job protecting,” McDonnell said. “He didn’t have a lot of pressure on him, so it was good.”

The O-Line — junior Seamus O’Neill of Manchester, senior Chris Zarkoskie, sophomore Mike Coccia, sophomore Rob Bowman and senior Mickey DiLima — did not give up a quarterback sack.

It also helped the offense roll to a nicely balanced 531 yards of total offense, 279 rushing and 252 through the air.

Andy Vailas, the sophomore out of Bedford and Bishop Guertin of Nashua, was impressive as well at quarterback.

Goldrich edged out Vailas in a tough battle for the starting job during fall camp and McDonnell told Vailas leading up to the Holy Cross game that he would be playing in the first series of the second quarter.

All Vailas did was complete all four of his passes, scramble for one first down and then finish off his six-play stint with a pass to a wide open Orlando on the left side for a TD that covered 38 yards. In his six plays, Vailas and the offense covered 73 yards for the score that gave the Wildcats a 13-6 lead they would not relinquish.

“He went right in and bang, bang, bang,” McDonnell said. “Great plays. Great touchdown.”

The defense had plenty of shining moments as well.

Defensive tackle Matt Kaplan, a sophomore out of Franklin, and junior defensive ends Jay Colbert and Cody Muller, who both sat out last year with injuries, each had a sack.

In addition, defensive tackle Jared Smith and Colbert harassed Holy Cross quarterback Kevin Watson into putting balls up that were intercepted by Dontra Peters and then Manny Asam, both former offensive players.

Peters was switched to cornerback this year after a being the team’s leading rusher the last two seasons.

“For a kid playing his first game at cornerback to make an interception, I think it’s pretty special,” said senior linebacker and captain Alan Buzbee. “He was fired up. Everyone was fired up. It kind of got us going. Something cool. Real cool.”

Much was cool about the night.

Overall, the defense, which had some rough games last year, gave up 346 yards and the first string allowed only 10 points. The defense allowed only 75 yards rushing and Jimmy Vailas, a junior defensive end and Andy’s brother, recovered a fumble.

On the flipside, the Wildcats were penalized nine times for 72 yards and the penalties nullified some nice gains.

And the kicking game will no doubt come in for some added attention this week both with snaps from center and kicking itself by Mike MacArthur, the junior out of North Hampton and Winnacunnet. One conversion kick was blocked and MacArthur made two others, but also missed two.

The positives, though, far outweighed the negatives on Opening Night and McDonnell and his coordinators, John Lyons in his second year on the defensive side and Ryan Carty, his first on offense, had to be pleased.

A couple of other notes: Two extremely efficient drives, one of 98 yards the other of 95, put the game away before the fourth quarter was a minute old; And not once last year did the Wildcats hold an opponent under 100 yards rushing.

Now it’s on to Minneapolis and the Golden Gophers, who needed three overtimes to beat UNV in Las Vegas, 30-27, on Thursday night.

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Allen Lessels may be reached at alessels@unionleader.com.