Football eager to build on recent successes

After completing the school’s best season in nearly two decades, the Tufts football program faced an offseason of considerable change. To begin, the team underwent significant turnover with a large number of graduating players. Of the 19 seniors who graduated in May, 11 — including eight members of the offense — started in the season finale, a 48–35 shootout victory over the Middlebury Panthers.

Ensuring that their replacements are ready come September has been an all-consuming task for coach Jay Civetti in his seventh year at the helm. In his view, the team is certainly capable of registering another winning season.

“It’s building, not rebuilding,” Civetti said. “Certainly there’s new roles to be had. But at the same time, I think if you’ve done the right things, worked hard and paid attention to the little things in the recruiting process, then hopefully you can continue [to succeed].”

Another major change is the schedule: the NESCAC regular season is now one game longer. The new format replaces the sole preseason contest with a ninth regular season game, allowing football in the NESCAC to move to a full round-robin schedule.

Civetti explained that the expedited arrival of the regular season has affected the Jumbos’ approach to preseason preparation.

“It’s changed the schedule a little bit … It’s accelerated bits and pieces of [preseason],” he said. “We’ve had to be a little more creative about when we have had situational scrimmage-type things.”

Faced with the dual difficulties of using more first-time starters and having less time to prepare them, Civetti and his staff focused on ensuring that players are skilled and safe.

“The biggest thing we’ve been focused on is making sure that guys are coming to the game prepared to protect themselves, whether it be tackling, blocking, running, [or] catching,” he said. “We’ve spent much more time on fundamentals just so that from a health standpoint, those kids are prepared to play.”

One area where the team’s youth is evident is at running back. While he named junior Dominic Borelli as the team’s starting running back, Civetti revealed that multiple players — including sophomores Jay Tyler and Andrew Sanders and first-year Mike Pedrini — will also have opportunities to carry the ball.

Those competing for carries are not only battling with one another. Inevitably, they must also grapple with comparisons to their predecessor, Chance Brady (LA ‘17). A two-time NESCAC Offensive Player of the Year and the most successful running back in Tufts history, Brady set over half a dozen school records, including the single-season and career marks for both rushing yards and touchdowns.

Now, the offensive burden shifts to junior quarterback Ryan McDonald. In 2016, the six-foot, three-inch signal caller from Annandale, N.J. surpassed Alex Snyder (A ‘17) and became the Jumbos’ starting quarterback. McDonald did much of his damage with his feet last season, as his 647 rushing yards ranked third in the conference (trailing only Brady and Trinity’s junior running back Max Chipouras) and his five rushing touchdowns were the most among NESCAC rookies.

McDonald detailed how playing with Snyder had taught him valuable lessons about the skills demanded of a starting quarterback.

“I actually learned a lot from [Snyder] about how to prepare,” McDonald said. “He was a guy who didn’t mess around with preparation. He was all business, all the time, so I think that taught me [that] when you fully take over the starting role, you need to be all over everything. [You need to] know all the assignments as well as anything you can do to help the other guys.”

According to Civetti, McDonald will be asked to throw more than he did last year.

“You’ll see Ryan in a little bit more dynamic role than last year,” he said. “[Ryan] has really worked hard at that this summer. I really think his pocket presence has been good.”

When McDonald drops back to pass, his targets will include wide receivers senior Mike Miller and junior Jack Dolan. Miller provides the Tufts offense a deep threat, with his two touchdowns last season coming on completions of 77 and 67 yards. Meanwhile, Dolan offers McDonald a short-yardage option: in 2016, the wideout snagged 15 passes, the second most on the team, on 7.27 yards per reception.

In contrast with the offense’s high level of personnel turnover, the defense retains many of the key contributors from 2016. Three members of last year’s All-NESCAC First Team defense return to Medford this fall: senior quad-captain defensive lineman Doug Harrison, junior cornerback Tim Preston and sophomore middle linebacker Greg Holt.

Senior quad-captain defensive back Brett Phillips spoke glowingly of the team’s core of returning starters.

“It’s an exciting thing, any time you can line up on the defensive side of the ball with guys like Greg Holt, Doug Harrison [and] Tim Preston, all guys coming off of all-conference selections,” he said. “That gives us a certain confidence.”

According to senior quad-captain linebacker Steve DiCienzo, the continuity in personnel facilitates coordination amidst the chaos of any given play.

“We’ve played together before, [so] we’ll be comfortable,” he said. “We have a certain amount of chemistry, and I think it helps because we know where certain guys are going to be [and] how certain guys are going to react on some plays. I think just playing off our teammates — playing with guys we've played around two or three years — [is] only going to make us better.”

Phillips also praised the work of defensive coordinator Kevin Farr.

“Coach Farr always throws together a great scheme,” he said. “Having four years of playing for Coach Farr and playing around the same guys certainly helps. [It’s nice] just having that experience out there.”

According to Civetti, he and Farr resisted the temptation of overcomplicating their scheme. Returning such a large portion of the defense has allowed the team to focus on preventing disorganization. Civetti emphasized that focus on the smaller details has raised expectations even higher than they were last season. 

Ultimately, DiCienzo underscored that familiarity would not breed complacency.

“Defensively, just because we’ve returned a lot [of players] doesn’t mean we don’t have to improve,” he said. “We’re always looking for ways to get better.”

On Sep. 16, Tufts starts its season against the visiting Hamilton Continentals. The opening kickoff at the Ellis Oval is at 1 p.m.