Kevin Donley’s initial response wasn’t terse, exactly, because he has fielded the question before on these media days and days in between. But there was a chilly moment Monday, so much so that one could almost feel the temperature within his office drop at least five degrees.
It’s the nastiest subject of all for Donley; the one about getting his Saint Francis football teams over the proverbial hump; the part where the “12” of last year’s 12-1 record is shuffled to the side to talk about the “1.”
That’s been the M.O. (missed opportunities) with the Cougars over the years, including last year, right? They won their first dozen games last season and lost to Sioux Falls in the semifinal round of the NAIA playoffs. It was almost the same the year before, against Carroll. Three straight years before that, they got to the championship game and never came back with a championship.
What was the line that ol’ coach Bum Phillips said about knocking at the door and then knocking it down?
Well, what does it take to knock the door down for Saint Francis?
“Wouldn’t you think that, after six years, if I knew the answer to that I’d have done it by now?” Donley said with a smile, but some fire in those blue Irish eyes.
But he leaned back in his office chair and thought a second.
“Toughness,” he said. “Get stronger. The line of scrimmage has been the difference. When you get to the final four, when you get to the finals, you had better at least have a stalemate at the line of scrimmage. We’ve never had that. The difference is the people we’ve played – the Carrolls, the Sioux Falls – they had a lot of transfers; they had a lot of big kids that won the line of scrimmage.”
The room temp seemed to be rising.
“Sioux Falls … dominated the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball,” he said. “They were better up front.”
And now comes the payoff.
“I feel we’ve got a better chance of stalemating the line of scrimmage right now, on both sides, than we’ve ever had before.”
“Ever” hasn’t been that long, really, in terms of Saint Francis football history.
Donley brings an envious 114-23 record into his 12th season. Take away the 2-8 record after the very first year in 1998, and the winning percentage is .882.
A dozen years later, the 2009 Cougars come in loaded, particularly on offense.
Senior running back Daniel Carter returns with his 25 touchdowns from last season, when he ran for 1,132 yards. If there is a front-runner for the NAIA Player of the Year award, it’s Carter.
But then there is depth – everywhere.
Frank Wolfe III and Elijah Flowers return. So do power runners Bo Frye and Taylor Veick, who was injured all of last season. Receivers are tall and plentiful in 6-foot-5 Corky Schultz, 6-5 Jared Clodfelter and 6-2 Kyle Peabody. And the offensive line lost one starter from last year.
“There are no questions about the offensive line this year,” junior center Brendan Carragher said. “Last year there were a lot of questions. People were doubting us … But the depth we have this year is tremendous.”
