Sunday Morning Quarterback: St. Francis Edition

There were many impressive things that came out of Saturday night's 46-17 win over St. Francis (Pa.), including Terrance West's three touchdown runs and Derrick Joseph's second career kickoff return for a touchdown.

But the most impressive feat of them all may have been the size of the crowd, especially the students. Despite a torrential downpour less than 30 minutes before game time, the student section opposite the press box side was nearly full.

"As an alum as I stood on that sideline today, I remembered a time when the sun was shining and we couldn't get that many students here," said Towson head coach Rob Ambrose, referring to the students who were a vocal part of the 9,828 who attended the Homecoming game.

"And the moment that somebody predicted bad weather, we couldn't get any heartbeats here. To be in pre-game, and to see a couple of thousand kids out there in the pouring rain not giving a darn about the weather, I'm very, very proud. Glad to be a Towson alum."

Despite the great showing and an early defensive stop, Towson didn't come out like gangbusters. The Red Flash turned a Grant Enders interception into seven points, but before you could blink an eye, Joseph took a kickoff back 99 yards for a touchdown, which was the second-longest in the history of the program. That gave all the momentum back to the Tigers.

"I know in warmups, when it was coming down real hard and everybody was getting excited, they were on their feet," said Enders about the crowd's energy. "We feed of that energy so we definitely loved having them out there tonight."

"Once I heard them, it was a motivation for the whole game," said senior safety Jordan Dangerfield, who recorded eight tackles. "That set the tone for how we were going to come out and start the game off."

The Tigers' next opponent is LSU, the number two team in the nation. LSU is coming off a 12-10 win at Auburn. This is a game that some people have been waiting all offseason to play. While others outside the program were excited, the team was adhering to that old cliche' by taking it one game at a time.

"We hear it a lot from my buddies outside the team," said Enders. "That's all they talk about. In house, on the team, we were just focused on the first game against Kent State and haven't looked ahead against anybody. Now that it's finally here we can watch the film on them and get ready to play them. It's exciting."

So buckle your seat belts and get ready to see Towson face its greatest foe in the history of the program on ESPNU at 7 p.m. next Saturday night.

Ambrose isn't going to make this a David versus Goliath type of situation. So preparation may not be a whole lot different than St. Francis (Pa.), except they are about ready to go fly to Baton Rouge to play in front of 92,000 people.

"What am I going to do different, bring out the marching bands and the clowns?" said Ambrose.

"Maybe I can dress guys up in armor and bring out tanks. It's football. They have 11 and we have 11. We are going to do some stuff with crowd noise. They play in front of more people on Saturday than we play in front of a home crowd all season [combined]. We are going to have to be much more disciplined, we are not going to be able to turn the ball over and play mistake-free football to have a chance to win. If you think we are going down there to get on a plane and collect a paycheck, you're crazy. It's football. If you're not lining up to win, don't show up."

*****

Let's move to the rest of the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) where conference play finally started.

One of the most incredible offensive displays in the history of college football took place in Norfolk,Va. where Old Dominion came back from 23 points down to defeat New Hampshire, 64-61, in the highest scoring game in CAA history. ODU sophomore quarterback Taylor Heinicke completed 55 of 79 passes for 730 yards and five touchdowns (zero interceptions). UNH amassed 725 total yards highlighted by 201 rushing yards from Nick Steriti. I'm guessing Heinicke might receive a few Player of the Week honors consideringhis performance broke a 22-year old D-1 record set by Houston's David Klingler.

In other conference action, James Madison rolled over Rhode Island, 32-7, on the road, Richmond crushed Georgia State on the road, 35-14, and Delaware rolled over William & Mary Williamsburg, Va., 51-21.

From Orono, Maine, the Black Bears fell to future CAA member, Albany, 30-20, while Villanova downed Penn on the road, 24-8.

And as mentioned above, the LSU Tigers, defeated the Auburn Tigers, 12-10 on the road. LSU's defense held Auburn to nine first downs and just 183 total yards.

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Sunday Morning Quarterback: St. Francis Edition