Delaware Opens Season Friday Against Jacksonville

By Matt Leon

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Delaware Blue Hens will kickoff their 2015 season on Friday night as they welcome Jacksonville University to Newark.

The Blue Hens are coming off a 6-6 season and after a long preseason camp, head coach Dave Brock says his team is ready to finally play a game.

"They're anxious to play somebody else for sure," Brock tells KYW Newsradio. "They've had a really good training camp, worked really hard. It's going to be an exciting night on Friday night at 7:00 with Jacksonville coming in and we're all looking forward to it."

Listen to the entire interview with Delaware's Dave Brock

The Blue Hens had a battle for the starting quarterback job throughout camp, and it turns out that both junior Blake Rankin and redshirt freshmen Joe Walker won it. They will split time leading the offense against the Dolphins.

"I think they both performed well in training camp and I didn't feel like one of them won the job or outperformed the other," Brock says. "We try to talk all the time about you're going to get what you earn and I think both of them competed and practiced well enough to have an opportunity to  play in the game. Now it's just a matter of figuring out how we're going to play the game from a rep standpoint, whether we're going to do it by series or quarters. We'll make that decision this week leading into the game."

Jacksonville hails from the Pioneer League and Brock says they are a dangerous offense.

"They really are multiple," Brock says. "They do a great job throwing the football, probably first and foremost. And they run it well. The quarterback is a senior returner, Kade Bell, coach's son. Really a talented kid, very accurate. Great decision maker. He's a 3,000-yard passer coming back from last year. They've got a couple backs who are good players. (Junior running back Ulysses) Bryant  had over a 1,000 yards last year. They've got a number of kids back up front. So offensively they're going to be very talented. They're explosive."

These two teams met back in 2013 in Brock's first game as head coach, the Blue Hens winning 51-35.

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