Delaware Looks To Rebound Saturday Against Lafayette

By Matt Leon

The Delaware Blue Hens will be looking to bounce back from a season opening loss to Jacksonville on Saturday when they welcome the Patriot League's Lafayette Leopards to Newark.

The Blue Hens fell to the Dolphins 20-14 this past Friday in Newark.

"Obviously, it's extremely frustrating and disappointing," Delaware head coach Dave Brock tells KYW Newsradio. "We did alright there in the first half, we moved the ball. We had a couple of miscues offensively which really hurt us - penalty on our opening drive, we were down in the red zone and then had the ball on the six-yard line, fumbled the ball on the six-yard line and turned it over with an opportunity to score. With four possessions in the first half, three of them were pretty good drives and put ourselves in good situations. To come up with (only) seven points, our margin of error's not going to be good enough to play like that. Then in the second half, offensively, we just played poorly."

Listen to the entire interview with Delaware's Dave Brock

The Blue Hens used two quarterbacks against Jacksonville with redshirt freshman Joe Walker and junior Blake Rankin splitting time. Walker completed 3 of 9 passes for 52 yards while Rankin was 6 of 10 for 60 yards. Each quarterback also rushed for 14 yards. Against the Leopards though, Brock says they would like to settle on just one quarterback.

"We're going to go in with that premise as we start the week," Brock says. "We've already had two practices for Lafayette this week anyway, so we're on our way. We'll see how it plays out towards the end of the week, but we'd like to play one guy and find out what we can find out about one of them."

Lafayette also lost its season opener, dropping a 34-7 decision at home to William and Mary. Despite that defeat, Brock says the Leopards are tough.

"It's a bunch of guys who have played a bunch of football, a lot of returning starters," Brock says. "We have an idea of what they'll do offensively, but their starting quarterback was suspended for the opening game against William and Mary, so we didn't get a chance to see him. Big, physical, tough, hard-playing guys. Defensively, they have two of the better corners that we'll see all year, I think. Really good players, quick, aggressive, they play the ball really well. They've got a couple of big, tough kids inside on the defensive line. I would anticipate a physical, hard-nosed football game on Saturday night."

Kickoff on Saturday night is set for 6:00pm.

You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattleonkyw.