In retrospect, Jeff Bevino's initiation into the Southern Connecticut Conference may have been a clear violation of the CIAC hazing policies.
Bevino - coming from a winning program at Notre Dame of Fairfield - and his 2006 Foran team was beaten, battered, and ultimately left winless behind a young quarterback named Jake White.
Perhaps the ultimate humiliation came on Thanksgiving of that year, when Law - only two years removed from an 0-10 season of its own that saw them outscored 462-53 (yes, those were the pre-Cochran Rule days, people) that included a 43-0 loss to Foran - crushed the Lions 47-0.
"My first year, sometimes we had 18 healthy players, it was difficult," Bevino said. "It wasn't fun to get beat up like we did."
The next year, Bevino grabbed a couple of wins over Derby and East Haven to go 2-8, and in 2008, had what many people considered a dream season, finishing 7-4 behind a now veteran White and speedster Tyler Hames, who transferred in from Arizona the year prior.
But last season, White and Hames had both graduated and it looked like it might be back to Square One for the Lions in the brutal SCC. Nope.
Led by a previously unknown quarterback, Tucker Schumitz, and some gutsy play, Foran finished 6-4 and beat Law on Thanksgiving for the second straight year.
"We were really two points away from being 8-2 and looking at the playoffs," Bevino said. "The kids have settled in to our program, and hopefully we're building something here. I'm very happy where we are."
Schumitz may simultaneously have been the breakout star and the most underrated player in the SCC last season, both throwing (1,458) and running (1,161) for more than 1,000 yards from his quarterback position. The good news for Foran is that Schumitz returns for his senior season, but the bad news is that he won't sneak up on anyone this time around.
"He's a heck of an athlete," Bevino said. "He's been throwing the ball very well in practice, but we're hesitant to run him too much in scrimmages because obviously we don't want anything to happen to him."
Bevino trusts Schumitz enough in Foran's spread offense to basically put the game in his hands. At the snap, it's up to Schumitz to make the correct read to either keep the ball or hand it off to a teammate, something that might be tough for some old-school coaches.
"The thing I like about Tucker most is that he's a real student of the game," Bevino said. "He's a really smart kid, he always knows where everyone is on the other team, he has a good feel for what they are trying to do. I trust him enough to pull the ball any time he wants to, it's called a 'choice play'. He doesn't make a wrong choice very often."
Foran has a few holes to fill left by graduation on its lines, but Schumitz - who also uses his reading of the game as a defensive player for the Lions - will look to junior Andrew Sileo (406 yards rushing), and senior Stanley Olsson (26 receptions) to catch some of his passes.
The schedule is much more daunting this year for Bevino and the Lions, opening with a brutal three game stretch of Branford, Xavier, and Hillhouse, but it's probably safe to say that the days of worrying about winless seasons are behind them.
"We'll play the hand we're dealt with the schedule," Bevino said. "But our kids are game. We'll come out and play hard every game, and I'm confident we'll be in most of the games we play this season. I think it will be a fun season."
What a difference four years can make.
31 AND COUNTING: You wouldn't have thought things could get too much worse at East Haven, but with a losing streak of 31 games entering the 2010 season comes word that numbers are so low that the Yellowjackets may have trouble fielding a varsity team.
Athletic Director Mike Marone was quick to try to quell those rumors, but admitted things have been tough this preseason for second-year coach Greg Volpe (who at one point this off-season was told he was fired only to find out later that it wasn't true), and that as few as 17 healthy varsity players were available at a couple of practices last week.
One thing going for East Haven is that the students did not return until Tuesday, so they were hoping to pick up a few kids who might not otherwise be interested in playing, as well as some players that are currently injured. For those that read this column regularly, you'll remember that exactly one year ago in this point, East Haven and their new coach Volpe were featured, complete with this quote:
"I didn't know how deep it went here (at East Haven)," Volpe said. "It's just a culture more than anything. It's a big challenge, but we're going to try to meet it."
Unfortunately, that still sums it up.
And despite what you feel about East Haven, or if you like your team to have an easy win, it really is quite sad the situation the program is in, and we hope things turn around. (It was also a sad summer for the EHHS program as one fo their biggest recent stars, James Glee, was killed in a motorcycle accident in Hartford at the age of 29.)
I'm sure we'll be on this story for most of the 2010 season. One possible bright spot, the Easties were able to get rid of Trinity Catholic as their out-of-conference game and added Platt Tech. East Haven will play the first game in the SCC next Wednesday night against Guilford.
EXTRA POINTS: The Division II race may be too close to call, which may not necessarily benefit the teams that are pushing toward the playoffs. It's important to remember that although the playoff teams in each class have gone from 4 to 8, the number of classes have dropped from 6 to 4. So you math majors can tell us that the number of playoff teams, while increased, has only gone from 24 to 32. It's still hard to see a team with three losses qualifying for the postseason on a regular basis ... You'll see we have Branford tops in the Power Rankings, and that's largely due to the arm of Kyle Nolan, who took over for an injured Andrew Luzzi at quarterback and did very well, throwing for 706 yards and leading the Hornets to four straight wins to close the campaign ... North Haven, who was 7-3 behind sophomore quarterback Joe Schwab, also can't be counted out of the race, and if you want a sleeper, it might be Lyman Hall. The Trojans were much better than their 4-6 record of last season would indicate, and return Joe Desandre (1191 yards rushing as a sophomore in '09) and quarterback John Desandre. And we haven't even gotten to Hillhouse or Foran yet ... You've probably heard about Connecticut's new concussion rule, which - although most reasonable coaches went by anyway - is a good step, but among the other new rules in effect this season: no more than four captains out for the coin toss. How's that for random? Check us out on Twitter, www.twitter.com/currenscc. If you have any story ideas or scores you want to get across, let me know.
PLAYER OF THE WEEK
GAME OF THE WEEK
Hillhouse at North Haven, Sept. 16, 7 p.m. - Tough to get a read on Hillhouse this season, but we'll certainly know more about the Academics after this opener. Last season, Hillhouse appeared to beat North Haven, but a time out was called before an apparent missed field goal. The second time around, the Indians made the field goal for a 20-18 victory. The Acs finished 5-5, but had a loss to Ansonia and two Division I losses (Shelton, Wilbur Cross) mixed in. Both of these teams have aspirations for the postseason under the new system, but things will get much tougher for the loser.
INSIDE THE NUMBERS
9
Still the number of teams left in the SCC for Division II football, which while still a perfect square, is still not dividable by 2. Anyone from North Branford to Masuk to Morgan to Hyde has been rumored to be the 20th team in the SCC for football. An unlikely candidate to step up late: Platt Tech, which has already filled the schedule hole of three of the Division II teams, and would like to get its athletic program to a place where it can compete in the lower half of the SCC rather than drive all over the state for games.
D-II POWER RANKINGS
1) Branford (Opener: at Foran) – Big numbers for program, and Tracy now with a year under his belt in charge.
2) North Haven (vs. Hillhouse) – Slowly but surely making progress as one of the top teams in Division II ranks.
3) Lyman Hall (vs. Platt Tech) – Been a while since Trojans have moved this high, but should cruise in first week at least.
4) Hillhouse (at North Haven) – Been a while since Acs have been this low, but win over Indians would be good start.
5) Foran (vs. Branford) – Early schedule will be tough, but if nothing else, Lions should been very fun to watch.
6) Sheehan (vs. Jonathan Law) – Life without Biestak, who also led Sheehan in rushing, begins for Titans this week.
7) Jonathan Law (at Sheehan) – Reports out of Milford say Lawmen are huge, but going to have to find way to score.
8) Guilford (at East Haven) – Well, if the Indians don't win their opener, at least we'll have a good story, won't we?
9) East Haven (vs. Guilford) – Yellowjackets might have circled Platt Tech on their schedules already.
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