UM football situation may parallel URI

University of Maine football fans wondering how long the Black Bears’ slide from Yankee Conference champion two seasons ago to a program fighting to stay out of the cellar is apt to last might not like a theory espoused by University of Rhode Island head coach Bob Griffin.

After URI had finished thrashing Maine 52-30 last weekend in Kingston to improve to 4-2 on the season, dropping Maine to 1-6, Griffin was asked if he saw any parallels between the struggle his program has gone through to become a contender again after winning back-to-back YC titles in 1984-85 and Maine’s current woes.

“I see that,” said Griffin, whose title teams were led by quarterback Tom Ehrhardt, who still ranks as the No. 3 all-time conference passer behind No. 2 YC passer Mike Buck, who led Maine’s title teams in ’87 and ’89.

“It happened to us when we lost Ehrhardt,” Griffin said. “You have a lot of players, some of them very good players, who were playing when you had a great player like Ehrhardt or Buck pulling the trigger. Sometimes (those players felt) you didn’t have to give that great effort because you knew they were going to do it for you.

“You were still part of a chamionship team and you were still a good football player,” Griffin continued. “But there was that thought in the back of your mind, `He’ll do it.’ You watch that Saturday after Saturday. It happened to us. Then all of a sudden you start to lose and I think it’s doubly hard for those who have experienced success. We could not purge those thoughts – and this doesn’t mean we had bad people – we could not purge those thoughts until most of those kids who had experienced that success, even as redshirt freshmen, were gone.

“Then you get back to `you have to do it on your own.’ You’ve got to go out there and there’s nobody to say he’ll take care of the big plays. You’ve got to make the big plays. Our kids are just starting to do that now. We’re five years past the Ehrhardt era,” Griffin said.

Viewed from the pressbox, Griffin’s assessment seems to be right on target as it pertains to Maine’s situation.

Since Buck graduated, Maine has retained some talented players – there are currently 12 Bears who played significant roles on the ’89 team still playing significant roles – but none have been able to fill the huge on-field leadership void left by Buck. Tailback Paul Capriotti, a transfer from Army who didn’t play in ’89, has come the closest. But his abilities as a power runner aren’t conducive to bringing a team back from a deficit.

If there has been a common element to Maine’s six losses this season, and their 3-8 campaign of a year ago, it is the distinct feeling left with the observer in the stands that most of the Maine players on the field are waiting for someone to make a big play, only nobody seems to make it.

For the record, Rhode Island’s records in the five-year span after Ehrhardt graduated and this season were 1-10, 1-10, 4-7, 3-8, and 5-6.

Will Maine have to endure a prolonged slide like Rhody’s?

It’s certainly possible. If Griffin’s theory of having to purge all members of a successful team holds true, Maine is looking at two more years of struggling before those 50 players who were at least redshirt freshmen in ’89 move on.

Maine’s situation differs from Rhode Island’s in that coaching turnover has been frequent, while Griffin, now in his 16th season, was established. And conventional wisdom says anytime there’s a coaching change, the new coach can’t really be judged until he has his own recruits playing for him, which means second-year Maine boss Kirk Ferentz has two recruiting classes left in his grace period.

Ferentz may have already recruited part of the answer in Jason Cue, a transfer quarterback from I-A Rutgers who becomes eligible to solve the team’s problem at that key position next season. Or maybe current starter Emilio Colon, a redshirt freshman, will mature into a consistent offensive catalyst.

Key players, some of whom may already be members of the squad, will have to surface on the defensive side of the ball as well. People forget the ’89 squad boasted an NFL player in DT Justin Strzelczyk, now an offensive lineman with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

In the meantime, the current batch of Maine players would do well to try and prove Griffin’s theory wrong. It certainly isn’t flattering to them.