Brock Jackolski had shed his waterlogged football gear and changed into dry "sweat" clothes, but he still was shivering 15 minutes after Stony Brook finished pounding Big South rival Coastal Carolina, 42-0, in a driving rain and wind storm Saturday at LaValle Stadium.
"Hands down, this is the worst conditions I've ever played in," Jackolski said with a smile. "But that's Northeast football. You've got to love it."
The Chanticleers (4-4, 1-3 Big South) might not share those sentiments after leaving sunny 63-degree weather in Myrtle Beach, S.C., to fly into the face of a nor'easter and the Seawolves' all-weather running game. The 446 rushing yards Coastal allowed were the second-worst in school history, behind only the 512 it gave up to Georgia Southern in 2007, and on the flip side, the Chanticleers managed only 73 yards of total offense against a physical Stony Brook defense.
The Seawolves (5-3, 3-0) had the horses for the wet course as Miguel Maysonet rushed for 191 yards and three touchdowns, Jackolski ran for 193 yards and a touchdown and JeVahn Cruz made the most of his limited time with 70 yards and a TD. It didn't matter that Stony Brook had zero passing yards because quarterback Kyle Essington, who went 0-for-6 thanks to three dropped balls in the first half, completed all his handoffs.
Coastal often had nine defenders in the box to stop the run, but Maysonet beat the Chanticleers with his nifty moves between the tackles and Jackolski beat them around the corner.
"It makes it tougher, but you've got to run the ball regardless of how many men they have in the box," Maysonet said. "Obviously, we weren't able to pass. I was just trying to hold the ball and run between the tackles, and the offensive line did a great job blocking again."
Maysonet gave Stony Brook a 21-0 lead early in the third quarter with TD runs of 9, 1 and 26 yards. His second touchdown was set up when Carolina punter Austin Cain fumbled the snap and was tackled at his own 1 by Matt Brevi in the first quarter. Every play in the kicking game was an adventure.
In the third quarter, Cain fumbled a low snap at his 13-yard line, and Seawolves defensive lineman Jonathan Coats blocked the kick and scooped it up at the 2-yard line to score for a 28-0 lead. It was Coats' second TD this season.
"I saw he mishandled the ball and I tried to speed up and get my hands up," Coats said. "It was difficult conditions, and it was hard to catch the ball. Anything could happen."
The most surprising thing might have been Coats fielding the ball cleanly on his way to score. "I was surprised," he laughed. "It was a great feeling, and I want to give credit to the rest of the defense. We did what we had to do. We wanted it more than they did, and we were energetic before the game."
Touchdown runs of 46 yards by Jackolski and 43 yards by Cruz put the game on ice at the end of a frigid day. Still trying to dry out afterward, Maysonet said, "It's only fun at the end when we win."
SBU, PRIORE Adjusts well....
Stony Brook scored its third Big South blowout in as many conference games this season with a 42-0 rout of Coastal Carolina Saturday night at LaValle Stadium, and it underlined once again the ability of Seawolves coach Chuck Priore and his staff to make effective halftime adjustments.
Although SBU appeared to be in control with a 14-0 halftime lead after keeping Carolina bottled up after its opening 64-yard drive, the rain and wind made for unpredictable conditions that could cause a sudden turnaround. The Seawolves had 168 yards rushing by halftime, including 122 by Miguel Maysonet, but Priore saw something in the Chanticleers' defense he thought he could attack to get running back Brock Jackolski going.
"We changed the formation to a double-wing situation," Priore said. "We didn't practice it all week, but it was something we did at UTEP [in the season opener]. We ran two different plays out of it, and we also quick-huddled in the third quarter. That's not something we practice a lot, but it's a credit to the kids that they adjusted."
The double-wing formation essentially shifted an extra blocker to one side, which gave Jackolski the help he needed at the point of attack on the corner. Carolina failed to adjust at first, and when the Chanticleers did recognize what was going on, Priore had a play ready to go to the weak side of the formation.
Jackolski rushed for 131 of his career-high 193 yards in the second half, and Maysonet finished with 191 yards rushing. Overall, Stony Brook gained 446 yards on the ground, which was good because the Seawolves gained zero passing in the inclement conditions.
"We made an adjustment at halftime with the [offensive linemen] who were pulling on the outside plays, and it opened it up," said Jackolski.
Priore also devised a strategy for the weather for the punting game. Stony Brook's first punt came with the wind at its back, and Luke Allen boomed a 46-yarder. But in the second quarter when the Seawolves were backed up near the goal line and going against the wind, Priore inserted placekicker Wes Skiffington (pictured) to handle the punting.
Allen is the better punter, but he had some trouble early in the season handling snaps. "I know Skiffington catches the ball," Priore said. "So, I made the decision to use him whenever we were backed up in our end of the field."
It worked perfectly in contrast to Coastal Carolina punter Austin Cain who mishandled two snaps near his own goal line, leading to two Stony Brook TDs. On the first, Cain was tackled at his own 1-yard line, and Stony Brook defensive lineman Jonathan Coats blocked Cain's punt after he fumbled the second snap and then scooped it up and scored from the 2-yard line.
Skiffington's two punts were short ones, averaging only 25 yards into the wind, but the second would have gone further except that it hit a Stony Brook player and was ruled down about 15 yards shorter than it actually rolled. Skiffington credited long snapper Adam Nowak, saying, "Nowak puts the ball on the money, and I just concentrated on keeping my eye on the ball."
Skiffington lined up for one field-goal attempt in the second quarter, but it was botched when Nowak's snap was a little high and holder Josh Gibson couldn't get it down. "It was a fairly good snap," Skiffington said. "But it's tough for anybody to catch the ball in these conditions. They did a great job on the PATs all day. We just trusted the operation."
Skiffington was 6 for 6 on the kicks that Gibson got down after the snap, and that was a small miracle under difficult circumstances. But just as Priore and his staff adjusted to what they saw from Coastal Carolina, the Seawolves adjusted to what they were asked to do by their coaches and they handled the brutal weather conditions to extend their winning streak to five games.
