Rested Chants hoping to launch second-half surge in trip to Monmouth

Like the rest of the Big South Conference, Coastal Carolina’s coaches and players were surprised last weekend to see Monmouth upset a Liberty team expected to challenge for the league championship again.

And with the No. 1/2-ranked Chanticleers now taking their turn visiting the Hawks in West Long Branch, N.J., on Saturday, that game last week – the stunner of the conference season so far – certainly got their attention.

“I was a little shocked,” junior wide receiver Bruce Mapp said. “I thought Liberty was going to go down there and handle business, but that just goes to show you can’t take your opponents lightly. Monmouth came ready to play, they were at home, they were ready to go.”

For the Hawks (3-4, 1-1 Big South), it was the program’s first-ever win over a top-25 opponent as Liberty came into that game ranked No. 22, and it was no doubt a substantial confidence boost after losing by 30 points to Charleston Southern the previous week.

But the challenge only gets tougher for Monmouth with the top-ranked Chants (6-0, 1-0) coming in, rested from a bye week and eager to show there is another level to their potential that they have not yet reached despite their undefeated start.

“I think we improved the mindset that we’ve got going forward,” junior running back De’Angelo Henderson said. “Coach Moglia did a good job of explaining what he expects of us and that’s the second half of the season has to be better than the first half. I think he couldn’t have said it [any] better. We played OK, but we know we haven’t reached our full potential yet.”

Henderson will be vying to break an FCS record Saturday while looking to score a touchdown in 21 straight games, which would surpass the mark he currently shares with former Monmouth running back David Sinisi.

And with Henderson rested from a week off and senior quarterback Alex Ross expected to be close to full strength after playing through a nagging ankle injury most of the season, Chants offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude echoed his running back’s thoughts in hoping the offense is ready to take off the rest of the way.

“I’m really excited about the two weeks of practice that we’ve had,” Patenaude said. “I think our guys have a little bit of a chip on their shoulder. I think to a man on offense we know that we’ve played OK and that we have a lot more in the tank. ... I’d be surprised if we didn’t have a good run [the rest of the way].”

To be fair, the Chants have been more than respectable on offense – ranking 16th among all FCS teams in averaging 37.2 points per game and ranking 19th nationally with 450.5 yards per game – and any shortcomings to this point are relative only to the high standard the unit has set in recent years.

And from his perspective, Monmouth coach Kevin Callahan went so far as to say he thinks this Coastal Carolina team looks even better than the one that beat his Hawks 52-21 in Conway last year.

“They’re a tremendous football team and they haven’t missed a beat – and matter of fact, I think they’ve improved from where they were a year ago,” Callahan said this week. “They have a lot of weapons on offense. They have the ability to stretch your defense just about in every area – in the run game, in the pass game, on the perimeter, up front with their offensive line. They’re just a very, very difficult team to defend.”

Monmouth ranks last in the Big South in allowing 29.4 points per game, but again, the only game anyone is thinking about right now is the Hawks’ 20-17 overtime win over Liberty last week.

The Flames actually held a 402-297 advantage in yards, but Monmouth forced three turnovers and actually led 14-3 early in what would prove to be a frenetic fourth quarter. The Hawks would tie the game at the end of regulation on a 35-yard Matt White field goal and win it on a 37-yard field goal in overtime.

“I think it was very eye-opening,” Chants defensive coordinator Clayton Carlin said. “... It gets your attention, and it seems the Big South is really evenly matched in the conference this year.”

That’s yet to be seen as Coastal Carolina is just one game into the conference slate, but there’s no doubt the Chants will be facing a Hawks team that believes it can compete with ranked opponents now.

“I think mentally it was good for our players to get a conference win,” Callahan said to that end. “The week prior we went down and played a very good Charleston Southern team and they beat us in every aspect of the game, I felt, and it was good for our players to bounce back and play much better on the field, execute much better and come away with the win.”

The fact remains, though, that Monmouth and Coastal Carolina are simply in different places in their respective development. The Hawks, who played in the limited-scholarship Northeast Conference before becoming an associate Big South football member last year, have not yet reached the FCS-maximum of 63 scholarships, and as Callahan noted, that disparity shows up against the depth of highly-ranked teams like the Chants.

And the teams’ meeting last year showed that is not the only disparity between the programs, as Coastal Carolina outgained Monmouth 550 yards to 309 in its lopsided win.

In talking about the game this week, though, Chants coach Joe Moglia focused on the more immediate factors and said he fully expected the Hawks to be amped up after what they did last week.

That’s the game he’d rather his players be thinking about heading into Saturday.

“While we did a good job of handling them a year ago, they actually had the right guys in the right place – I thought we just had a very good game a year ago against them,” Moglia said. “But we know we need to be prepared because we know they will be prepared. ...

“They’ve certainly seen the games that we’ve played and a number of our games have been reasonably close, with a break here or there it could have gone another direction. It’s homecoming [for Monmouth], plus another week at home, plus a tremendous upset over Liberty, I have no doubt they’re going to be jacked up, excited and ready to go.”

This story was originally published October 23, 2015 at 5:20 PM with the headline "Rested Chants hoping to launch second-half surge in trip to Monmouth."