For the third straight week, the University of Maine football team turned the ball over three times. Those turnovers again proved to be costly as Hampton rallied from a 35-21 second-half deficit to beat the Black Bears 42-35 on Saturday.
UMaine is now 2-8 overall and 1-6 in the Coastal Athletic Association.
The Black Bears had and an interception late in the first half and two fourth-quarter fumbles — the second one leading to Hampton’s game-winning touchdown.
The Black Bear defense was torched for three running plays of 68, 60 and 80 yards by the Football Championship Subdivision’s fifth-best running attack.
“We played an excellent first half. We want to do a great job in the middle part of the game, and that improved. We played well on offense but the turnovers really hurt us and the defense gave up too many big plays,” said UMaine second-year head coach Jordan Stevens during Monday’s Coastal Athletic Association media conference call with the league’s coaches.
“We have fought hard all season but we need to close out games in the fourth quarter. Two fourth-quarter fumbles is not the recipe for winning. The guys need to have a better awareness of how important it is to take care of the football.”
The Black Bears racked up 526 yards of offense to Hampton’s 409, had a 30-14 edge in first downs, and had the ball 14 minutes and 14 seconds more than the Pirates.
The Black Bears also rushed for 151 yards behind freshman Tristen Kenan’s 88 yards on 16 carries. They had averaged just 77.2 coming into the game.
Quarterback Derek Robertston threw five touchdown passes, which gives him 22 over his last six games.
“Our offense continues to get better each week but there are some details we have to clean up, like our ball security. If we look at the stat sheet, we should have been on the other side of the outcome. We blocked a punt and successfully ran a fake punt,” Stevens said.
Defensively, he said the their tackling was poor and has to get better.
The team will have a weekend off after playing 10 consecutive weekends.
The Black Bears have had a rash of injuries and Stevens is hoping the bye week proves to be beneficial in getting some injured players back for the season finale at New Hampshire on Nov. 18.
“This week is about us getting healthy and getting some much needed rest,” Stevens said. “We want to take some miles off our players’ legs.”
Wide receiver Jamie Lamson, who had a game-high eight catches for 180 yards and a touchdown, and tight end Rohan Jones, who had three touchdown catches among his four receptions and blocked a punt, were praised by Stevens.
“Jamie has been rock solid and dependable all year,” Stevens said. “Rohan is one of our most explosive players and has made an impact on special teams as well as on offense in different ways.”
The Black Bears will have an opportunity to salvage a portion of the season with a win against archrival New Hampshire in two weeks.
UNH has had an even more disappointing season.
Even though the Wildcats have a better record than UMaine (4-5, 2-4), they were picked to finish second in the CAA in the preseason coaches poll while UMaine was chosen 13th and appears to be in line to finish 13th.
“We’re fortunate to be a school that has a rivalry. It takes on more focus and intensity. We use it as a recruiting tool. We look forward to the game and we will have to have our best day of execution,” Stevens said.
The game should be an entertaining affair because it will feature the Football Championship Subdivision’s number one and four quarterbacks in passing yardage in UNH’s Max Brosmer (2,939) and UMaine’s Robertson (2,618).
And they will be up against two of its worst defenses.
UMaine’s defense gives up 420.6 yards per game which is 101st among 122 Football Championship Subdivision schools and UNH is 102nd (420.8) yards per game.
