Pitarresi: UC's Casey McNultry pretty impressive

   

Utica College was down 25-6 to Norwich with 11 minutes to play today, and stormed back to win 28-25 behind a host of big plays – Cody Elliott’s 82-yard kickoff return, interceptions by Kevin Hennion and Peter Vano, a long drive engineered by Michael Clark, a sensational catch by Josh Mason.

 

What I might have liked the best, though, was that Casey McNulty, the Pioneers’ 5-7, 176-pound placekicker and kickoff man, was in on four tackles. How many kickoff guys have you seen make a tackle, aggressively on the opponents’ side of the field.

 

McNulty’s best stop came after Elliott’s return. He kicked off to Dan Wilde, a pretty good return guy, who took the ball at the 23. Wilde appeared to have some room, but a blue blur appeared out of nowhere and smashed him down at the 33.

 

I mean, that kid is a football player.

 

UC’s victory was great. Hamilton College’s 23-22 loss was depressing. The Continentals finished 2-6 for the third straight year. They’re getting better, but they have to learn how to win. Minus and turnover here and there, and they could have been 5-3, 6-2 or even 7-1. They had fourth quarter leads against Trinity and Middlebury and were tied with Williams, and those are the powers in their league. In all, they lost five games in the last two minutes by a total of 19 points. They’ve got to learn how to win.

 

And how about these scores:

 

Rutgers 35, Syracuse 17: If the Orange had won this game, Greg Robinson actually had a chance to keep his job. They didn’t, blowing a 14-0 lead and imploding on offense, and he isn’t going to keep his job.

 

Iowa 24, Penn State 23: There is no such thing as an unbeatable team, but I thought the Nittany Lions were rock solid. However, as soon as I heard a broadcaster say they would run the table after their victory over Ohio State, I knew they wouldn’t. It was a curse. Parity in college football is a fact, and you have to be ready to play every down.

 

Western Michigan 23, Illinois 17: Another win for the Mid American Conference over a Big Ten team. And the Illini are 5-5 and coach Ron Zook might have to be looking over his shoulder a bit