Fitchburg State Football Team Ignoring The Doubters

Courtesy of Chad Garner, Sentinel & Enterprise

FITCHBURG -- Based on the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference preseason poll, the Fitchburg State University football team shouldn't bother competing this fall.

The Falcons aren't getting any respect at all in the poll as they're tied with UMass Dartmouth for the bottom spot with 20 points in the nine-team conference. Framingham State, Bridgewater State and Massachusetts Maritime are the preseason favorites to win the MASCAC.

"Preseason polls are what they are," Fitchburg State head coach Pat Haverty said during Friday morning's Media Day at Elliot Field. "It's the postseason poll that matters.

"I hope our guys don't even look at stuff like that. I want motivation to come from within. I think these guys are self-motivated and want to get better every day."

The Falcons, however, certainly are motivated by being overlooked in the poll.

"We definitely have a chip on our shoulder," Fitchburg junior tailback Steph'fon Teague said. "Preseason polls obviously don't mean nothing because we haven't even stepped on the field yet. We're just working hard to get better every day."

Despite a 2-8 season a year ago, Fitchburg sophomore running back Cody Titus believes this year's team has all the makings of a winner.

At least, the former St. Bernard's star hopes so.

"Those are preseason polls, they haven't actually seen us play yet," Titus said. "We have a whole new team. I'm looking forward to showing everyone that we are a good team.

"I want to go all the way. I feel like we have a great team this year, and I feel like we are capable of taking it far, maybe in the posteseason, hopefully."

The Falcons, who open the season at 7 p.m. on Sept. 6 at home against Becker College, will be extremely young again with only four seniors on the roster. But Haverty says they have the majority of last year's team back and also a "big, strong recruiting class."

"Last year we tried to learn to crawl, now we're going to try and walk and hopefully we can take that walk into a run," Haverty said. "They're working real hard. Every year is going to get stronger and better, we hope, because the guys are going to get older. We're encouraged with the attitudes. We like what they are doing, now we've got to keep building on it."

Fitchburg State has some nice building blocks, particularly on offense with a host of running backs, including local talents Teague and Titus.

Teague, a 2011 Fitchburg High grad, had a breakout season as a sophomore, and now the junior captain is expected to elevate his game even more.

"He showed great potential in high school and (Fitchburg High) used him in a lot of different facets," Haverty said. "He's trained really, really hard to make himself more durable. Coming in the first year I wouldn't have picked him to be a kid that's going to get high 20s, low 30s for carries a game. He's made himself into that kind of durable back. He's kept his speed and he's kept his movements and he's done a great job growing into the system."

Titus, a burner in the backfield, saw his rookie season derailed after only four games with a broken fibula and torn ligament.

Now, Titus is back and eager to expose opposing defenses.

"I couldn't wait to get back into pads and start hitting -- that's my favorite part," Titus said. "I didn't like it last year, just watching. Now that I'm here, I feel great."

Teague and Titus could be an extremely deadly double-headed monster, leading the Fitchburg run-based offense.

"We could do a lot," Teague said. "I'm pretty sure we're going to be a running team, so if we handle our job it's going to open up a lot more for the rest of the offense."

The Falcons have roughly nine running backs competing in camp, and Titus says all of them are excellent.

"We're fast, we can hit the holes real well and we've got our steps down," he said.

Christian Lopez returns at quarterback, but is being pushed by a host of other signal callers, including Leominster freshman Garrett DelleChiaie and Clinton freshman Kyle Cutler.

The offensive line is anchored by the strong play of junior center Jamison DiGeronimo, a Fitchburg High grad. Gardner's Dan Della-Giustina, Shane McCuen and Brendan Coan also return to comprise a strong and experienced O-line.

Fitchburg also has some solid pass-catchers on the outside with senior Jordan Burris and junior Ty Spencer.

But make no mistake, under Haverty the Falcons want to pound the ball on the ground first before taking to the air.

"If you can't run the football, you can't win," Haverty said. "You have to be able to run. Passing is nice and people like to see it, but you have to have a ground-control game. Steph'fon did yeoman's work last year.

"We've got Cody back, we've got Steph'fon back and we've got a bunch of running backs now, so we feel like they're going to be able to take the load off of each other and we should be able to establish some kind of ground game."

Defensively, Fitchburg's base 4-3 unit will be young as a whole, but it does feature some experience with a ton of athleticism.

Talib Barksdale, a 6-foot-2, 225-pound junior middle linebacker, made the transition to linebacker last season seamlessly. The Hudson, N.Y., native made 88 solo tackles in 2012 -- the first time in his career he's played linebacker.

"We expect to build on that and see him progress," Haverty said. "He's a great leader and the defense really rallies around him."

The starters in the secondary all return with Taron Seaforth, Elizear Torres and Tevin Bienaime back for the Green and Gold.

James Veradt, Tony Louis and Kevin Duong -- a Monty Tech grad -- return to strengthen the defensive line. Leominster freshman Adam Aubuchon is also drawing rave reviews as a defensive end early in camp.

"The team motto right now has been 'effort, effort, effort,'" Aubuchon said. "We've got to show people that we are a real-deal football team."

It looks like the Falcons will compete after all, despite being picked last in the MASCAC preseason poll.

Follow Chad Garner on Twitter and Tout @CGARNER23