Let There Be Light, Freshman Receiver Shines

Let there be more lights.

A towering crane raised another light tower in the UNH stadium on Tuesday morning. The lights are now set and in place for the new stadium. There are four towers on what will be the new home side of the field and two opposite them.

A bank of lights has been added to the new home side. A tower that was at the middle of the sideline last season was moved to be out of the way of the Stadium and another tower was put in.

The foundation for the main part of the Stadium has been completed.

Steel is scheduled to arrive on site early next week and the building will start to go up from there.

The Wildcat football team is playing five regular season home games in Cowell Stadium this season as the building project continues.

The first home game of the season is against Central Connecticut State on Sept. 26 at 6 p.m. and the Wildcats play Elon in their Homecoming game on Oct. 3 at 3:30 p.m. The other home games are against Rhode Island on Oct. 31 at 1 p.m., against Richmond on Nov. 7 at 3 p.m. and against Maine on Nov. 21 at 1 p.m.

The new Stadium is due to be finished next summer, ready in time for the 2016 season.

XXX

While the light tower went up on Tuesday, the UNH football team practiced on Bremner Field, just up from Cowell.

The Wildcats are closing in on the start of the 2015 season. They scrimmaged on Saturday and will hold their final scrimmage, a fall Blue-White game, on Monday at 12:30 p.m. Parking is available in A Lot, across from the Field House, and free for the scrimmage on Monday.

UNH opens the season at San Jose State, an FBS level team, on Thursday, Sept. 3, in a game that starts at 10 p.m., Eastern time.

"Peaks and valleys," said head coach Sean McDonnell after Tuesday morning's practice. "There's some good things out there and there are some things we really have to work on.

One of the early highlights in camp has been the play of true freshman wide receiver Amechie Walker.

Walker is 5-foot-9 and 170 pounds and out of Harrisburg, Pa. He had a pair of nice touchdown catches in the scrimmage on Saturday and has been impressive throughout camp.

"He's doing a good job," McDonnell said. "Now these are the dog days. How do you sustain everything that we've learned, the difference stuff that's in? Can you fight through the barriers? He's got a chance to be a decent player for us. He's doing OK."

Walker caught 46 passes for 634 yards and eight touchdowns last year at Harrisburg High.

"He just plays," McDonnell said. "He just goes. Plays at full speed. Doesn't get rattled if he makes a mistake. Doesn't get rattled if he drops a ball. He gets open and then he competes in the open spaces."

McDonnell said it remains to be seen whether Walker will play this season, or redshirt and save a year of eligibility as most freshmen do.

"We'll see the end of next week how he's doing," the coach said. "We have a couple of guys hurt still in Rory Donovan and Kyon Taylor. We'll get to that part and we'll see where we're going from there."

The two-minute drill that ended practice on Tuesday offered a mixed bag of results, McDonnell felt.

He was pleased with the way junior quarterback Chris McCormick moved the No. 2 offense to a long field goal by Max Pedinoff.

McDonnell wasn't thrilled that starting quarterback Sean Goldrich's final pass was picked off, though he commended junior cornerback Casey DeAndrade for his job on the interception.

"Then the threes were in position to get a field goal at the end and we get a block," McDonnell said. "That's a good way to end practice, with a field goal block."

The battle for the job of backup quarterback behind Goldrich continues.

It was wide open between three candidates coming into camp. McCormick may have moved a bit ahead of the other two candidates, junior Adam Riese and redshirt freshman Trevor Knight.

"McCormick has done a very good job," McDonnell said. "He did a good job in the scrimmage, did a good job today. His head's above water in that competition. He's done a pretty good job with that."

Allen Lessels
@UNHInsider
Allen.Lessels@unh.edu

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Casey DeAndrade

Rory Donovan

Sean Goldrich

Trevor Knight

Chris McCormick

Max Pedinoff

Adam Riese

Kyon Taylor

Amechie Walker, Jr.

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