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Delaware Blue Hens’ football schedule for debut in FBS, Conference USA
Blue Hens to play first CUSA game at Florida International, face Western Kentucky in first league home game
Time will tell how ready the Blue Hens are for their climb to the Football Bowl Subdivision this season as a Conference USA member.
That time was not Friday night, when Delaware played its first game as a team built for the FBS, against an FBS team.
That FBS team, of course, was itself in the Blue-White intrasquad game that has annually ended spring drills for more than half a century.
Delaware will not really know, either, when Delaware State visits for the Aug. 28 opener against Delaware State, because the Blue Hens have always bashed the Hornets and they will again.
Those early 2025 nonconference games, at Colorado and home against Connecticut, will provide a better clue going into subsequent Conference USA games at Florida International and against Western Kentucky that will be particularly revealing.
But it will be an ongoing test and a season-long process. Are they deep enough? Are they talented enough? Most importantly, are they fast and physical and clever enough?
Coach Ryan Carty and his staff have frequently said – and they’re right – that they won’t truly know what it will take to succeed at that level, beyond the obvious, until they get into that weekly grind and begin regularly battling with their new peers and get to know them better.
And whether they succeed brilliantly or fail miserably, Delaware is doing the right thing in making this difficult, challenging climb.
Not all agree with that, for logical reasons. Delaware has long been a big fish in the small pond that is presently the Football Championship Subdivision, as the Hens were in Division I-AA and Division II and the college division before that.
Six national titles and numerous other close calls are proof. Delaware has long possessed status and some national football cache, instilled by its College Football Hall of Fame trio of coaches Bill Murray, Dave Nelson and Tubby Raymond and frequently also flexed by those who’ve followed them since.
But the Blue Hens haven’t really been national championship material in 15 years, since their 20-19 FCS title-game loss, as gut-wrenching and as controversial now as it was then, to Eastern Washington after the 2010 season. Delaware has reached the NCAA semifinals only once since, in the spring season of 2020, when South Dakota State showed how far Delaware was from having title-winning talent in a lopsided win.
Whether we like it or not, college sports have become more about economics than ever before. And FCS football just did not recently drive the financial engine the way FBS football will, with its lucrative media-rights deals and national-television exposure. It’ll put Delaware on the map in a way previous NCAA classifications could not, despite Delaware’s periodic success.
Certainly, Delaware will have to spend money to make money, and the House vs. NCAA settlement is poised to significantly alter college sports because schools will have to share revenue with athletes, continuing the transformation name/image/likeness has already spawned. That was enough to make one of Delaware’s recent football foes, Saint Francis of Pennsylvania, decide to drop its sports from Division I to Division III in 2026.
“I know that we are more prepared,” Carty said of the ascent to FBS, “than we were to start the spring season. I think those 15 practices were used extremely well.”
August drills will have to be even more energetic, efficient and formidable to ready the Hens for the immense challenges that loom.
“I do think that we’ve seen improvement,” Carty said.
He’ll have to see more, and will expect and demand it.
Friday’s spring game had its usual scrimmage periods with various positional contests in between, though no score was kept as in the past. During the live periods, three touchdowns were scored on E.J. Archfield’s 26-yard pass to Nick Tyree, Braden Street’s 16-yarder to Connor Witthoft, who hurdled over a would-be-tackler into the end zone, and Middletown graduate Austin Troyer’s 22-yarder to former Appoquinimink rival Daniel McConomy, who broke several tackles.
Numerous players made tackles behind the line of scrimmage, which was a highlight for the defense. Among them was Jack Hall, the defensive lineman heading into his final UD season.
“I thought the competitive nature this spring was just off the charts,” Hall said. “Guys were really locked in and really coming for each other.”
Quarterback Zach Marker echoed Hall.
“Iron sharpens iron,” he said. “… That’s what makes a good football team is that competitive edge.”
And now, very soon, the Blue Hens will see if they have the mettle.
Contact Kevin Tresolini at ktresolini@delawareonline.com and follow on Twitter @kevintresolini. Support local journalism by subscribing to delawareonline.com and our DE Game Day newsletter.
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