Football ends postseason journey with one possession loss to Mercer

Photo courtesy of Connor Caldon

After triumphant highs and record-breaking performances throughout the fall, the dreadful fact that only one team can win the last game of the year became very apparent to the Rhode Island Rams.

URI’s football team dropped a defensive battle to No. 7 Mercer, 17-10, in the second round of the FCS playoffs, serving as the finale for the best season in program history.

“We had a tremendous run, a tremendous season, historic,” URI Head Coach Jim Fleming said. “There are kids in [our] locker room that have done things that haven’t been done at the University of Rhode Island for 39 years. So when we have a chance to get over the pain of defeat, then we will be able to reflect on how special this season was.”

While a lack of offensive production was not the problem for Rhode Island, their ability to put points on the board was their Achilles’ heel. At the end of the first half, Rhode Island marched the ball all the way down to the goal line, setting themselves up with a first and goal from the one-yard line.

However, the Rams burned through the final 27 seconds on the clock with a stuffed run, a spike and a passing incompletion, forcing them to settle for three points. 

A level of deja vu stuck with the Rams in a short yardage position further down the field at the end of the game. On third and two from the Mercer 32-yard line, senior quarterback Hunter Helms kept an RPO in his own hands, sliding for a gain of no yardage. On the coinciding fourth-down conversion attempt, Helms threw the ball into the turf in between two receivers, ending the season for the Rams. 

While the Rams were unable to put up enough points to move on in the postseason, Rhode Island still held Mercer to its second-lowest tally against an FCS opponent in the 2024 season.

“I just feel like we played really hard, just how we’ve been the whole year,” redshirt-junior linebacker Devin Hightower said.

Redshirt-sophomore wide receiver Marquis Buchanan, who caught a 56-yard touchdown pass from Helms to give Rhode Island their only lead of the day in the third quarter, also praised the defense on their performance.

“Offensively we just didn’t make enough plays,” Buchanan said. “We got too many false start penalties, holding calls, we left a lot of plays on the field… [The] defense put us in a position to put up points and we just aren’t executing well enough.”

Now the Rams will move into a section of the football season that is much changed from years past: the offseason.

“[The playoffs were] too short,” Fleming said. “Our whole program is about ‘three more feet’ and now you’ve got to think about all the BS we got to do right now to get over this one, and then it starts right now. Next year, with kids, all of the rest of this stuff that goes into college football this time, you try to delay that as long as you possibly can because the rest of it is crap. You just want to play.”

As for offseason changes, Helms declared that he was entering the transfer portal via social media on Monday afternoon. While only a few other players, such as redshirt-junior offensive lineman Jacob Otts, have also declared an imminent change of scenery, the current landscape of college sports indicates that number will rise. However, only time will tell what next year’s roster will entail.