Football Hosts Merrimack For Senior Day Game
The Blue Devils honor their senior class prior to the final home game
The Central Connecticut State football team hosts Northeast Conference opponent Merrimack on Saturday at noon for the final home game of the 2022 campaign. The Blue Devils will honor the senior members of the program with a pregame ceremony. Be sure to be in your seats at Arute Field by 11:30 am for the presentation.
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- Nasir Smith earned NEC Prime Performer on Saturday after his second consecutive game with 100+ yards rushing, and fourth in six outings
- CCSU held Wagner to 32 yards rushing, the second lowest mark this season, after holding Brown to 17 yards. In the last three games opponents have totalled just 104 rushing yards. CCSU is second in the NEC in rushing defense, allowing 151.8 rushing ypg overall, and a league-best 107.8 ypg on the ground in NEC action
- Aidan Clark is tops in the NEC at 39.6 yards per punt, 56th in the nation
- Chizi Umunakwe leads the NEC in tackles per game, 9.6/game, and is 19th in the NCAA
- Kyren Petteway is first in the NEC with 482 combined kick return yards, 17th in the FCS
- Smith is on a pace to challenge the 1,000-yard mark for the season, a mark only 15 players have reached in CCSU history. His 4.8 per game lead the NEC and is 20th in the FCS. In the are first in the NEC and 24th in the FCS. He has run for 537 yards in the last four outings with three efforts of 127 or more yards in those games. Smith leads the NEC in all-purpose yards (115.33), rushing TD (8), total TD (9), and yards per carry (4.96). He has seven touchdowns, six rushing, in the last four games
- Clark's lone punt at LIU was 54 yards, his fourth kick of 50 or more this season. He boomed a career-long 69 yard punt against Brown and has two kicks over 60 yards this season. That punt fell just four yards short of the school record (73 in 2002). Clark is averaging 39.6 yards per punt, tops in the league, and has 14 inside the 20, and two touchbacks. His first 60+ yarder came at Albany, 61 yards. Clark is also handling kickoff duties, and recovered his own onside kick at LIU
- Petteway had a career day with 10 catches and 102 yards receiving. He now leads the team in receptions, 43, and yards, 365, and receptions/game, 4.8, which is sixth in the NEC. He has seven or more catches in four of the last five games. He had a season-long 40 yard catch at SFU, one shy of his career long, (vs. Bryant 10/19/19)
- Shon Mitchell has 16 or more completions in each of the past five games, equaling a season-high, 22, at LIU. He has thrown for 1,074 yards and six touchdowns this season. His 22 completions, for 241 yards versus Duquesne was second-best single-game effort of his career (24 vs UAlbany in 2018) and the passing yardage is third-best, (267 yards vs Bucknell in 2018) and his top CCSU single-game effort. He had a six-yard rushing TD at SFU, his first at CCSU and third as a collegiate, with two while at William & Mary.