Clark Looks For New Stars (Daily News-Record)

Bridgewater College’s football team is again the heavy ODAC favorite, but the Eagles enter the season with less experienced depth than usual.

Daily News-Record - By Jeremy Cothran

BRIDGEWATER — It’s hard to stay on top.

Bridgewater College football coach Michael Clark has first-hand knowledge of that maxim, having led the Eagles to five straight Old Dominion Athletic Conference championships. Every year, he notes, the rivals get hungrier, stronger and better.

But this year may be his toughest test yet.

The Eagles are losing 26 players – "difference makers," according to Clark – from last season’s NCAA Division III quarterfinalist, and are struggling to fill gaps on the offensive line, at tight end and at safety 1½ weeks before the season-opener Sept. 2 at McDaniel.

Friday – the end of preseason practice – is the cutoff date for players to prove their worth to the program. After that, the Eagles will begin working on installing plays and formulating a game plan for the Green Terror rather than developing players.

"We’re done developing," Clark said. "We’ve got to find out if this is the corps."

The Eagles go into the season ranked No. 13 by d3football.com. That, of course, means nothing. Clark looks at his roster and sees less experience than usual, and less experience often translates into less success.

Clark is hoping to get some insurance through the Eagles’ non-conference schedule. With at-large bids scare for the NCAA playoffs, a 4-0 record against the non-conference portion of the slate could carry a lot of weight. After the McDaniel game, BC will host regional rival Shenandoah on Sept. 9, then turn around and travel to Ferrum – the defending USA South champions -- on Sept. 16.

The Eagles will wrap up the non-conference schedule with a home game Sept. 23 against LaGrange, which added football this year.

"A good start, it gets you out of the gate," Clark said. "You’ve got a card that you can play later on."

The Eagles’ conference winning streak stands at 35 games and, for players, the pressure is simple: they don’t want to be part of the group that fails to win an ODAC crown.

"It’s my last year," senior linebacker Brandon Borst said. "I don’t want to be part of that group."

He added that even with some of BC’s key losses in personnel, it doesn’t change the mission players have set out to accomplish this year.

"We don’t want to be the 13th-best team in the country," Borst said, noting d3football.com’s preseason ranking. "That’s not what we set out to accomplish. In order to do that, to be like the Mount Unions or the Rowans, we need to be beating strong teams out of our conference."

Much of Borst’s motivation comes from the gut-wrenching blowout last year at Wesley. The 46-7 rout, in Borst’s home state of Delaware no less, provided plenty of motivation in summer workouts.

Borst and senior linebacker Craig Smith will be the anchors of a defense looking to improve after a less-than-stellar 2005 season. The big question mark is the safety position, where first-time starters Desmond Jalloh and Derrick Burroughs will be making their debuts.

The Eagles plan to start a freshman, 6-foot-3, 230-pound David Rodgers of Centreville, at the tight end. On the offensive line, BC has to replace seven of the top 10 players.

Elsewhere, there’s star power. Although honorable-mention All-American tailback Marcus Washington is gone, junior Jeff Highfill returns at quarterback and he’ll be joined on offense by a pair of standouts -- junior wide receiver Brandon Copeland and senior tailback Winston Young.

"Things are coming together," Highfill said. "I know we lost some quality players, but we’ve also got a lot of guys coming back who played a lot last year. Especially with guys like [fullback] Robert Matthews and Winston Young back there."

Highfill is not as concerned with the expectations of the 2006 season as he is about the upcoming McDaniel game. Considering the Eagles have lost two in a row to the Green Terror, it’s probably critical that a strong season begin with a win against a traditional rival.

"It’s important to send a message," Highfill said. "We have to go out and beat a good program. Not too many people can say that they’ve beaten Bridgewater two years in a row. We know they’re going to be fired up."

Borst agrees. He said Sept. 2 has been circled on his calendar for a "long, long time."

"I think about it 25 hours a day," the senior said with a chuckle.