Coming off its first five-win season since 2021, Marist football got off to a disappointing start in a season-opening loss to New Haven on Friday.
The last time the two teams faced off in 2025, the Tristan Shannon-led Red Foxes beat won 31-14 in New Haven’s first Division I football game in school history. The Chargers, and specifically senior quarterback AJ Duffy, grew stronger throughout the season.
As the game went on, New Haven displayed more quality attributes than it showed last season. Despite a punt return touchdown putting the Red Foxes up 11 points a minute into the second half, their inability to stop the Chargers on key third downs allowed New Haven to win its first game of the season.
It wasn’t all bad for Marist — there is a lot of valuable information about the team’s identity to learn from its first-half success, and its second-half collapse.
While the run game did struggle from an efficiency standpoint averaging only 3.3 yards per carry, there is no doubting the explosiveness of Marist’s running back room. Junior Jeremy Decaro (No. 26), who often lines up in the backfield despite his listed position of wide receiver, puts on a brilliant display of exactly how running backs can manipulate defenders to create more favorable looks.
While this play is supposed to hit behind the pulling lineman, junior right guard Carson DeRoner (No. 72), there ends up being too much traffic for Decaro. Instead of mindlessly running directly into the pit of defenders that forms between the tackles after the linebackers see the pulling guard, he hesitates.
This hesitation gives his blockers time to get upfield and block the second level defenders. It also creates hesitation for the unblocked defenders, specifically playside linebacker Ricky Encarnacion (No. 13) who, out of fear of over committing to the wrong gap, waits for Decaro to commit. Encarnacion was unaware of the sheer speed and explosiveness of Decaro who bounces the run outside far too fast for the senior linebacker to beat him to the outside.
Besides Decaro’s excellent understanding of how to set up the defense, the highlight of this play is the blocking on the outside from multi-positional senior Marco Lainez III (No. 10). Lainez, who transferred from Elon after his 2025 season, helped make this run possible by blocking both Lucas Theriaque (No. 16) and Myles Hansford (No. 1) on the outside.
Under defensive coordinator Mike Horan, the Red Foxes do not blitz often, but they still know how to scheme up pressure. They do this with simulated pressures. They show fake blitzers presnap to occupy blockers with defenders that end up dropping back post snap. These plays especially hit home when complemented by a disguised rusher. That is exactly what happens on this second-and-nine.
Pre-snap, the Red Foxes show a four-man rush, but the boundary side edge rusher — junior Jordan Caldwell (No. 88) — drops back. This can often put the boundary tackle, senior Success Chikezie (No. 67), in a panic, but he handles the unexpected change upfront well, staying home and blocking senior defensive tackle Isaac Nkwantabisah-Asiedu (No. 90) on the outside rush instead. The issue arrives when the delayed rush from sophomore linebacker Matt Bonczek (No. 44) comes from the field side, as graduate student offensive lineman Sean Pozniak (No. 77) was unprepared and didn’t drop to enough depth.
This quick pressure leads to Duffy (No. 10) rolling out and recklessly throwing the ball to avoid a sack. Caldwell caught the ball after dropping back into the flat post-snap and brought it into the endzone for six points the other way.
So what did the team do poorly?
Well, the offense was frankly putrid besides an explosive play or two. Just one of Marist’s three touchdowns in the game were on offense. The offense needs to improve its operations on a down-to-down basis because this may not be the only game the explosives are difficult to come by.
As great as Mannino is, he has never been an overly efficient passer, as shown by his 57.8% completion rate, which ranked eighth among nine eligible quarterbacks in the Pioneer Football League last year. His strength comes from his absurd playmaking ability that allows him to generate field flipping plays. Changing this would require fundamental changes in how he plays the game for better and for worse.
Marist needs to be consistent down-to-down in the run game. When everything is clicking, like the earlier carry for 30 yards, positives can happen, but on plays like this where the offensive line can’t get the same vertical push, it is easy for the offense to fall behind the chains.
On this split zone carry the offensive line gets pushed back and the ball carrier, graduate student Isaiah Simmons (No. 2), has nowhere to run.
To hold the lead, the Red Foxes have to keep the clock running. To keep the clock running, they have to be efficient on the ground. In this game, they failed to do that.
The Red Fox defense was great on first and second down. Third down was a different story, and is a key reason they lost.
In the fourth quarter, the Chargers converted four out of six attempts on third down. The 46 yard touchdown pass that put them within two points of the Red Foxes in the late third quarter was also on a third down.
On this third and 13, the Chargers have the three receivers to the field side run vertical routes to clear out the defenders. This sets up the shallow crosser over the middle with space to run. Senior receiver Dominic Grguric (No. 19) moves the chains by getting around a tackle attempt from sophomore defensive back Chase Hatton.
Another key reason this works is because of the block on senior linebacker Nate Furrow (No. 54) from graduate student running back Zaon Laney (No. 2). The individual efforts of Laney and Grguric allowed for one of many huge third-down conversions.
Despite a lead extending pick-six and a blocked punt becoming a touchdown, the Red Foxes’ offensive struggles and inability to put the nail in the coffin defensively put this game in the loss column. It’s early in the season — if Marist can get back in shape offensively and play tighter defense on crucial downs, this team can get back on track.
Edited by Max Rosen
Photo by Quinn DiFiore
For more coverage of Marist athletics, follow @cfmarist on Instagram, X, TikTok and Bluesky, and sign up to receive daily alerts here.