Throughout Saturday's football contest at Trinity, Bantam senior Eric McGrath picked apart a seemingly helpless Jumbo secondary en route to throwing for a program-record 470 yards and four touchdowns on 34 completions.
Despite these painfully gaudy numbers, Tufts managed to hold Trinity to 28 points. But it was McGrath's flair for the dramatic that ultimately doomed the Jumbos, sending the visiting team to its second straight close loss, this one a 28-27 defeat in overtime.
"You have to give credit to the Trinity offense because we pressured them and they just made big throws," junior defensive back Tom Tassinari said. "We had a chance to beat them, but they had the key passes."
Down 27-21 in the first overtime, McGrath scrambled out of an oncoming Jumbo blitz and hooked up with sophomore receiver Michael Galligan on fourth down for the game-tying score. Late in the fourth quarter, McGrath also engineered a 92-yard drive, aided by two more fourth-down conversions, to tie the contest and send it into overtime. With his protection crumbling and the initial receiver covered on both plays, McGrath was able to scramble, buying time until he found his man for the first down.
"It's hard for a secondary to cover that, when the receivers start running around like backyard football after the play breaks down," Trinity coach Jeff Devanney said. "Tufts was blitzing a lot more than we expected, and it just left open holes in the passing game."
Even though on paper the Tufts defense appears to have been shredded, Tassinari said that the statistics do not reveal the true story. Juniors Alex Perry and Andrew Elfman each intercepted McGrath, while Tassinari led the Jumbos with 14 tackles.
"You could tell we all played our hearts out on Saturday," Tassinari said. "We played well, but they just made the big plays. Our defense stepped up when we needed it, blocking a field goal, playing a good game with field position. I would definitely say we clamped down when we needed it."
For the majority of the first half, the Jumbos were able to hold McGrath in check, as the Bantams only had one touchdown in six drives to go along with four punts and a pick. However, once McGrath was began to find ample room in the Tufts secondary late in the game, Trinity made the most of its opportunities to snatch the game away from the upset-minded Jumbo squad.
Despite the overtime loss to Trinity, Tassinari said that this week will be devoted to focusing on the future, including Saturday's home matchup with Williams, not dwelling on the past.
"We have to get the guys' minds right," he said. "We have to have a short memory this week, and it's definitely not time for sulking. It's hard to do that when you lose a close game like that, but we just have to remind everyone that we still have Williams on Saturday."
