Bryant Hosts Saint Francis While Brown Looks for 4th Straight Win at Cornell

Bryant Hosts Saint Francis While Brown Looks for 4th Straight Win at Cornell

The Bryant Bulldogs remain home this week to host Saint Francis while the Brown Bears hit the road to visit Ivy League rival Cornell. URI is off this week. 

Here is this week's Rhode Island college football preview. 

Saint Francis vs Bryant, 1 p.m. at Bulldog Stadium

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The Bryant Bulldogs (3-3, 1-1 NEC) are set to host the (3-2,1-0) Saint Francis Red Flash this afternoon at Bulldog Stadium. Bryant will be looking for their second straight win and  to move over the .500 mark. 

The Bulldogs lead the all-time series with the Flash 5-2, however, Saint Francis has won two of the last three meetings. 

What Bryant Needs to do to Win 

For the Bulldogs to win the game, their defense will have to play well, just like last week against Duquesne. 

The Flash feature two of the best running backs in the country in Khairi Dickson, the countries leading rusher last season, and Marcus Bagley, NEC Offensive Rookie of the year last season. Both running backs were over 100 yards of rushing last week and Saint Francis as an offense posted a school record 628 yards of total offense. 

Bryant's defense will have their hands full in this one. 

On the offensive side of the ball, Saint Francis is the sixth best passing defense in the country, allowing only 152 passing yards per game while featuring one of the best players in the NEC in Lorenzo Jerome. 

Bryant quarterback Dalton Easton will need to make smart decisions with the ball and should look to get the run game going early to take some pressure off of himself. 

Brown at Cornell, 12:30 p.m. 

The Brown University Bears (3-2,1-1 Ivy) travel to (0-5, 0-2 Ivy) Cornell to take on the Big Red. The Bears will look to notch their fourth straight win and move over the .500 mark in Ivy League play. 

This marks the 63rd meeting between the Bears and Big Red with Brown having won the last seven games and leading the all-time series 35-26-1. 

How Brown Can Win

For the Bears, they will look to put pressure on Cornell quarterback Robert Somborn who passed for 196 yards last week in Cornell's 31-6 loss to Sacred Heart.

If Brown can play solid defense and contain running back Josh Sweet, they have a very good chance of rolling to a victory. 

On the offensive side of the ball, quarterback Marcus Fuller ranks second in the country in completions per game with 27 and first in the Ivy league conference. Fuller has been on fire this year and as long as he and the offense can avoid turning the ball over, this should be another nice game for them. 

Fuller will surely look to get Alex Jette involved and get Andrew Coke involved in the run game. 

The Bears have a great opportunity to win their fourth straight game and their eighth straight against Cornell. No turnovers offensively and solid defense is what it is going to to take.