LANCASTER, Pa. – The Ursinus College football team was picked sixth in the Centennial Conference preseason poll, announced Monday afternoon by the league office.
The Bears earned 86 points in the survey of coaches and sports information directors, leaving them just outside the top half of the projected standings.
Muhlenberg topped the poll with 151 points and 10 first-place votes, while Johns Hopkins (144 points, 5 first-place votes) and Susquehanna (143, 5) split the remaining 10 first-place ballots. Franklin & Marshall was a distant fourth with 109 points, followed by Dickinson (90) and Ursinus. Moravian (73), McDaniel (45), Juniata (30), and Gettysburg (29) rounded out the forecast.
Having missed out on the 2020 campaign, the Bears lost a number of key performers to graduation, including record-setting quarterback Tom Garlick and a host of defensive standouts. But head coach Pete Gallagher, now the longest-tenured head coach in the conference as he enters his 20th season at the helm, received some remarkable news when star running back Sam Ragland decided to return for a fifth season.
Ragland is already one of the most accomplished players in the storied history of football at Ursinus. A three-time All-Centennial Conference selection, including back-to-back first-team honors in 2018 and 2019, Ragland needs just 19 rushing yards to become the fifth Bear ever to surpass 2,000 for a career, and he is four rushing touchdowns shy of eclipsing Shearrod Duncan's program mark of 34.
Already with 1,247 receiving yards to his name, Ragland had racked up nearly 1,000 all-purpose yards before suffering a season-ending injury at Muhlenberg in the sixth game of the 2019 campaign. Now, he's back to break records and lead the Bears' attack.
Ragland's backfield mate figures to be junior quarterback Jack Psenicska, who got a taste of collegiate football as a rookie when he filled in for an injured Garlick. In four games that season, Psenicska threw for 759 yards and five touchdowns, completing 54.2 percent of his passes. He was brilliant in a 37-16 victory over McDaniel, passing for 335 yards and three scores.
In addition to Ragland, Psenicska's returning targets include senior speedster Octavious Carter (19 catches, 374 yards, 2 TDs in 2019), senior Ardashes "Dash" Dulgerian (18-301-3), and junior Dallas Evans, who hauled in 105 yards worth of passes and a touchdown in the 2019 finale at Dickinson.
Perenially strong along the offensive line, Ursinus brings back three starters from two years ago in Matthew Bevan, Brandon Derby, and Brett Johnson.
Returning contributors on the defensive side include junior linebacker Brett Gross (23 tackles, 1 sack) and senior corner Aaron Diamond (17 tackles, 1 INT).
Dakota Wherrity made four of six field-goal attempts and was 29-for-32 on extra points as a rookie.
The Bears kick off the season with a Friday night special against Alvernia on September 3, their first "Friday Night Lights" Patterson Field opener since a 28-20 victory over TCNJ in 2014. A win would put Gallagher one shy of becoming the seventh coach in conference history to reach 100 for his career.