By Andrew Scharff
Besides losing to Northeastern University 34-24 Saturday afternoon, Hofstra said goodbye to their seniors, as they played in their last home as a member of the Hofstra Pride. The Pride has fifteen seniors on their roster including team captain’s safety David Darby, offensive tackle Jed Prisby and defensive end Justyn Davis.
Before the start of the game each senior lined up at midfield and posed for a picture with their family and head coach Dave Cohen.
Most of the seniors share the same sentiment that even though it has been a tough season, playing football at Hofstra has been a life changing event and they would change anything but the results of the games.
“It has been a bunch of ups and downs. I had a lot of good experiences and met a lot of nice people,” said senior quarterback Anton Clarkson. “I was really fortunate to have this opportunity.”
“Just being with guys and coaches in the locker room. I loved every minute of it,” said senior defensive tackle Antonio Colon, who get to start in his last collegiate game as junior Ken Sussman suffered an MCL injury in waning minutes of the Pride loss to Northeastern.
“It has been a great experience,” said senior guard Frank Coccaro. “It was tough though because I started as red shirt, but I worked hard and got the starting job and got the chance to play.”
“It tough especially since we haven’t won in a while,” Coccaro added. “The fact we lost so many close games makes it that much tougher.”
This year’s Pride seniors were the first seniors of players to play under first year head coach Cohen. After playing their first three years under former head coach Joe Gardi, they like the direction Cohen is taking the program.
“He’s positive, enthusiastic and young,” Clarkson said. “Coach Gardi has a history here at Hofstra, but coach Cohen will do a great job.”
During the loss to Northeastern, Cohen made sure to insert every senior at some point during the game and every senior had some role in the game, Cohen said in his post game press conference.