Kieran Coscia has had Nov. 16 circled on his calendar for a while. A trip back to Massachusetts from Lewisburg, Pa., will do that for you.
But now, the Bucknell University offensive lineman says this game has much more than a homecoming win on the docket.
“We feel like every week, at the end of the season right now, with us being in control of our own destinies, is a championship week,” Coscia said. “That’s what is most exciting.”
Coscia
Coscia, a junior who helped lead his Pittsfield High School team to a Berkshire County title in the 2021 spring COVID season and a 6-1 record and the No. 8 seed in the MIAA Division V football tournament that fall, is part of a Bucknell offense that has powered the Bison to the top of the Patriot League standings.
Bucknell is one of three teams with a 3-1 record, sharing that mark with Lehigh and Saturday’s opponent Holy Cross. Bucknell has already beaten Lehigh and a win in Worcester this weekend could give Coscia and his teammates the Patriot League title.
“We’ve never been in this position, at least for as long as I’ve been here,” he said in a phone interview with The Eagle. “To be honest with you, for a long time for Bucknell football, we have not been in this position late in the season where our destiny is in our hands and we have the opportunity to go make it happen and hopefully take that Patriot League championship and bring it back to Lewiston.”
According to the Bucknell game notes, a win in Worcester combined with a Lehigh loss to Colgate would assure the Bison at least a share of the Patriot League title. A win and losses by both Lehigh and Georgetown (at Fordham) would clinch the automatic bid to the Division I-FCS playoffs. Bucknell would also earn the automatic qualifier to the tournament with wins in its final two games of the regular season.
Should Bucknell win the league title, it would be the school’s first since 1996, and since that was before the Patriot League had an auto bid, it would be the Bison’s first-ever trip to the FCS playoffs.
Kickoff at Fitton Field is set for noon. The Bison will finish their regular season next week at home against league rival Colgate.
Coscia, who wears the No. 60, is listed as the second-team left tackle for Bucknell. The junior lineman, listed at 6-foot-3, 300 pounds, has been the primary backup at left tackle all season. He only played in 10 games over his first two seasons.
“I would say there’s a pretty big difference” to last year, he said. “Being where we are in terms of overall record, we’re 5-5. We were 4-7 last year so we’re certainly happy at this point of the season with two games left that we’ve already upped that win total. There’s more underneath the surface that we’re proud of that doesn’t quite show up. We’re tied for first in the Patriot League right now.
“A lot of that comes from the work that’s done in the offseason. We’re working harder than we’ve ever worked and probably working harder than a lot of programs you’ll find out there.”
The Bison were at one point 3-5, after losing three straight games to Penn and Cornell of the Ivy League and being upset at home by Patriot League foe Georgetown. Buckell responded with wins over Lafayette and Fordham, which sets up Saturday’s game against Holy Cross.
Bucknell does have the No. 2 offense and No. 1 passing offense in the Patriot League. Senior quarterback Ralph Rucker IV has been the Patriot League offensive player of the week three times, and a lot of that is due to the protection he receives from the offensive front.
Dave Cecchini has been the head coach at Bucknell since 2019. He came to central Pennsylvania from FCS Valparaiso, where he was the head coach for four seasons. Cecchini is a former assistant at schools like Harvard, Lehigh and The Citadel, and was the offensive coordinator at Harvard when “Fitz Magic” Ryan Fitzpatrick was the quarterback.
Cecchini said that while Coscia has gotten stronger each year at Bucknell, learning the system as well as he has is the bigger key.
“Probably the best thing he’s done is he’s mastered a number of different positions,” Cecchini said. “For us, he can play a number of different positions and he has. Not just at tackle, but we do some personnel groups where we play six offensive linemen in a game, where we take out a tight end and put in another lineman to play that tight end role, to give us a little bit more size, strength and push to control the offensive line.
Bucknell junior Kieran Coscia is a Pittsfield High graduate. The Bison will play at Holy Cross on Saturday at noon.
“In several games this year, he has been that sixth lineman. So if he’s not in the starting lineup for us, for several games he has been the sixth guy that comes in.”
The veteran coach said that what makes Coscia’s success on the learning curve so good is the fact that not only does the junior have to learn multiple positions, but he has know what’s going on because of the speed Bucknell tries to play with.
“It’s not easy, particularly with the tempo our offense likes to go. We are a very fast operation where you are on the offensive line, you hear that play call. It’s first given and less than three seconds later, you’re snapping the football,” Cecchini said. “You really have three seconds to understand what the play is and know exactly what your job and responsibility making those calls up front that you need to make and go. That puts a lot of pressure, moreso on the offensive line than any other position on our offense. The other people are seeing the signal coming in from the sideline and they’re able to have a couple of more seconds to think about hey, what’s my job.”
Coscia was asked about the speed the offense operates at and how that impacts the way he has to play.
“We’re an up-tempo offense. I think last year, and I can’t tell you exactly, but I think we were top 10 in the country in terms of offensive snaps per game,” Coscia said. “We rarely huddle. You have to know on the fly what you’re doing. We adjust as offensive linemen, we adjust our calls and how we prepare for a game knowing the way that our offense operates. We always go fast, and we kind of have methods in place to be ready for that.”
Coscia said that his family will be at Fitton Field for the game, and he said he is anticipating some of his Pittsfield High School friends will make the journey to Worcester to watch the game.
Kieran Coscia had a chance to wait until February to sign a National Letter of Intent. Coscia said there was no need, that’s how committed he feels about Bucknell University.
The NCAA Division I-FCS tournament consists of a 24-team field with 10 conference champions. The tournament starts Nov. 30.
Historically, the Patriot League has had only an automatic qualifier into the field of 24. That’s why Coscia and the Bison are excited about Saturday and next week.
“We feel like we’re kind of primed to make a run here and go win a championship,” he said. “The only thing that matters to me right now is doing everything I can in whatever role to help the team win. I think that’s the best thing about all of it is that I can take pride in knowing that I have a real chance to make a difference in multiple, different roles and obviously working toward something bigger than myself.
“That’s the thing that’s really important right now.”
