UNCP Athletics
                                UNC Pembroke running back Joseph Early (6) runs during Saturday’s game against Frostburg State. Early was the team’s leading rusher for the spring 2021 season.

UNCP Athletics

UNC Pembroke running back Joseph Early (6) runs during Saturday’s game against Frostburg State. Early was the team’s leading rusher for the spring 2021 season.

<p>Stiles</p>

Stiles

PEMBROKE — On the one hand, it seems paradoxical to say a team took big strides forward but also has a sour taste in its mouth as a season ends.

On the other hand, that shows the team knows its capable of even more, and isn’t satisfied with what turned out to be an even record after a solid start.

The University of North Carolina at Pembroke football team was unquestionably improved during the spring 2021 season from the product they put on the field in the fall of 2019, gaining ground from that season’s 4-7 record to finish at a 2-2 mark when the season concluded Saturday. More broadly, they’ve come a long way to win twice in a four-game season after winning two games in a 10-game late in both 2017 and 2018.

But after a 2-0 start — with both wins coming on the road, where the program had gone 3 1/2 years without a single win before this season — the losses to Charleston and Frostburg State in the season’s final two games turned that good start into a final record coach Shane Richardson called “mediocre.”

“I’m really looking forward to the guys that are coming back, that they’ll be extremely hungry and this will be a great learning lesson for all of them, to know that there’s some things that have to change and some things that have to improve and get better,” Richardson said. “We need some more belief in what we’re doing.”

The circumstances of those losses do show the Braves are close to competing for a Mountain East Conference title; despite the final scores of 42-24 against Charleston and 40-28 against Frostburg State, the Braves led both games in the third quarter and a small number of plays made the difference. And these games came against the league’s top tier: Charleston was the MEC’s South Division champion and Frostburg State was second in the North Division, with their lone loss coming to conference champion Notre Dame.

But winning and being close to winning are two different things, and the Braves were clear after Saturday’s season-ending loss that the finish to the season didn’t sit well with them.

“It adds a lot of sour taste to our mouths,” said senior defensive back Cam Caldron, who completed his collegiate career. “We started out the season real hot; I think some of our guys got a little complacent towards the end of the season, but we can’t let that happen. We’ve got to attack every game like it’s a championship game.”

But the Braves have nearly everyone returning — the NCAA is allowing athletes an extra year of eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and only seven Braves players said this was their final season — and many of them are coming off strong seasons individually.

This includes Josh Jones (1,194 passing yards, 12 touchdowns, completed 66.2% of passes), who had a breakout season at quarterback; a deep receiving corps led by Jai’Veon Smalls (20 receptions, 214 yards, one touchdown) and Shammond Hicks (15 receptions, 166 yards, five touchdowns); and a running-back-by-committee model that produced a more effective rushing attack than in years past.

With that core back, the disappointment they feel over how the season ended can become fuel as they begin preparations for next season.

“Nobody likes losing,” said redshirt-junior running back Joseph Early. “But that’s when we’ve got to go back to the drawing boards and just see what we can do to improve.”

While losses are discouraging in the moment, they also give the team a clear direction of where they need to further improve before next season — and can help them continue the upward trend of the last couple of seasons as the Braves try for the their first winning record since 2016.

“We take all the learning lessons from throughout the season, and how can we embrace those things, how can we shift the mentality, how can we make the culture a little bit better, and ultimately you’ve got to execute on everything you’re supposed to do,” Richardson said. “(Saturday) we just didn’t execute like we needed to; we had too many mistakes, a few too many penalties, and you’ve really got to be able to do everything well.”

Some good news for the Braves is they won’t have to wait very long to get back on the field to try to rinse away that sour taste. After the unique, pandemic-delayed spring season, the start of practice for the 2021 fall season is only about 3 1/2 months away.

“We’re going to lose some guys, but we want the guys that are really hungry to win and we want those guys to really buy in to what we’re doing and be able to do that in the fall, and we have a good opportunity to do that,” Richardson said. “The good thing is, we don’t have to wait another whole year to do it, it’s coming right up in August, so that’s exciting.”

Chris Stiles can be reached at 910-816-1977 or by email at [email protected]. You can follow him on Twitter at @StilesOnSports.