UNCP Athletics
                                UNC Pembroke’s Jai’Veon Smalls (80) and Josh Jones (12) celebrate after Jones threw a touchdown to Smalls during an April 17 game against Frostburg State in Pembroke. The Braves open the season next Saturday at Winston-Salem State.

UNCP Athletics

UNC Pembroke’s Jai’Veon Smalls (80) and Josh Jones (12) celebrate after Jones threw a touchdown to Smalls during an April 17 game against Frostburg State in Pembroke. The Braves open the season next Saturday at Winston-Salem State.

PEMBROKE — How a college sports team manages inevitable roster turnover from year to year often determines so much about how well they do each successive year.

But after players were all allowed to use a redshirt year in 2020-21 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly all of The University of North Carolina at Pembroke’s football team is back this fall, creating a unique continuity from the previous campaign to the new season, which starts next Saturday at Winston-Salem State.

“We’ve tried to keep a lot of the same themes and a lot of the same goals and the vision of what we’re trying to get done here carried over from the spring now to the fall,” UNCP coach Shane Richardson said.

The Braves started the spring season with two wins, but lost their final two games to finish at 2-2.

“We started off great, that gave us some confidence, and the last two games, for sure we had opportunities we did not take advantage of,” Richardson said. “We feel like those are opportunities we can learn from now and apply them as we go into a full slate of 11 games.”

The spring season was the program’s first in the Mountain East Conference; they’ll now get to play a full MEC slate for the first time.

“(It’s) definitely different, definitely exciting; great opportunity,” Richardson said. “We’re really excited to see all the different opponents; of course we saw four of them in the springtime.”

Offensively, any assessment of the Braves begins with with Josh Jones, the senior quarterback who completed 66.2% of his passes in the spring for 12 touchdowns with four interceptions who is also a strong leader for the team.

“Josh has proven himself to be a high-level player, teammate, leader,” Richardson said. “Just the way that he prepares and focuses on the game, he’s hungry to get better every day, and his attitude and work ethic definitely reveals that.”

Receivers Shammond Hicks and Sean Brown are no longer with the program, but Jones will still be throwing to a solid core of receivers, including sophomore Jai’Veon Smalls (20 receptions, 214 yards, one touchdown) and junior Trey Dixon (10 receptions, 171 yards, one touchdown), senior Tyshawn Carter (eight receptions, 127 yards), graduate student Eric Price and freshman Trey Chavis.

“That position should be a really good position for us, and I think it gives Josh some comfortability to be able to spread the ball around and feel very confident about who he’s throwing to,” Richardson said.

The Braves took a running-back-by-committee approach in the spring, with no player taking more than 30 carries over the four-game season; senior Joseph Early, junior DeAngelo Blair-Young and senior Raeshawn Griffin are returners who carried the biggest rushing load.

“Those guys, they stay together, they work hard, they push each other,” Richardson said. “What I like about that group is you really can put a lot of different guys out there, and they should be able to know what to do and how we’re trying to attack the defenses.”

Nearly all of the Braves’ recruiting class this spring was reinforcements on the offensive and defensive line, a place Richardson feels there’s no such thing as too much depth.

On the offensive side, the line is led by graduate students Gage Baldwin, Dylan Best and T.J. McMillan; Richardson also expects freshman Jacob Perry to contribute.

“It’s always a challenge to just make sure that we’re protecting the quarterback, and how you do that in terms of your strategy and scheme,” Richarson said. “You want to make sure that that fits, and it’s what guys can handle and how they can execute it, so we’re constantly looking at that and just trying to make sure that that’s on point.”

On the defensive front, the unit’s only major loss is Adonai Aloma, with senior Ben Jaramillo (11 tackles, 2.5 sacks), graduate student Taye Vereen (10 tackles) and juniors Masanka Kanku (nine tackles, four sacks) and Octavis McLaurin (nine tackles, two tackles for loss) returning.

“We’ll have experience, we’ll have depth, and we’ll have a lot of guys that really are capable of being able to play good defense for us up front, and stop the run and get good pressure on the quarterback,” Richardson said.

Junior Sean Hill (11 tackles) moves from defensive back to anchor a linebacker unit that is one of the team’s biggest question marks after five contributors from last season are no longer with the program, including team tackles leader Jordan Howard. Junior Cam Lowery and senior Devin Higgins return, while sophomores Jaden Richeson, Benari Black and Marcus Bland and freshman Marcus Davis will step into larger roles this season.

“One of the biggest things you can do is if guys come and compete against each other every day and try to improve, you see that they start to close that gap pretty quickly, and that’s what that group has done so far,” Richardson said.

The Braves’ three leading returning tacklers are each in the secondary, including graduate student Devin Jones (18 tackles, one interception), sophomore Dante Bowlding (16 tackles, one interception) and sophomore Evan VanMeter (12 tackles). Junior John Jones (nine tackles) and graduate student Luke Brooks (seven tackles) will also be key at safety and sophomore Virgil Lemons at cornerback; freshman LaTrell Jewsome should contribute.

“The speed and athleticism, and of course the guys that have experience there will definitely be a big asset,” Richardson said.

On special teams, while the Braves have a potential All-American returner in Devin Jones, who led Division II in kickoff return touchdowns in 2019, the kicking game has been far less consistent in recent years. Senior Alex Alvarado handled most of the kicking duties last season; an open competition between him and the other specialists on the roster, sophomores Alex Hodge and Geraldo Guerra Rivera and freshman Alex Collins has been taking place in camp.

“We’ve got to be able to execute and change the field and gain great field position, and do all the things necessary to put ourselves in a good situation with the third phase of the game,” Richardson said.

After next weekend’s game at Winston-Salem State and a Sept. 11 game at West Virginia Wesleyan, the Braves will open the home portion of their schedule against Glenville State on Sept. 18.

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