We are entering the must-win phase of the University of Maine’s football season.

The Black Bears cannot afford to falter, especially in the next two weeks. They are riding a three-game winning streak that has thrust them into the Colonial Athletic Association playoff race.

Maine (3-3, 2-1 in the CAA) plays at Rhode Island (1-6, 0-4) on Saturday and then travels to Virginia the following week to play William & Mary (3-4, 1-3).

Those are two winnable games, though first-year coach Joe Harasymiak is making sure his Black Bears don’t get caught up in comparing statistics and records.

“I know the kids can go on the Internet or social media, they can look at the stats,” Harasymiak said. “They know Rhode Island is 1-6. There’s nothing I can do to block that out.

“But we continue to send the same message, that we have to play well every week. This is the CAA. Nothing comes easy.”

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Nothing has come easy for Maine this year – and that trend continued with the news Thursday that leading receiver Jaleel Reed will miss the next four weeks after having surgery on his left thumb.

The Black Bears started the season with a difficult schedule. They opened on the road against two Football Bowl Subdivision teams – Connecticut and Toledo – and played James Madison, clearly the best team in the CAA right now, in the home opener.

An 0-3 start was not unexpected. Yes, Toledo (which is 5-1 and averaging 43 points a game) blew out the Black Bears. But Maine was tied with Connecticut until the Huskies kicked a field goal with 11 seconds to go. And the Black Bears led James Madison going into the fourth quarter.

“I think the lessons that we went through early in the season, in the tough spots we faced, have really helped us,” Harasymiak said. “We struggled early on simply because we weren’t winning.”

Now the Black Bears are confident. The offense is dangerous, relying on a strong running game to set up an explosive passing game. The defense is showing signs of becoming the unmovable force that it has traditionally been.

“We’re just executing way better,” said senior linebacker Christophe Mulumba Tshimanga, Maine’s leading tackler with 57. “We’re playing with a lot of energy for four quarters. And we’re making plays when we need to make plays.”

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The danger when things are going so well and you’re playing a struggling opponent – especially one that you’ve beaten nine consecutive times, as Maine has done with Rhode Island – is that you will let up.

Senior quarterback Dan Collins said that won’t happen against the Rams.

“A lot of our guys, we got recruited by Rhode Island, we could have gone there,” said Collins. “It’s homecoming. They’ll be amped up. And it’s always a battle with them.

“I’ve learned that you can never take an opponent lightly in this league. And their record doesn’t show how good they really are.”

Opponents were saying that about the Black Bears a month ago.

Now, as Rhode Island Coach Jim Fleming said, “I’m concerned that they’re on a roll. Joe has done a good job there. They’ve been able to show some resilience.”

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The Black Bears have to show they can handle the role of being favored. They need to come out Saturday – and the following week against William & Mary – and establish an early lead.

“They’re always a team that hangs around,” Mulumba Tshimanga said of Rhode Island. “We’ve got to make sure we come out strong and don’t give them any hope.”

Maine returns home on Nov. 5 to play Villanova (5-2, 3-1) – ranked 16th and 17th in the two national FCS polls. But if the Black Bears are going to play any meaningful games in November, they have to take care of business on the road first.

Winning on the road – as Maine did two weeks ago at Delaware on a 62-yard fumble return for a touchdown by Austin Brown in the final minute – can be empowering.

“Going into that game, I told the guys it was 74 against 15,000,” said Harasymiak. “We like that. You can see how powerful you have to become as a team to overcome that. We like the feeling of it just being us.”


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