You Can’t Bet Against CCSU Anymore
Central Connecticut State enters 2026 having lost a few key pieces of their team, but returning enough- including Coach Adam Lechtenberg- that NECBlitz.com considers them the favorite to win the NEC.
They have to be. After the past two years, how can you trust anyone else?
Coach Lechtenberg will have to replace RB Elijah Howard to the extent that such an electric player can be replaced, along with Brady Olson. Olson improved dramatically during the course of his career, ending as easily the best QB in the league. You really can’t say enough about the player development in New Britain.
Perhaps that’s why Connor Kenyon is transferring in from Rhode Island. Kenyon had limited experience there, but he fits what we saw from Brady Olson almost to an eerie degree- a quarterback from a New England school moving on somewhere else to start. He’ll be expected to have the leg up entering the fall.
Whoever the quarterback ends up being, there will be help available. Donovan Wadley could be the best deep threat in the NEC, and he’ll be back for a graduate year. With Elijah Howard gone, it’ll be interesting to see if the coaching staff has him play more of a “football player” role like the one he inhabited at Merrimack in his first stint in the NEC.
Michael Trovarelli also returns. He had over 40 receptions last season and led the team as a favorite target of Olson’s. Just a sophomore, he’ll take a bigger role this season.
Defensively, the Blue Devils will still be strong. The obvious reason why is Christopher Jean. Jean is probably the most hyped player in the NEC this year, and for good reason. A first team pre-season All-American, Jean routinely shuts down at least half of the field and is a turnover machine on a defense that has been nothing but opportunistic for the past two seasons. The Blue Devils routinely play with a possession edge, and that benefits them in close games.
It seems like an obvious statement, but that “close games” aspect matters. The Blue Devils have played in a lot of close games in the past two years, but they’ve come out ahead with great frequency. At this point, they’re so used to it that you can’t bet against them in any close game.
And that’s kind of what any preview for the Blue Devils needs to boil down to. After two years of championships, you can’t really bet against the Blue Devils until someone else wins the title. I picked against them last season with Duquesne. I expect Long Island to probably be the trendy pick. But I think the coaches are going to go with CCSU as the favorite to win the league, and that’s what I’m predicting again, too.
