'Change starts at the top' as Stony Brook looks to rebound from dismal season
The decision was made to modernize the offense by increasing the role of the passing game, so Casey Case, a pass-first signal caller, was brought aboard by Stony Brook. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
It had been a season unlike any other for Stony Brook and coach Chuck Priore. The 2022 Seawolves finished with a 2-9 record, the worst mark in his 17 seasons. The losses hadn’t gone down well, and now digesting how it unfolded was borderline nauseating.
Priore could have tried to rationalize it away. He’d been pressed to double as offensive coordinator in 2021 and 2022 because the school hadn’t replaced Carmen Felus for logistical and financial reasons. And major injuries to 2022 preseason Player of the Year Ty Son Lawton and the next three backs on the depth chart had decimated the ground attack.
Instead, Priore looked in the mirror for an explanation.
“When I grade a team, I start at the top,” he said. “My abilities to get us fixed at any point in the season? It just didn’t happen . . . I didn’t bring it to the level I needed to bring it, so the kids didn’t bring it to the level they needed to bring it.
“Change starts at the top.”
Stony Brook athletic director Shawn Heilbron and Priore decided to take the Seawolves forward while simultaneously glancing backward to their strongest years.
Stony Brook made the FCS playoffs in 2017 and 2018 with Priore managing all parts of the program and contributing to each. So offensive coordinator Andrew Dressner was hired. The decision was made to modernize the offense by increasing the role of the passing game. The tradition of run-threat quarterbacks was tabled for Casey Case, a pass-first signal-caller.
Now it’s on the Seawolves to demonstrate that these moves have impact — and do it in a conference, the Coastal Athletic Association, in which five schools open the season ranked in the FCS Top 25. In a preseason poll of CAA coaches, Stony Brook was tabbed 14th of 15.
Priore was the first one to admit that with the workload of running the offense, “I lose sight of the other things that are going on and I can’t be the coach I need to be, the coach that oversees everything.”
“We were at our best with Chuck managing and delegating,” Heilbron said. “That’s his strength, and we needed to get him back to doing the things he does best, the things that made us successful.”
Simply put, the best version of Stony Brook football has been the one in which a little bit of Priore’s influence is sprinkled into all aspects of the game.
“Personality everywhere” is how Priore describes the approach.
“It’s Nick Saban — it’s any successful coach,” he added. “It’s having the tools to manage a program and lead it.”
Athletic teams love to have a catchphrase for the season, and it’s no different at Stony Brook. At a recent practice, many of the Seawolves wore T-shirts emblazoned with this season’s calling card. It has a horizontal line with the word “standard” above it and the word “feelings” below it. When the players speak it, they say “standard over feelings.”
“Coach P. created that and, at first, I was kind of like ‘what?’ ” running back Jayden Cook said. “But I have come to believe that after the season we had [in 2022], there has to be a standard to meet and we are setting that standard . . . and it has to be there every day, no matter what is going on in your personal life. Really, it’s about consistency.”
Said Priore: “Our feelings aren’t hurt and we’ve set a standard to meet in order to move forward.’’
The team motto might very well be Priore’s personal motto. His Stony Brook teams won four conference titles while playing in the Big South and reached four FCS postseasons, including two out of the CAA. Before last year, his teams had won at least five games every year (except for the four-game season played after the coronavirus pandemic moved it to the spring of 2021). Losing as he never had before hurt.
“Losing never feels good, and it becomes ‘what are you going to do about it?’ ” Priore said. “We’ve made changes so we can get back to winning.”
ABOUT STONY BROOK
Nickname: Seawolves
Head coach: Chuck Priore (18th season at SBU, 97-91 record).
Last season: 2-9 (1-7 in CAA).
2023 CAA Preseason Coaches’ Poll: Picked 14th of 15.
Top returners: Taylor Bolesta, Sr., DL (22 tackles, 7 tackles-for-loss); Roland Dempster, Jr., RB (Averaged 5.5 yards per carry in 2021, injured in 2022); Aidan Kaler, Sr., LB (60 tackles, 2 sacks); Cal Redman, Sr., TE (8.3 yards per catch).
Top newcomers: Casey Case, So., QB (transfer from Buffalo); Cory Gross Jr., Gr., DB (transfer from Tennessee State); Anthony Johnson, Redshirt Fr., WR (transfer from James Madison); Andy Nwaoko, Jr., DE (transfer from Boise State).
2023 SCHEDULE
Aug. 31 — Delaware, 7 p.m.
Sept. 8 — at Rhode Island, 7 p.m.
Sept. 16 — at Arkansas State, 6 p.m.
Sept. 23 — Richmond, 3:30 p.m.
Sept. 30 — at Maine, 3:30 p.m.
Oct. 7 — at Morgan State, 1 p.m.
Oct. 14 — Fordham, 3:30 p.m.
Oct. 21 — New Hampshire, 3:30 p.m.
Oct. 28 — at Villanova, 2 p.m.
Nov. 4 — at Monmouth, 1 p.m.
Nov. 11 — Albany, 1 p.m.
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
