Monmouth Holds Off UAlbany, 28-20, After an Early Pick-six
Take away the pick-six and Monmouth still wins this one, 21-20. That is how close UAlbany came to erasing a very bad start with one big swing. Monmouth beat UAlbany 28-20 and never trailed.
Ryan Russo returned an interception 30 yards for a touchdown on the first score of the game, and Frankie Weaver threw touchdown passes of 46 yards to Gavin Nelson and 60 yards to Tra Neal to make it 21-7 in the second quarter. Nazir Treadwell's 1-yard run pushed it to 28-7 in the third. UAlbany answered with a 21-yard pass from Kai Colon to Matthew Iuvara and, with 5:06 left, a 2-yard run by Rahshan La Mons. The extra point on that last one failed, so it was an eight-point game instead of seven, and that was the end of the scoring, with Monmouth holding on from there.
The turnovers were even, two interceptions thrown on each side, but Monmouth turned one of them into points directly and its defense took four sacks to UAlbany's none. The yards were close too: 354 for Monmouth and 321 for UAlbany. UAlbany ran 44 times for 148 yards and Monmouth 36 times for 154.
Both teams are 2-1 after this, so nobody gets to claim the high ground in the standings. Monmouth's lead was 21 points at its biggest (28-7), and UAlbany spent the entire afternoon trying to cut into it. For fantasy, Neal was the most valuable player on the field with 24.1 points, and Weaver was right behind him with 20 despite two interceptions. La Mons led UAlbany with 14.6, so the losing side's fantasy value came from a running back, not the passing game.