The University of Rhode Island football team entered the 2026 season with hopes of a national championship, but after dropping its first two conference games, those hopes may just be dreams.
After back-to-back Coastal Athletic Association conference championships and Football Championship Subdivision playoff appearances, the Rams were looking to get to a deeper postseason run and go all the way in 2026.
The return of two fifth-year All-American players, wide receiver Marquis Buchanan and quarterback Devin Farrell, was a big reason why.
URI opened the season with a dominant 34-7 victory over Merrimack College. Third-year Tyler Budge was under center for the entire game. He transferred from Georgia Southern University and was expected to be the backup for Farrell, but was thrown into the starting role due to an injury to Farrell.
After a dominant win over the Warriors, URI traveled to Philadelphia for a game against Temple University.
The Rams entered the game as just 14.5-point underdogs, which is a very respectable number in a crossover matchup. For once, Vegas was way off; the Owls blew out URI 38-14.
URI got back on track with a 31-10 win over Elon University to open conference play. The game was tied 3-3 going into the fourth quarter, but Rhody outscored Elon 28-10 in the fourth.
The momentum from the fourth quarter didn’t carry over to the following week. Stony Brook University dropped 56 points on URI and handed them a shocking first conference loss.
One conference loss isn’t the end of the world, though.
With North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University on the schedule next week, surely the team picked to win the Coastal Athletic Association would take care of business against a team picked to finish 12th in the conference.
However, business was very much not as usual; URI lost its second straight CAA game 22-18 and dropped to 1-2 in conference play.
A program with national championship aspirations now finds itself in the bottom half of the CAA standings and is in a position where it has to be almost perfect to even make the playoffs.
Rhode Island was able to get back in the win column as they eked out a 13-10 Governor’s Cup win over Brown University 13-10 thanks to a 43-yard field goal from fourth-year Ty Groff.
Rhode Island is now 3-3 on the year and 1-2 in CAA play. There are a multitude of issues that have led to the slow start for URI. The defense looked terrible for a two-week stretch, but tightened up against Brown.
The injury to Farrell certainly doesn’t help, but there are 10 other positions on offense and 11 on defense that Farrell’s injury had no effect on. AJ Pena, a former All-American linebacker, was hoping to get back in the Keaney and white but hasn’t been deemed eligible yet.
Pena was looking for another year alongside cornerback Justin Carcel, after the NCAA changed its rules on eligibility.
While Rhody football isn’t dead quite yet, its season is already on life support after just six games. URI will take on Yale University on Oct. 17 before five straight CAA games. The path to the FCS playoffs for URI will almost certainly be to win the CAA and get an automatic bid.
The issue is URI no longer controls its own destiny; the Rams would need Monmouth University, Campbell University and a multitude of other schools to drop some games. URI avoids Monmouth and Campbell on its schedule but would need to jump Stony Brook as well.
An at-large bid is already very unlikely; a loss to Yale on Saturday would be the nail in the coffin. While it wouldn’t harm URI in conference play, it would leave zero room for error for the rest of the season.
Regardless of whether URI leaves New Haven with a win or a loss, Rhody will have to win out its five remaining CAA games to have a path to the FCS playoffs and keep their national championship hopes alive.
