When the fresh set of FCS rankings came out on Monday, the Monmouth Hawks were greeted to a sight they haven’t seen in quite sometime. For the first time since the makeshift spring season in 2021, the program
finds itself hovering just outside the Top 10. Sitting at 5-1 overall, #11 Monmouth is currently tied at the top of the CAA with Rhode Island and seems to be practically a lock for the playoffs. For a team that went a combined 10-13 over the last two seasons, it’s been a welcome change for fans in West Long Brach and, while there’s a lot to credit for the resurgence, the high-powered offense is the main reason why the Hawks are soaring. That offense features one of the FCS’s best quarterbacks and receivers and the results are speaking for themselves.
Monmouth has never had one of its players win a major national award but that might change this year. Signal caller Derek Robertson is having himself a career fall over in Jersey and is all over the FCS record books right now. Robertson is currently the only QB in the subdivision to have over 2,000 yards passing this season and has thrown for 24 touchdowns, good enough to lead the country. The next closest in that category? Duquesne’s Tyler Riddell who has 18.
Robertson has his team delivering some insane averages. The Hawks are putting up 44.7 points, 554.3 total yards and 385.2 passing yards per contest. Per play they are getting 9.6 yards through the air as well. The fewest points they’ve scored all year? 35. And that came in their lone loss which was barely to FBS Charlotte. To say Monmouth is producing video game-like numbers is an understatement. Robertson himself isn’t just whipping the ball up and down the field, though. He’s also been extremely accurate, completing throws at a 72.4% rate.
Right now he is a frontrunner for the Walter Payton Award and second doesn’t really feel all that close. He has been the first to admit, however, that it’s all been made possible by the receiving corps he has around him and that corps is really, really good. Redshirt junior Gavin Nelson leads the team with an average of 18.3 yards per snag and has four TDs. T.J. Speight has 31 catches for 421 yards. Even sophomore Tra Neal has four scores and 42.5 yards per game. No one, though, is doing quite what junior Josh Derry is.
Derry has been sensational on the outside this year and there has yet to see a defense that can hold him. In six games he has hauled in an FCS-best eight touchdowns and 644 yards. Three times he’s gone for at least 110 yards and multiple TDs. It should come to little surprise that he is Robertson’s favorite target. There has not been a game yet this season in which the duo has not connected at least five times.
Derry has been with Monmouth since the start of 2023, a full season before his quarterback Robertson came over from Maine, and even since his freshman year, it’s been evident that he’s a game-changer. Derry appeared in eight games during that 2023 season but really exploded onto the scene last year as a sophomore. He picked up second-team All-CAA honors and finished 83 yards short of a 1,000-yard season. He totaled five TDs last year as well. This season, though, it’s been a different clip for the speedy WR. Derry is on pace to shatter all of last year’s high marks.
It’s all come together at a good time for Monmouth. The conference around them has dipped off quite a bit over the last several seasons and, with the CAA not being what it used to be, there is a real window. The Hawks have not qualified for the playoffs since the Spring of 2021 and back then they were playing in the Big South. They have not won, or even really been close to, a CAA title since coming over. Because of Derry and Robertson, however, that dream doesn’t seem like it’s all that far off now.
Monmouth’s next game will be their homecoming contest this Saturday against Stony Brook. The game is set to kick off at 1:00 PM (ET) and can be streamed on FloSports.
