SHEPHERDSTOWN – Shepherd University football coach Ernie McCook is approaching the 2025 season with a different attack plan.
The Rams plan to go all nautical on everyone.
“For our team to duplicate our past successes – which is our expectations here – we need all-hands on deck,” McCook said Saturday during Shepherd’s annual Media Day gathering.
And no one is being left out as the Rams sail into the 2025 season.
“That’s from everybody – from every player, every coach, everyone on our support staff, our athletic department and across campus to support our program to continue to have the success that we want to have,” he said.
Shepherd is charting a new course after a disappointing and frustrating 2024 season, which sank without a playoff berth and a 6-5 record, including a 3-4 mark in Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference.
It wasn’t what Shepherd has been used to in recent years. Shepherd never had less than seven wins since McCook became the head coach in 2018. The Rams only played one game in 2020 due to the COVID-19 shutdown.
Since Shepherd joined the PSAC in 2019, it has averaged nine wins a season and made three NCAA Division II playoff appearances, reaching the national semifinals in 2021 and 2022.
So, having the battleship sunk in 2024 made for some tough sailing. This season, it’s a case of staying more than just afloat.
“The key to have success in this football season is we need to return to play at a high level,” McCook said. “(Players have) to challenge themselves to be better. We are going to need guys who will be in key roles for the first time to step up and continue to get better.”
New direction
Part of that came in the form of some scuttling and rearranging of the deck chairs, per se.
Some of those changes were made naturally through graduation and players coming and going via the NCAA’s transfer portal.
One major move came with the introduction of Rob Ambrose as the team’s new offensive coordinator.
Ambrose, a Middletown, Maryland, product, spent 14 years as Towson University’s head coach from 2009-22, leading the Tigers to three playoff appearances, highlighted by a trip to the Football Championship Subdivision national championship game.
“You can think this is corny, but take it any way you want it,” McCook said “I really think God was looking out for me. I wasn’t really pleased with our offensive production last year. And the fact that were able to hire someone like Rob with the experience that he has and the energy he has brought has been a blessing for our program and myself.
“When you have a chance to hire somebody at that position, it really brings a lot of energy. But again, you can underestimate our entire coaching staff.”
Captain on deck
One of the biggest – and maybe most important – jobs Ambrose and McCook have before them is finding the Rams’ next quarterback.
Last year’s starter Lek Powell transferred to Charleston Southern for his senior season, opening the door for a fleet of six perspective candidates. Powell and the offense struggled last season, partially from a depleted offensive line that was shipwrecked by injuries. McCook said Shepherd altered offensively some to protect the remaining linemen.
But McCook didn’t tip his hand on what direction Shepherd will take for the starter.
“The only guy returning from last year is Ezra Bagent,” McCook said. “We have Mike Hardyway who is a transfer from Bucknell, Jackson Sigler who is a transfer from Virginia Tech who were with us in the spring and Wyatt Hagan, a transfer from Lackawanna.
“(The competition) has been narrowed down. It’s not quite six … It’s been narrowed down to several … a couple … maybe. Really excited about what we have going on there, and that’s all I’m going to say about quarterback position.”
Handyway seems intriguing, since he is a California native transferring into Shepherd as a graduate student. He played six games in a reserve role for the Bisons, with one start, throwing for 374 yards and three TDs. Sigler didn’t play in his freshman year at Virginia Tech, and Hagan is a junior who played seven games for Lackawanna in two seasons.
Bagent, a redshirt sophomore from Martinsburg, saw action in four games in two seasons at Shepherd. He is the younger brother of Tyson Bagent, Shepherd’s all-time leading QB who won the 2021 Harlon Hill Award – Division II’s version of the Heisman Trophy – and is currently playing for the Chicago Bears.
“Quarterback is a key position for our team’s success. I think I learned that mostly last year,” McCook said. “The days of playing great defense and run the football are gone. You have to have a trigger guy to always keep the offense always on the right play and make the plays necessary to make the offense help us to open up.
“I think we have a room of QBs who are all capable of doing that. But who rises to the top yet is yet to be determined.”
Changing course
Another move was redshirt senior Malakai Brown switch from running back to wide receiver. In a sense, he returned to where he started with the Rams.
“He was a wide receiver for us, and we asked him to play running back (in 2024) when we were not as deep as we needed to be in that position,” McCook said. “With what Grant (Grant Swinehart) and Jordan (Barnett) do in that position gives us the ability to put Mal at his natural position.”
Barnett, a transfer from Southern Utah, played in 18 games in the last two seasons for the Rams and rushed for 1,171 yards and 12 touchdowns.
Swinehart is now a graduate student after transferring from Virginia Military. He rushed for 415 yards and two TDs in 2024.
Brown, a Martinsburg graduate, joined Shepherd as a receiver before switching to running back in 2023. He rushed for 1,780 yards and 15 TDs in two seasons, including 1,780 in 2023. He was selected to the All-PSAC East first team in 2024 and second team in 2023.
“Malakai will be very instrumental in our offense, and I think that will give us a lot of different weapons,” McCook said.
Smooth sailing?
McCook isn’t used to losing.
He carries a 53-13 record into his eighth year as head coach, after 18 years of success as a Rams assistant coach.
The standards remain high for the Rams after the lackluster 2024 results. But, by no means, will it be easy.
Shepherd opens the season on Aug. 30 at Frostburg State, starting what hopes to be a new rivalry. Then, after an off week, the Rams hit the road to start PSAC play at Slippery Rock and Clarion before returning for the home opener on Sept. 27 against Kutztown.
“I don’t think there is any question that we have one of the most difficult schedules in Division II football,” McCook said. “The Pennsylvania Athletic Conference is an extremely tough conference. It’s a challenge from week to week. There are no breathers, but our focus right now is Frostburg State.”
Frostburg is an up-and-coming program, while Slippery Rock and Kutztown were in the playoffs last season.
Still, the season is a matter of getting the ship in order for Shepherd.
“We set our goals every year,” McCook said. “One, to win opener, then to win the Eastern Division of the Pennsylvania Athletic Conference and get a bid to the playoffs and then to win the last game we play. They don’t change and that’s everything in the program is built on that.
“It is a great challenge. The last time we opened with three games on the road, we went to the Final Four.”
