The 2025 Schedule

The 2025 season has arrived.

A veteran team of 28 seniors and fifth year grads makes this one of the deepest Georgetown teams in years, but time is not on the seniors' side. For Georgetown to show progress, it has to win on the road. The Hoyas' Ivy League struggles are described below, but excepting Bucknell and Lafayette, GU has won just one road game in league play in the past six seasons. With four of its even PL games at home this season, there's a legitimate opportunity to build equity against the like of Lafayette and Fordham and steal a win from Colgate. However, without a better road record, it won't get far in a league which is suddenly getting good, and even better next season.

Here's a brief look at Georgetown's 2025 opponents.

Davidson (6-5 in 2024)

August 30, Davidson Stadium

A new look Davidson club welcomes Georgetown to its first visit to the college's spacious new stadium completed in 2024. It's also a new era following the departure of Scott Abell to Rice at the conclusion of the 2024 season.

In seven seasons, Abell had seven winning records, including Davidson's first post season appearances since the 1969 Tangerine Bowl with FCS playoff appearances from 2020 through 2022.  Abell's run-heavy option offense will give way to a more traditional look under new coach Saj Thakkar, arriving after two seasons at Division II Bentley.

As such, it's a major rebuild at Davidson and one which Georgetown should be able to control, particularly on offense, where the Hoyas put up a season high 46 points on the Wildcats in last season's opener. The Wildcats had no defensive players named to the pre-season All-Pioneer team and is picked for an eight place finish.

Despite a combined record of 47-28 under Abell, Davidson defeated only one Division I opponent out of conference: Georgetown, in 2019. 

Wagner (4-8)

September 6, Cooper Field

For only the third time in 19 years,  Marist is not on the Georgetown schedule, a possible casualty of the addition of Richmond to the schedules going forward. In its place is Wagner, a Northeast Conference team last seen at the Hilltop in Rob Sgarlata's debut as head coach, a 21-3 Wagner win.

The Seahawks were picked fifth in the 2025 NEC poll, but that's faint praise given that one team below them is dropping to Division III after this season (St. Francis) and two are not yet eligible for the FCS playoffs (Mercyhurst, Stonehill). Seven of its nine pre-season All-NEC offensive and defensive selections were on defense, where Wagner was second in the conference in total defense, with senior LB Jordan Johnson (51 tackles, two sacks)  as its on-field leader. 

The Seahawks carry an astounding 11 quarterbacks on its 2025 roster, one of which will have the unenviable task of opening the season at Kansas. 

Lafayette (6-6)

September 20, Cooper Field

Georgetown's first major test of the season follows a week later versus Lafayette. 

Unlike most PL opponents, the Hoyas have played even with Lafayette in the Rob Sgarlata era, splitting 10 games with Georgetown winning two of the last three, though Lafayette has won the last two at Cooper Field. 

Lafayette lost a large number of players in the transfer portal, including two time All-Patriot RB Jamar Curtis, but return eight starters on offense, including QB Dean DeNobile and WR Elijah Steward. DeNobile averaged just 170 passing yards per game last season and the Leopards need more points to allow for a defense that will be growing into its role early in the season, with just one returning starter from 2024.

Lafayette will play three consecutive road games to open the season, arriving at Cooper Field after games at Bowling Green and Stonehill.

The "Ivy Swing"

Brown (3-7)

September 20, Brown Stadium

Columbia (7-3)

September 27, Wien Stadium

Rob Sgarlata has (or had) a decision to make: with more games on the schedule going to league matchups going forward, he must either drop the more likely early wins on the schedule (Davidson, Marist) or scale back on Ivy League games. Neither has been announced, but 2025 may be the among the last years where Georgetown is scheduling multiple Ivy League opponents.

It's been two decades since the Ivy scheduling model was initiated, with poor results. Georgetown is a combined 7-34 against Ivy teams, with four of the seven wins coming with Columbia (4-5 overall) and one with Brown (1-5).

The Bears are picked for last in the Ivy this season, but are not the veteran Brown teams of years past. In its thee prior home games versus Georgetown, Brown averaged 38 points per game in comfortable wins, but the 2025 Bears must replace a graduating quarterback and will pivot to more run options as befits a stout offensive line. All-Ivy DB Nick Hudson leads a defense that was last in the Ivy allowing 33.6 points per game, but its season's best was allowing just 14 points against the Hoyas.

If Georgetown is going to take a step forward in 2025, or not, chances are this two week stretch will be evidence if they can. A week later, Georgetown's tenth (and presumably, final) appearance in the current Lou Little Cup series takes place in the home opener at Baker Field, where Columbia will celebrate its first shared Ivy championship in 64 years.

The Lions were a sterling 7-3 last year, but dropped a game to Georgetown last season  at Cooper Field, driven by strong performances from the GU defense and a combined 275 receiving yards from Nicholas Dunneman and Jimmy Kibble. The Lions won't be as accommodating on defense, where it has made significant steps to bolster its secondary.

This game will be an especially difficult test for Georgetown's defense, where Columbia returns an effective run game and will test a younger Georgetown secondary.

Morgan State (6-6)

83rd Homecoming Game

October 4, Cooper Field

Not a traditional opponent by any means, this game is the return match from a 2021 game in Baltimore that drew an embarrassingly low 576 to see the Bears, Georgetown's smallest road crowd in the FCS era. 

Morgan  State finished 6-6 last season but won three of its final four, and is picked for third in the six team MEAC this season. Sophomore RB Jason Collins was named the MEAC pre-season offensive player of the year following a 634 yard freshman season, while LB Erick Hunter was named the  defensive player of the year despite playing only two games last season due to injury. A pre-season first team All-America selection prior to the injury, Hunter had 149 tackles over his first two seasons.

The Bears to be a challenge on defense, where it posted five all-MEAC recipients, but for Georgetown, they must control Collins and win time of possession against a Morgan offense that will chew up yardage on the ground.

With Howard University just three miles east, a series with Georgetown has never been a priority for MEAC schools. This game figures to be the final game with the conference for a while.

Colgate (2-10)

October 18, Cooper Field

Following a bye week, the Hoyas return to Cooper Field to meet Colgate, and don't let the  record from 2024 fool you. Despite its poor finish,  the Red Raiders were second in the PL in offense overall and fourth in PL play, but were last in both categories on defense.  Rushing has long been a hallmark of Colgate's offense and it was in evidence last season, where the Red Raiders averaged nearly eight yards a carry in a 38-28 win over Georgetown at Hamilton, NY. Two key turnovers stalled the Hoyas' hope for a first ever win at Colgate, but, as before, this game comes down to its ability to defend.

Colgate returns its entire starting corps at receiver, with Treyvhon Saunders and Brady Hutchison combining for 1,371 passing yards and 14 touchdowns. Its defense remains a question mark at the start  under new coach Curt Fitzpatrick but, as is common, the Red Raiders will start slow and build as the season progresses. 

Its schedule will include road games at Villanova and Syracuse, as well as a first look at Richmond before traveling to Washington. They will be prepared.

Bucknell (6-6)

October 25, Christy Mathewson Memorial Stadium

Ralph Rucker enters his senior season at Bucknell as the PL Offensive Player of the Year, and figures to be the center of attention as these two teams close October with a competitive record between the two.

The Bison are picked fourth in the PL this season on Rucker's shoulders, while returning its entire offensive line gives him the time to build on a 2024 season of over 2,800 passing yards. RB Tariq Thomas (166-783, 4 TD) will give Rucker options on the ground, where the Bison were last in the league in rushing.

Bucknell is replacing out its entire defensive line from lat season, as graduations and transfers promise a new look for a defense that allowed a PL-worst 424 yards per game in league play. Without mode significant strides on defense, Rucker is racing for honors but the Bison cannot reach a top three finish, and a setback to Georgetown in week 9 could be fatal.

"The Grind"

Lehigh (9-4)

November 1, Goodman Stadium

Richmond (10-3)

November 8, Cooper Field

Fordham (2-10)

November 15, Cooper Field

Holy Cross (6-6)

November 22, Fenway Park

Attrition takes its annual toll on the PL's lone nonscholarship team, and the numbers entering November are grim: since 2014, Georgetown is a combined 3-24 in the month of November, with two of the thee wins coming over Bucknell. Georgetown won't be favored in any of its final four games, playing the top three teams in the league during this stretch.

Lehigh returned to the top of the PL standings for the first time since 2017 last season, and returns a veteran offensive line giving quarterbacks Hayden Johnson and Matt Machalik ample opportunities to drive an offense that was second in the PL behind Bucknell and led the league in rushing. Rush defense is a weak point for Georgetown teams in November, no more evident in 2024 where it allowed the Engineers 310 yards in a 43-6 loss. 

The arrival of Richmond to the PL is an early herald to what the league will expect when two other CAA schools, Villanova and William and Mary, follow in 2026. The Spiders will open the season with Lehigh in an early test of the top two PL teams, but the Spiders' ability to replace key offensive losses form the transfer portal may determine whether they enter week 10 as the hunted, or the hunters, for the PL title. 

Either way, Richmond has too much firepower for the Hoyas. This is a CAA-level recruiting class which has won 68 percent of its games since 2021, and where opponents like Virginia and North Carolina give the Spiders valuable experience for late season games like this. Georgetown was outscored by a combined 97-10 in a pair of games versus Richmond during its FCS championship run in 2008 and 2009, and while this is not a championship team in 2025, UR is going to be a difficult 60 minutes at Cooper Field.

The home finale on November 15 features a Fordham team that won only two games last season, yet routed the Hoyas 31-3 late last season in New York. Georgetown ran out of gas in the possession game: collecting three points in five possessions inside the Fordham 30 while the Rams collected 24 points in five drives inside the Georgetown 30.

The Rams have some major holes to fill on offense, as QB C.J. Montes left for Kent State and OL Ryan Joyce headed to Old Dominion, with new names across the offensive line. Inexperience in August will lead to experience in November, and that's a tall order for a Georgetown team which is often on its third two-deep by week 11.

The season concludes not in Worcester, but Boston, where Georgetown makes its return to Fenway Park for the first time in 85 years --a showplace game versus a supremely confident Holy Cross squad. The Crusaders have won nine straight in the series, with its last three by an average margin of 30 points. Each of those there were the last weekend of the season, where HC was playing for a playoff berth and Georgetown was just trying to finish up.

If the Hoyas can build depth during the first half of the season and not fall prey to injuries and the season-long attrition game, it can make a game of it by week 13 at Fenway--if the old trends prevail, it will be a fun game to watch with a predictable outcome.

Five Questions: The Defense

 

Some questions on defense heading into the 2025 season:

1. How Does Georgetown Rebuild The Secondary? It's the leading story leading into the 2025 season for Georgetown, as the Hoyas lost three of four starters in a secondary that led the PL in interceptions and was second overall in pass defense. 

The losses are most apparent at safety, where juniors Bijay Boldin (seven games as a reserve, 14 tackles) and Rayden Waweru (six games, five tackles) has the most returning experience among a group of three sophomores and four juniors--no freshmen, no seniors. Six of the seven saw limited action last season but this inexperience figures to be tested early--if not with Davidson, then with Lafayette, where QB Dean DeNobile returns following 2,417 passing yards last season. 

Expect some bumps in the road all season, but if this group can be ready for the grueling November part of the schedule, the Hoyas could hold its own in the passing game.

2.. Is This Cooper Blomstrom's Year? The junior lineman isn't the biggest or the fastest in the league, but he is continuing to grow into one of the PL's top defensive players. 

Blomstrom returned to the Hilltop this spring after a brief sojourn in the transfer portal, receiving offers from Temple, Toledo, UTEP, and Western Michigan among others.  A 2024 season which saw him gain 56 tackles (32 solo), 12.5 TFLs and 7.5 sacks is bound to raise interest, and the pieces are in place for him to exceed those numbers in 2025. This was a major jump up for him from 2023, and the changes in the defensive line give Blomstrom an opportunity to step forward once again, making a case to be the best Georgetown lineman since Khristian Tate. 

To do so, he'll need to support a line that suffered against run offenses, giving up  13 TD's in league play and an average of 5.3 yards per carry, also a league high. Georgetown's ability to limit yards per carry has been a struggle for years but it figures to be more of a factor as run-heavy teams like Richmond (24 rushing TD's in 2024) await.

3. Is Rufo Ready? The growth in LB Giancarlo Rufo over the past two season has been steady and impressive, and with the graduation of David Ealey, it's Rufo that steps to the forefront of the defense.

Rufo led the team with 91 tackles last season, with a high of 16 against Lehigh. with a pair of late game plays to earn Georgetown wins over Columbia and Bucknell. Georgetown's 4-2-5 defensive set put pressure on the linebackers last season and they responded, and Rufo's leadership among a returning group that includes junior Cody Pham (11 games, 11 tackles), senior Patrick Turner (nine games, 15 tackles), and senior Naiteitei Mose (four games, three tackles) will be vital.

4. Can Georgetown Control Third Down? Georgetown fared well last season in holding opponents on third down, and was second to Holy Cross at 33 percent in league play. Are the pieces in place to continue this in 2025? 

At the start, it may be a learning curve. The early season games should provide good experience in third down situations but a truer test follows in back to back games at Brown and Columbia, where the aforementioned teams were a combined 15 of 33 on third down last season but 4 of 4 in the red zone.

5. Can The Defense Endure The Grind? The 2025 schedule steps up nearly every week and November will be among Georgetown's toughest four game stretch in two decades.  The Hoyas visibly ran out of gas to end the 2024 season and its depth must be ready to avoid a similar fate in 2025, particularly on defense, where the Hoyas led the PL in time of possession (32:15) but the offense struggled to make use of the opportunity. In 2025, the offense will carry the experience factor, but the defense still makes it work. 

Five Questions: The Offense

In the first of our three part preview on the 2025 season, we examine the questions surrounding Georgetown's offense.

The Hoyas return as many as nine offensive starters from last season, most in the Patriot League and third most across Division I FCS, but were still selected sixth of eight in the pre-season PL poll.  Why? The offense was last in the PL in points per game in 2024 conference play, and 6th of seven in total offense. With experience comes opportunity, and expectations have also risen.

1. Does The Offensive Line Excel? The most underrated positions in football are along the  offensive line, because without them the offense becomes target practice. Over the years, the lack of recruiting versus scholarship teams has made the Hoyas a few inches shorter, a few pounds lighter, and a step slower on the offensive line than their defensive counterparts. The results have been evident.

In 25 years of PL play, Georgetown has never landed an offensive lineman on the PL first team at season's end, and just six players have merited second team consideration. Some, but not all of this is a reflection of patchwork lines and ones where inexperience is a factor. The prospect of the returnees from 2024 make this offensive line (subject to where they land on the depth chart, of course), perhaps the most experienced group in Rob Sgarlata's coaching tenure, and perhaps across Georgetown's PL era. That won't make the Hoyas taller or faster off the ball, but experience matters, and these players have worked together

If this group can avoid injuries and use its experience against younger and still emerging defenses, it's a big advantage to a Georgetown offensive line which hasn't had many such advantages over the past quarter century.

2. Can the Running Game Show Consistency? Another position where recruiting has suffered is in the backfield, where the skill positions gravitate to scholarship programs. Georgetown was 5th in the PL in rushing last season with just four touchdowns from the ground. The Hoyas have two backs returning for 2025 that are capable of an impact, if only the offense would run two backs in more offensive sets.

Junior RB Bryce Cox led the Hoyas with 565 yards (51.4 yards per game) and four touchdowns. While a modest number in total (GU has not had a rusher of more than 700 yards in a season since 2014, his per carry average (5.4 yards) is the best for a starter since Peter Clays in 1987.  Backup RB Savion Hart was even more proficient in per carry averages (6.2), with 278 yards over four games of action.  The Rob Spence offenses have never been built in the backfield and Georgetown does not have the depth to eat up time of possession on the ground, but Cox and Hart are a combo that need time and a strong offensive line to get Georgetown yards it often settles for short passes to reach instead.

Georgetown doesn't have enough to earn a winning season through the air. That said...

3. Can The Passing Game Take The Next Step? Georgetown returns two seniors who have enjoyed solid seasons of late: Jimmy Kibble, a 2024 second-team selection, and Nicholas Dunneman, a 2023 second-team selection. Kibble was third in the PL last season in receiving yards (720), despite being seventh in catches (46). Dunneman had fewer yards (447), but a higher average per catch (8.7).  

Neither are tall enough or quick enough to overwhelm secondaries, relying instead on exploiting pass patterns and working for yards after the catch. Too often, the offensive sets (particularly later in the season) seem to focus on one or the other, but not both, and defenses adjusted accordingly.  A veteran offensive line may be able to help give them collectively more opportunities in the secondary, but for an offense that averaged just 176 yards per game during PL play in receiving yards, both need to be getting touches to move those yards, and the proverbial chains to follow.

4. Quarterback: The Rob Sgarlata era has steered clear of quarterback controversies and tends to name a QB and ride him to the end of the season, successful or not. With the exception of Clay Norris giving way to Gunther Johnson midway in the 2017 season, the depth chart at QB rarely changes. 

Danny Lauter enters camp this month as the favorite to return to the starting lineup as a senior. His numbers were a mixed bag: sixth of seven in the PL in passing, with 10 touchdown passes and 11 interceptions, the latter being the most since Clay Norris in 2016. Outside of his record setting 428 yard debut, Lauter's passing games have been inconsistent, with only three 200+ yard passing games last season despite the aforementioned Kibble and Dunneman, and without the running ability of his two immediate predecessor in Tyler Knoop. 

A more challenging schedule, particularly in November, puts the responsibility on Lauter to be more efficient, particularly in third and fourth downs, where GU is at or near the bottom in conversions. Reserve Jacob Holtschlag saw limited duty late, but he did not show a clear path to the top of the depth chart.  For Georgetown to move up the standings in 2025, Lauter must lead.

5. Can Georgetown Address Point Production? November 2024 was a sobering finish for the Hoyas, a 5-3 team who dropped its last three games by a combined score of 108-9. The calendar is no less forgiving in 2025, with consecutive appearances versus Lehigh, Richmond, Fordham, and Holy Cross to end the season.

Simply put, Georgetown can't win games averaging 12.5 points per game in PL play. Trading in an expected 30+ point output versus Marist to accommodate Richmond on the schedule (a 10-win team last fall averaging 27.1 points per game), the Georgetown offense must be more efficient and effective as  PL competition ramps up over the next three years.  Despite leading the league in time of possession during 2024 PL play, the Hoyas managed just seven red zone touchdowns in 13 attempts last season in the PL-- both numbers were the conference low in those categories.

For many years, Georgetown was expected to do more with less. This season's offense can offer the opportunity to do more with more.