Rhody football and Coach Jim Fleming gathered in Meade Stadium to celebrate the team’s 2024 Coastal Athletic Association championship.
2024 marked a turnaround for URI football. The winning season saw new records on the books, one thrilling victory after another, an invitation to the postseason party, and, most of all, a tremendous sense of pride.
By Bob Herzog
Jim Fleming eases into the swivel chair in his office in the Tootell Physical Education Center, comfortably dressed in a plaid sports shirt and blue jeans, allowing himself a moment of relaxation and reflection. It’s mid-December 2024, barely a week after the football season’s final whistle—a season like no other in school history. The grizzled veteran coach recalls the time, a decade previous, when being the head football coach at the University of Rhode Island meant sitting on a permanent hot seat that was anything but comfortable.
“I remember when I took the job, an administrator said to me, ‘You may be the last coach here,'” Fleming says of a 2013 conversation. He told me his wife didn’t go to football games except to see the band.
They are marching to a different beat these days in Kingston, after URI reached the promised land of the NCAA Division I playoffs in the unforgettable 2024 season, posting an 11-3 record and ending a period of futility dating back to 1985.
Fleming vividly recalls when such a scenario was hard to imagine. “It was palpable—the disrespect and lack of appreciation for anything to do with football,” Fleming says of the program he inherited. “It was sad. The kids were beat down. My wife took a campus tour; when they got to the football stadium, the tour guide said, ‘That’s the football stadium. They stink.’ She comes home and tells me that.”
He laughs and remembers saying, “What have we gotten into?”
What Fleming got into was a major reconstruction project. If URI football circa 2014 was a house, it would have challenged the best building contractors on HGTV. The roof was leaking and the foundation had cracks. The backyard? Don’t ask.
“There wasn’t a lot of care taken for anything that had to do with football,” Fleming says. “The practice fields were cratered with holes that we had to go around and fill before practice.”
When Fleming took over, URI had just finished its 12th-consecutive losing season and had compiled a measly three winning seasons in the previous 28 years. The back-to-back Yankee Conference championships of 1984–85 were distant memories.
Thorr Bjorn, URI’s athletic director since 2007, acknowledges, “There had been talk about dropping football here for years. I took some heat for it, but I thought we needed to keep playing football. The landscape was changing. I thought, ‘Let’s keep playing and we can adjust.’”
That adjustment included moving to the Coastal Athletic Association (CAA, formerly the Colonial Athletic Conference), and a reduction of scholarships to offset higher travel costs and low revenue from poor attendance in a small-ish stadium. Not an easy situation for Fleming to walk into. No wonder Fleming’s old friends in the coaching business wondered, “Why would you ever go there?”
Fleming’s answer was simple: He had been an assistant coach for 26 of his 28 years in the profession he loves—including two successful seasons as head coach at Sacred Heart in 2000 and 2001—and his career clock was ticking. “I wanted to sit in the big chair again,” he says of his decision to leave his post as an assistant coach at the University of Central Florida.
The big chair was hardly a throne. Fleming admits he didn’t realize just how much rebuilding was needed, but the daunting task did not discourage him. “It was an eye-opener, but we took it all in and went to work,” he says.

Head coach Jim Fleming spoke to members of the media following Rhode Island’s win over Bryant, which secured the team its CAA Football title.
The 2024 Rams rewrote the school’s football record book, including logging the Rams’ first playoff appearance and victory since 1985 and the most victories in school history.
It was not a quick fix for this fixer-upper. “We ended up going 0-11 before the last game,” Fleming says of the 2014 season. “Then we had Towson (Md.) at home. They’d been to the national championship game the year before. And we beat them. So, it was a tremendous way to finish a long season. Those kids worked hard—they never quit, but we just couldn’t find a way to win. It was tough. But we stayed positive and won the last game.”
URI again won just one game in 2015, two in 2016, and three in 2017. Talk about baby steps. But finally, there was excitement in 2018, when the Rams went 6-5, beating New Hampshire at Meade Stadium in the finale, for their first winning season since 2001.
“That was monumental because we were still dealing with the same issues,” Fleming says. “Still had the grass practice fields that were chewed up, the grass playing field was choppy. But we won six games and there was steady progress. I felt like we were getting closer. We were recruiting well. We started getting some really good players, fantastic players. Three got invited to the NFL Scouting Combine after the 2019 season.”
Ah yes, 2019, the year that almost broke Fleming and the program. “We had high expectations. We had just put in turf and lights. The practice field was in great shape. We had pro prospects on the team,” Fleming says. “We were explosive, averaging 30 points a game. But we couldn’t finish games, especially on defense.”
The 2019 Rams lost four close games in excruciating fashion and crumpled late to finish at 2-10. The emotional roller-coaster of that season was tame compared to the twists and turns of 2020, the COVID season that wound up being played in the winter of 2021. URI was 2-1 and ranked in the top 20 before 30 team members came down with the virus after a team dinner, and the season had to be canceled.
Today, the program is quite healthy. The Rams are a consistent CAA contender and top 20 team that has posted five-consecutive winning seasons. They play on sparkling turf in a stadium with new lights and a state-of-the-art scoreboard, next to a professionally manicured grass practice field. Sellout crowds are common. Meade Stadium will undergo a major renovation in 2026, with additional seating and a new press box.
Perhaps most importantly, last season’s coveted playoff berth ended an agonizing drought of 39 years. “We were a game away each of the last three years. One game. That’s all it took,” Bjorn says of the frustrations of 2021–23.
Mark Brockwell ’85 understands those frustrations. A real estate entrepreneur who recently moved to Newport, R.I., from Connecticut, Brockwell was a 1984 team captain. “Guys from our era have always been big supporters of the team, and we’ve raised money to help them out,” Brockwell says. “But interest fell off a cliff for a while; we were hurting there.”
His son, Cole Brockwell, has been part of the cure. Like his dad, Cole wore No. 39 and played middle linebacker. “When I was younger, I used to go to games with my dad,” says Cole, a red-shirt senior, “but it wasn’t always the big show like it was this year. Every game there was a great atmosphere, the cannon shooting off [loudly, after every URI touchdown], the entire crowd just immersed in what we were doing. It was just so special.”

Linebacker Cole Brockwell led the Rhody defense with 102 tackles.
“We just had faith in each other all year to get the job done. ”
–Cole Brockwell , senior linebacker
Mark Brockwell says he’s happy a new banner at Meade Stadium will join the banners his team put up 40 years ago. “We never stopped rooting for URI football,” he says. “We wanted our records to be broken. How it all came together for this team is pretty amazing.”
It came together in dramatic and historic fashion. In 2024, the Rams rewrote the school’s football record book, including logging the Rams’ first playoff appearance and victory since 1985 and the most victories in school history—11.
“Honestly, it was an unreal experience. Every game had a new hero. It was like a movie,” says senior defensive tackle and co-captain Westley Neal Jr. “We knew the goal. We kept focusing on the little things. We were a selfless team.”
They were also a team that got major contributions from the offense and defense throughout the season, thriving in the fourth quarter, especially at home, where fans dared not leave early.
In the season opener on a warm late-summer night, Devin Farrell connected with Shawn Harris on a 31-yard touchdown pass with 19 seconds remaining, for a 20-17 victory over Holy Cross. “Just what we needed,” Fleming says. “A quality nonleague opponent that had been to the playoffs the year before. That was heroic.”
Wide receiver Shawn Harris hauls in a catch. Rhode Island finished second in the league in total offense with 5,072 yards.
Quarterback Devin Farrell earned a spot on the All-CAA Football Third Team.
It was also a harbinger of things to come. URI had become all too familiar with late-game heartbreak, but that trend was reversed in 2024. Finally, good karma found its way to Kingston, R.I.
“That is something I’ll always remember,” says Marquis Buchanan, a dynamic red-shirt sophomore who caught 82 passes for 1,024 yards and eight touchdowns. “We knew coming into this season that we had to finish those close games and start winning them. Getting to the playoffs was a relief.”
The road to the 2024 postseason was paved with heart-stopping twists and turns. Thrillers that, in previous seasons, would’ve been killers.
There was the nail-biter season opener win against Holy Cross.
Running back Malik Grant broke Rhode Island’s single-season rushing record with 1,426 yards.
And in the Sept. 21 game against Long Island University, Malik Grant’s touchdown in the fourth quarter with 1:08 left—helped by a fumble recovery by Brockwell—rallied the Rams to a 28-21 victory.
Against Hampton on Oct. 5, the Rams erased two 14-point deficits to outlast the home team, 46-44, in a double-overtime classic capped by Farrell’s clinching 2-point conversion run. “There was something online that said Hampton had a 99 percent chance of winning,” Brockwell says. “But we just had faith in each other all year to get the job done.”
That faith was put to the test several more times at Meade Stadium.

A team captain, defensive lineman Westley Neal Jr. earned All-CAA Football First Team honors in his final collegiate season.
“I’m in the huddle telling my teammates I’m going to jump over and reach up. I felt like the guys knew I’d block the kick. They trusted me. I did just what I said I would do. It was a crazy moment.”
–Westley Neal Jr., senior defensive tackle and co-captain
Neal prevented the Rams from suffering what might have been a crushing defeat against unranked Albany on Nov. 16, blocking a 36-yard field goal on the game’s final play to preserve a 20-17 victory and prevent the game from going into overtime.
“We iced the kicker [with a timeout] before that,” Neal recounts. “I’m in the huddle telling my teammates I’m going to jump over and reach up. I felt like the guys knew I’d block the kick. They trusted me. I did just what I said I would do. It was a crazy moment.”
There was one more bit of craziness in the playoff game against Central Connecticut State on a frigid Thanksgiving weekend. Emmanuel Gomes had returned an interception for a touchdown, and Tommy Smith had scored on a touchdown pass and touchdown run to build a 21-17 lead. But the visitors had the ball with a chance to drive for the winning score in the final minute. That’s when Carson Primrose deflected a pass, and Neal made the game-clinching interception.
Before that home finale, the Rams had experienced another magic moment. On Nov. 24, the team gathered for a watch party in the weight room of the Ryan Center. They knew they were a lock for a playoff spot, having gone 10-2 to that point and winning a share of the conference championship. Still, when URI’s name popped up on the TV screen, pandemonium ensued. Players, coaches, alumni, and school officials hugged and cheered. “It was pretty crazy,” Buchanan says. “We were amped up when we saw our name on the screen. This is what we had been working on for so long.”

Head coach Jim Fleming with the CAA Football Championship trophy.
“Seeing them walk out on the court with their chests pushed out, knowing that they’d done something that hadn’t been done in forever, was a cool moment.”
–Jim Fleming, Head Coach
Moments later, the team left the weight room, walked down a corridor, through a runway, and onto the Ryan Center court during a timeout in the second half of the URI-Charlotte men’s basketball game. The applause started slowly and built to a crescendo as the first wave of players appeared. In seconds, the entire crowd stood and cheered as the long parade of players strode proudly onto the court.
Neal’s heart soared. “That moment was crazy. When we walked into the Ryan Center, it was like a mini parade with all the standing ovations,” he says. “We had been used to sellout crowds at the home football games, but inside the Ryan Center was a surreal moment. We felt the love.”

A message to Rhody Nation from Coach Jim Fleming.
“Of all the things that were accomplished by this team, I feel so happy and fortunate that we brought pride back to Rhode Island football.”
And they felt something else: pride. Fleming says, “Seeing them walk out on the court with their chests pushed out, knowing that they’d done something that hadn’t been done in forever was a cool moment.”
Fleming, too, is filled with pride. “This team had no fracture,” the coach says. “If we were down, there was no issue. It would be, ‘Defense, we got ya. Offense, we got ya.’ There was a back-and-forth that was verbalized.”
Winning has transformed the narrative off the field as well. A key milestone was the installation of turf and lights in 2019, funded by donors. “Alumni support is stronger than ever for a program that struggled with consistency for years,” Bjorn says. “In the last five years, I haven’t heard a single person suggest dropping football. And now, with $42 million secured for new stands and press box renovations—fully funded by the state—that’s a major statement. Football at the University of Rhode Island is only moving forward.”
It’s a long way from the days when the program was on life support and Meade Stadium was a ghost town. The Rams were ghostbusters in 2024, and these days, URI football is a team of distinction, not extinction.
PHOTOS: COURTESY URI ATHLETICS/CONNOR CALDON
A Record-Breaking Season
The 2024 Rams rewrote the school’s football record book. Here are some of the team’s notable accomplishments.
- First playoff appearance and playoff victory since 1985.
- Most victories in a season in school history—11.
- First undefeated home schedule (6-0) since 1985 (5-0).
- First time in program history the Rams had a 1,000-yard rusher (Malik Grant) and a 1,000-yard receiver (Marquis Buchanan). Grant broke Rhode Island’s single-season rushing record with 1,390 rushing yards, overtaking David Jamison’s mark of 1,302 in 2001.
- First conference title since winning the Yankee Conference title in 1985.
- Fleming was voted Division I Coach of the Year by the New England Football Writers.
- Linebacker A.J. Pena was voted first-team All-American by several organizations while Buchanan was a second-team selection. More than a dozen Rams earned some type of All-American or All-CAA recognition.
A great story!
This team has brought me, my family and our community so much joy. It has been a true blessing to watch, interact and cheer on the 2024 CAA Champion Rhody Rams football team. Thank you to the players, coaches, staff and alumni for making this past season a memory that will last forever.
Hard Work.
Committment.
Integrity.
Respect.
Love.
Team.
Victorious.
“Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.” FNL
Onward….URI Football!
I brought my kids and their friends to URI games when they “stunk” and when those kids graduated from college and came back to RI, my daughter suggested that we get season tickets in 2017. We have watched with great pride, even though none of us went to URI. The URI football program has overtaken the NFL as far as interest in our family! Hoping that 2024 was just the beginning of continued success and a program the likes of the Dakota’s, Montana’s, etc.. challenging for national titles. Thank you Thorr & Flem for turning around one of the worst NCAA football programs in history.
I’d also like to extend my thanks to Thorr and Flem for saving the program. URI football is truly a big part of our lives. The exhilaration and Joy we have experienced watching this program arise from the abyss is truly one of the most special things I’ve ever witnessed in sport and in Life in general. The program truly is a motivation to all that indulge in it and my Family is forever grateful that Thorr and Flem have had such a relentless pursuit to make Rhody Football prosper-able! Thank you Thor and Flem from the bottom of my heart! Go Rhody!
Proud to be a RAM…AGAIN, always have been since the 1st day I walked on campus and met my new teammates my love never wavered…frustrated and irate ALOT…Cant wait to make the trip back in ’25
Awesome Season, Amazing Team and Coaches – Thank You URI Football for such a FUN year!! Can’t wait to see what next year brings!!
Can I say when some of the football players came up to me as I volunteered for move-in day, talked to me for about 15 minutes, just chatting. I could tell they were going to have a great season as they scooted away! The team had never done that before, all the times I have volunteered for move in. I knew they had the team spirit that’s needed to be Champions! I believe they are Champions in every respect.
As a long time staff member here, I’m so proud to be part of this winning spirit. I promised them I would go to a game, and I did with my grandsons! They loved it too!
I remember URI in 1956 at the Refrigerator Bowl.
I remember the heady days of QB Tom Ehrhardt’s “Ehr Force” in 1984-85, when the Rams would throw the ball on any down, any yardage and somehow manage to make the plays. Wonderful to see a return to good times by URI football. (And yes, living in Silicon Valley, I follow URI’s results every year, even those heartbreaking ones). Go Rhody!!