Delaware State escapes with a thrilling 41-34 season-opening win over Stony Brook

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The Delaware State University football team opened the 2026 season with a thrilling win over the Stony Brook Seawolves on Thursday. It looked like, in the beginning of this game, the Hornets would take home a cozy win but blew a 18-point lead, and Stony Brook came roaring back to make the game interesting, which came down to the final minutes of the match.

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Game Recap:

Hornets take a four-point lead in the first quarter.

Stony Brook would light up the scoreboard first in this CAA versus MEAC matchup, as their quarterback Quinn Boyd found his wideout  D.J. Linkins for the touchdown, but the team wouldn’t get the extra point to put the lead at 6-0.

DSU’s offense fired right back as senior quarterback Ui Ale found redshirt senior wide receiver Jaylin Terzado for the 72-yard touchdown connection to give their team a 7-6 edge.

Before the end of the first quarter, the Hornets added three points to push their advantage to 10-6 when senior kicker Patrick Fisher-Butler knocked through a 41-yard field goal.

DSU leads by 11 at the end of the first half.

The offense kept on blazing for Delaware State as senior quarterback Samari Collier showed his speed by blasting off for 59 yards to the end zone on a designed run play to give his team a 17-6 lead.

He wasn’t the only quarterback for the Hornets who had wheels, as Ui Ale came back and dusted the Stony Brook defenders on a 16-yard run to the end zone on their next series, which pushed the team’s advantage to 24-6.

The Seawolves would score in the late minutes of the first half to narrow the lead to 24-13.

Hornets lose 18-point lead but escape with a win!

Delaware State’s offense kept the pedal to the metal as the second half started with Graduate Student running back Jayden Jenkins showing off his speed by dashing off defenders for a 17-yard score to extend the team’s edge to 31-13.

For the rest of the third quarter, the offense would quiet down as the team only added three more points in the quarter with Patrick Fisher-Butler hitting a 52-yard field goal.

Stony Brook’s offense would wake up and make the game competitive by scoring two touchdowns in the third quarter to bring the score within seven points (34-27).

The Seawolves would come all the way back and score the game-tying touchdown with 11 minutes in the fourth quarter.

Delaware State punched right back with seven minutes and 36 seconds on the clock by cruising 80 yards down the field to end with sophomore running back  Sean Weston Jr punching the ball in the end zone on a 16-yard run to give them a 41- 34 lead with 1:53 left in the game.

Stony Brook almost answered back with another game-tying touchdown with seconds left in the match, but several penalties killed the team’s shot to extend the thrilling affair, which gave DSU a 41-34 win.