Bucknell Bison 2026 Season Preview

A Rough Patriot League Slate

Jeff Behrman's crew went 1-5 in Patriot League play in 2025, finishing 5-7 overall while sitting at No. 102 in the national power ratings, a stretch that leaves little margin for a repeat performance in 2026. The league record is the real problem, not the overall mark, since conference play is how Bucknell measures itself against the teams it actually competes with for a title. Turning that 1-5 into something closer to .500 in league games is the clearest path to a season that reads differently a year from now.

Behrman's Yardage Betrays the Record

Bucknell went 1-5 in conference play, but the yardage margin against those same league opponents implied a far higher win rate than the group actually posted, and a 3-1 mark in one-score games papered over just how thin that gap was. The offense already had juice, ranking 39th in passing yards per game and 22nd in explosiveness, while the defense was the drag, sitting 115th in yards per play allowed and 115th in keeping opponents off schedule. Jeff Behrman's fix for 2026 is not scoring more, it is stopping the bleed that turned competitive yardage into a losing conference record.

Christopher Dietrich threw for 875 yards and 9 touchdowns against 4 picks last season, splitting time behind Ralph Rucker IV, and now takes the first-team reps as the front-runner to replace Rucker's 1,568 yards and 11 scores. The job is not settled, with Nicholas Penuvchev and his own 3 touchdown passes still in the mix, but Dietrich's efficient stretch gives him the edge in an offense that already moved the ball through the air, ranking 39th nationally in passing yards per game and 22nd in explosiveness. Bucknell's passing punch was never the problem in a 5-7 season, the rushing attack was, so whoever wins this camp battle inherits a scheme built to let him throw.

Michael Cadden takes over as the clear lead option after piling up 286 yards and 5 touchdowns in a complementary role behind Tariq Thomas, whose 602 yards on the ground are the biggest hole to fill in this backfield. Logan Bush's 232 yards give Bucknell a legitimate one-two punch rather than a single-back answer, with Ty Stauffer and Anthony DiLascio available to spell them. The bigger question is scheme fit, not personnel, since Bucknell ranked 100th in rushing yards per game while leaning on a passing attack that finished 39th nationally, and Cadden and Bush now have to turn more of those touches into the explosive gains (22nd nationally in explosiveness) that were happening mostly through the air.

Sam Milligan is the story here, coming off a 56-catch, 975-yard, 10-touchdown season that anchored a passing attack ranked 39th nationally in yards per game. TJ Cadden's 45 catches for 589 yards give Jeff Behrman a legitimate one-two punch even with Josh Gary and Nate Anderson gone, since neither departed target cracked 350 yards last fall. The bigger swing factor is whether Kaleb Lampkins or Owen Garwood can turn modest 2025 snaps into a real third option, because Milligan and Cadden alone can only stretch an offense that was already explosive (22nd nationally) but needs more than two answers on passing downs.

Jack Bohm-Squicciarini caught 5 passes for 42 yards last fall and now stands as the most productive tight end on the roster with Charlie Kreinbucher and his team-high 6 catches, 59 yards and lone touchdown gone from the position. Caden Allard adds a single catch for 6 yards to the group, while Rourke Kennedy, Will Rich and Patrick Sullivan carry no statistical history into 2026. That leaves Bohm-Squicciarini to anchor a passing attack that ranked 39th nationally in yards per game, with the position's touchdown production up for grabs.

Jeff Behrman is replacing four linemen up front in Kieran Coscia, Nathan Natoli, Xavier Allen and John Ohnegian, the group that helped produce 120 rushing yards per game (100th nationally) but still protected well enough for 230 passing yards a game (39th) and a 42.3% third-down rate (34th). Temple transfer Shane Toolan arrives to take an tackle spot on a line that leaned on the pass to move the ball, and the ground game is the clear area Bucknell needs this rebuilt front to fix in 2026 rather than mask again.

Bucknell's front generated a single sack all season and let opponents stay on schedule at a rate that ranked 115th nationally, a collapse that shows up in the 203 rushing yards allowed per game. Jack Inserra and Charlie Meehleib, each with 2 tackles, and Kato Meissner return as the most experienced pieces of that group, but none of the three profiles as a proven disruptor, and last year's leading tackler among departures, Daniel Sierk, managed just 1. Seo Buffington, William Caneer and Thomas Gerke are back without a stat line to lean on, so Jeff Behrman's line has to manufacture pressure it simply did not find in 2025, when a 6.58 yards-per-play mark buried the whole defense.

Bucknell's front seven bled yardage all fall, surrendering 203 rushing yards a game and 6.58 per snap, numbers that put Jeff Behrman's defense among the nation's shakiest against the run. Jack Goheen and Luke Freeman are both out of the linebacker room now, thin production totals that still leave the position group needing answers behind a line that let opponents stay on schedule on more than half their snaps. Whoever settles in at the second level inherits a defense ranked 113th in yards allowed per game, and the room's ability to tighten run fits will decide whether that number moves in 2026.

The Bison secondary was a sieve last season, allowing 239 passing yards a game and 6.58 yards per play (115th nationally), numbers that trace directly to a back end that let opponents stay on schedule 47.3% of the time (also 115th). Terian Williams II, Aaron Davis, Bradley Pao and Finn Sposato all cleared out, taking what little tackle production this group had to show for itself. Jeff Behrman still has an experienced secondary to lean on, but until it stops bleeding chunk passes, Patriot offenses will keep testing it deep.

Matt Schearer took his 13-of-17 kicking and 70 points out the door, leaving Cooper Bolton and Juan Garanton to sort out the job with no game statistics between them. That is a real question mark for a team that went 1-5 in Patriot League play, since a shaky placekicking situation offers little margin in close conference games. Ryan Jedlicka's departure at long snapper adds another unknown to a specialist corps that Jeff Behrman is rebuilding almost entirely from scratch.

Christopher Dietrich

Bucknell's season turns on Christopher Dietrich, who threw for 875 yards and 9 touchdowns in a backup role last year and now projects as the starter replacing Ralph Rucker IV's 1,568 yards and 11 scores. He inherits a proven target in Sam Milligan, who caught 56 passes for 975 yards and 10 touchdowns, plus TJ Cadden's 589 yards and 6 scores, so the weapons are already in place. Dietrich's job is simply to distribute the ball to what he has and cut down on the interceptions that dogged Bucknell's passing game a year ago.

A Market That Stopped Trusting Bucknell

The number that actually matters here is 0-4 covering as a home favorite, proof that whenever oddsmakers pegged Jeff Behrman's group as the better team, Bucknell found a way to fail expectations anyway. That pattern held all over the board, including a 1-5 mark in conference spreads that mirrored the 1-5 league record and a 1-5 showing the week after a loss, so there was never a bounce-back trend to lean on. Books have already adjusted, and until Bucknell proves it can win the game it is supposed to win, backing the Bison as favorites in 2026 is betting against the same trend that just went 2-10.