Durham, New Hampshire has become one of the toughest places to play in the CAA and possibly the country over the last few decades.

Undr Sean McDonnell and now Rick Santos, Wildcat Stadium is an electric factory on game day. Of course when the weather turns frigid in a few weeks, that whole other element is added in as well.

On Monday, UNH moved to No. 19 in the AFCA Coaches Poll. This weekend, the Wildcats hope to continue using that home field advantage in a massive game against No. 17 URI. Durham has been particularly cruel to the Rams, as Rhody hasn’t gotten a win up there since 2000 (0-10 last 10 games). UNH, URI, Delaware, Richmond and Villanova are all unbeaten in CAA play halfway through the season.

Which means this one could be a determining factor for the playoff fate of both teams at the end of November.

Before turning his full attention to Rhode Island, Santos talked quite a bit about a gritty 17-10 win road win over Elon this past weekend that UNH needed to keep pace in the conference.

The defense was the story.

“It’s always tough to win in this conference,” he said. “That was just a gritty performance. Our guys were resilient, they stuck together. I give a ton of credit in particular to the defensive side of the ball. We lost the physicality battle up front. We were going backwards all day. They had us in obvious passing situations in third-and-long because we weren’t efficient on the ground. They turned us over twice. It was a game we just couldn’t get our footing. I think it was a good plan, but those guys…they wanted it more on that side of the ball. They had a ton of energy, a ton of juice. They flew around. They tackled extremely well. Give them credit.”

The ability to win games when not at their best is the sign of a good team.

The Wildcats found a way.

“For us, finding a way to get the win, you know…it was led defensively and on special teams,” Santos added. “We always say if we can win two out of the three battles we have a good shot of winning. If you can play a complete game and win all three it should be a dominant performance. But, we certainly won defensively and I think it starts up front with our defensive line and how well they played. In particular the last three quarters. To go down 10-0, to not waver and took a bunch of body blows and ultimately didn’t Elon to knock us out.

“We just kind of kept chipping away at it Defensively, just allowed us to stay in it and we had a huge blocked punt at the end of the half, somehow go into the half 10-7, and you would have thought we were up 21 points with the momentum and energy we garnered there and the guys were in really good spirits.

“It felt like we had a shot in the second half after that.”

As far as the stakes go with this Rhode Island matchup, there’s no sugarcoating it. It’s going to be an absolute dogfight and the Wildcats know it.

“This team is extremely talented. They’re gritty. They’re finding ways to win games late. There’s as clutch of a team as anywhere in the country right now,” Santos said. “I just saw the stats…49 points scored and only 14 allowed in the last three games in the fourth quarter. They’ve been down in some games. They’re resilient. They come back. They don’t blink. They don’t waver.

“So, really good football team. Coach (Fleming’s) got there guys playing extremely hard…it’s evident they take on the life of their head coach. They’re tough, they’re physical, they win at the point of attack.

“This is going to be a battle.”