Andrew Rayner painfully recalls the seven straight weeks of heartache for Tufts, followed by the punch to the gut in the Week 8 finale: visiting Middlebury converting a fourth-and-goal from the 1 with two seconds left at Ellis Oval/Zimman Field.

The 19-17 defeat was the hammer, albeit a sledge, to an 0-8 first season for coach Jay Civetti, and the 15th straight setback for a program that has not won a game since the 2010 opener against Hamilton.

Yet Rayner, a 6-foot-6-inch, 270-pound senior left tackle from Needham who aspires to teach high school math, would not let the numbers derail his focus at game’s end, or be self-centered.

“What was going through my mind?” asked Rayner, a captain this season along with all-purpose threat Dylan Haas and rugged defensive tackle Chris Toole.

“It was the last time I will be playing with those seniors . . . Although we went 0-8, our team never gave up. I attribute that to those seniors and captains. The Wednesday practice before that last game, we were 0-7, but you would have thought we were 7-0 and playing for the league championship. We have that same mentality. Our offseason workouts were incredible. We will not put ourselves in that situation again.”

Unofficially, at least, the Jumbos will not be.

They host NESCAC rival Wesleyan in Somerville for Saturday’s season opener coming off a 7-0 win over Bowdoin, although it was just a scrimmage.

“On the scoreboard, we did beat Bowdoin,” said Rayner. “It’s been a long time since we have had that winning feeling.”

It was a confidence booster, an affirmation of an offseason focused on hard work, sweat, and introspection. “Not a false sense of reality,” said Civetti. “And I think that it has made [the players] hungry.”

So with that hardened mentality reinforced by a strong senior class, the arrival of 26 freshmen, and an addition of a highly respected veteran leader, 18-year Wesleyan head coach Frank Hauser as the offensive coordinator, the Jumbos kick off, ironically, against Hauser’s former team.

“We’re ready to step up,” said Rayner. “What is great about the NESCAC is that any team can beat any other team on any given day. We are focusing on Wesleyan, and getting better every day.”

The NESCAC is an eight-game gauntlet: defending champion Amherst is 22-2 the last three years, Trinity (Civetti’s alma mater) is loaded on both sides of the ball, Williams is one year removed from an 8-0 run under Aaron Kelton, and McCallum Foote returns for his second season at the trigger for Middlebury.

Bates and Bowdoin have improved, Colby and Hamilton have introduced new coaches with impressive pedigrees, and Wesleyan welcomes back the conference’s Rookie of the Year in LaDarius Drew (90.8 rushing yards per game).

“You have to earn it,” emphasized Civetti.

With Rayner and cerebral senior center Sam Stone, from archrival Wellesley High, the anchors up front, Civetti has placed the ball in the hands of sophomore Jack Doll, a charismatic leader who backed up Heisman Trophy candidate Matt Barkley at famed Mater Dei High in Santa Ana, Calif.

“He takes command, even when he was a freshman, he would come into the huddle, and say ‘Alright guys, listen up,’ ” said Rayner.

And the young QB, along with the entire offense, has the perfect tutor in Hauser.

“We are lucky to have him,” said Civetti, a point echoed by Rayner.

“Love the system he has implemented, we have high hopes for the offense,” added the captain.

High hopes, Rayner believes, that now permeate the entire program.

“I don’t ever want to have that 0-8 feeling again,” he said.

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Sean McDonnell was a stellar defensive back at New Hampshire, Bobby Wilder an all-conference quarterback at archrival Maine, though they never butted heads as competitors. Both were longtime assistants at their alma maters after connecting for one season, 1988, as grad assistants on Jack Bicknell’s staff at Boston College.

On Saturday, with the start of Colonial Athletic Association play, McDonnell’s 18th-ranked Wildcats (2-1) take on Wilder and fifth-ranked Old Dominion (3-0) in Norfolk, Va.

Wilder on UNH: “The best program in the CAA in the last 10 years . . . They just keep winning.”

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Playing the first night home game in program history, American International routed Pace, 42-0, Friday behind T.J. Williams, who rushed for 212 yards and three touchdowns . . . Curry outlasted MIT, 31-28, in Milton. The Colonels’ Kevin Fruwirth passed for 325 yards and two scores, and Robert Bambini had 13 catches for 221 yards and a TD. MIT’s Brad Goldsberry had 253 yards from scrimmage and three scores . . . Framingham State blanked Bridgewater State, 16-0, holding the host Bears to 148 total yards. Melikke Van Alstyne ran for 107 yards.