Before the 2009 season started, the University of Maine was talking about winning its division and its conference and returning to the playoffs.

Heading into the final game of the season at rival New Hampshire on Saturday (noon, CSNE), coach Jack Cosgrove is just grateful to have the opportunity to see the Black Bears pursue the most modest of those goals.

Cosgrove, 54, had a scare during last Saturday’s 41-17 win over Rhode Island. He experience tightness in his chest and shortness of breath and was taken by ambulance to Eastern Maine Medical Center. He spent the night there before checking himself out on Sunday and returned to campus for practice Sunday night. This week, he’s had numerous tests and none have found any health issues.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Did all the things necessary for someone who has a traumatic experience of that nature and I’m back in action.”

Cosgrove said it’s full speed ahead to 11th-ranked New Hampshire (8-2, 5-2 CAA), which hasn’t lost to Maine since 2002.

“This is probably as balanced a New Hampshire team as I’ve seen in awhile,” Cosgrove said. “They’re usually known to be explosive on offense, but I think they’re as talented of defense as anybody we’ve seen this year.” 

A win in the 99th meeting with their rival would give the Black Bears (5-5, 4-3) the CAA North title, a nice consolation prize for a team that was openly talking about competing for CAA and national titles in the preseason.

“Because of last year (when Maine reached the FBS playoffs), our goals might have been a little bit out of whack,” Cosgrove said. “We don’t have a big senior class. We didn’t have the experience necessary to be a championship team in this league, and it showed early.”

“I think to be in a spot where we can say we were 5-0 in the North, that’s a great reward for the season for us,” he added. “That means we’ve got the (Brice-Cowell) Musket returning to Maine and, I think, a little bit more honor and pride and dignity to our program in terms of where we were a month-and-a-half ago, 2-3 and trying to find ourselves, and how we’ve improved over that time span.”

Cosgrove has been particularly impressed with the defense’s improvement. Led by senior defensive end Jordan Stevens of Temple, who had 2.5 sacks last week, the Bears have limited their opponents to 16 ppg while winning two of their last three games.

Treister, a sophomore, stole the headlines from the defense last week, throwing for 468 yards and five touchdowns and rushing for another in his first college start. The former Portland High star from Cape Elizabeth also set school records for completions (40, of 45 attempts) and completion percentage (87 percent) while stepping in for the injured Smith.

“Chris is a hard-working kid. He prepares as well as any guy we’ve ever had,” Cosgrove said. “He’s been frustrated by the fact that we made the decision to go with Warren. That decision was by the slimmest of margins because Chris was competing right there with him. To see him perform at such a high level, though, I can’t say that it didn’t surprise me. But for him to be a winning quarterback in a CAA game did not. surprise me”

Senior wide receiver Landis Williams had a monster game for Maine as well, with 18 catches for 239 yards and three touchdowns. 

“We certainly got the best of Chris Treister and our receivers on Saturday,” Cosgrove said. “We’re going to need it again this week.”