Liam Coen, back to pass, and UMass were grounded yesterday.

AP / Joe Giblin

SOUTH KINGSTOWN — The large bed-sheet sign on the hedge behind the UMass bench said, “Welcome Home Liam # 12.”

Well, not really.

Not yesterday, anyway.

Passing quarterbacks shouldn’t have to play in a monsoon on their homecoming.

For this wasn’t what Liam Coen expected when he came in here yesterday to play against URI only a few miles from his Wakefield childhood, in the stadium where he used to watch games as a kid.

“I was one of those goonies that used to try and catch the extra points,” he said.

No big surprise.

Coen can still tell you the names of the kids who played on his father’s championship team at South Kingstown High when he was just 6. And that’s what you remember when you’re a coach’s son. Other kids grew up playing with toys. Liam Coen grew up throwing the football and hanging around his father’s teams, football as the family game.

And this is where the roots are.

Yes, he may have gone to La Salle and lived in North Providence through much of high school, but in all the important ways this is where home is, even if he doesn’t live here anymore.

This is where he played for the Washington County Redskins when he was 8. This is where many of his friends still live. This is where the education of a young quarterback first took place.

Earlier in the week, he had said how psyched he was, how he knew several of the URI players, how he hadn’t played in Rhode Island since he left high school and went to UMass.

And he came in here yesterday not as the kid who had been the All-State quarterback at La Salle Academy, just another Rhode Island kid who had yet to prove he could transcend the small fields of the Interscholastic League.

He came in here as someone who already has rewritten much of the UMass record book, the sixth-best percentage passer in I-AA, quarterback of the third-ranked I-AA team in the country, someone needing just 99 yards to become the all-time passing yardage leader in UMass history, even though he has another season left.

Most important, he came in here yesterday as one of this state’s all-time football success stories, the most successful home-grown quarterback in the last half-century.

So yesterday was all set for the return of the prodigal quarterback, right? In his old backyard, no less. Could you make up a better script?

Well, be careful what you wish for.

Would it have been different if a tropical storm hadn’t swirled around him all day, a wind that literally blew back a few punts and made an adventure out of throwing even a dink pass into the flat? Would it have been different on a different day?

Who knows? Weather is a great equalizer.

But Coen knew in warmups that he had never played in anything like this before. It was as if the game was being played in some funhouse, where how you dealt with the elements was more important than your game plan.

“It was as frustrating a game as I ever played in,” he said.

His stats were a testimony to that. He finished 7-for-22, for just 22 yards, the worst passing day of his college career. His longest pass was for 7 yards. And the game ended when he was intercepted in overtime. For someone whose game is accuracy and the ability to put the ball where he wants it, yesterday was the day from football hell.

“When you don’t score a single point offensively, you’re not going to win too many games,” he said. “But they had to play in the same conditions, too. URI played a great game. Coach Stowers. All of them. I knew they would play us tough.”

And his only Rhode Island appearance?

“It’s not the way I would have wanted it to go,” he said.

He paused a beat, then smiled ruefully.

“It hurt,” said Liam Coen.

Outside, it continued to rain in torrents, the wind howling out of the gray late afternoon sky. Minutes after the game, near the middle of the sodden football field was the sign that once had been behind the UMass bench, the one that said, “Welcome Home Liam.” It lay on the field so you couldn’t see the words anymore.

breynold@projo.com