Still roughly five weeks away from fall camp getting going, so let’s look at some trends the Spiders have gone through under Russ Huesman. 2022 was the first season we saw real progress in the results, so I want to highlight the areas where things really turned around and where we’ve still got plenty of room to improve.

2017-2022

Huesman took over in 2017 and it really couldn’t have started worse the first three seasons. Missing the playoffs with Kyle Lauletta and a solid Danny Rocco roster in 2017, going 3-8 with one CAA win in 2018, and then losing the last three in 2019 to finish 5-7 (including losses to Yale & Fordham). 14-20 record his first three years, none of which were rebuilds. 2020 brought everything to a halt and while 2021 was potentially a playoff year if Mancuso didn’t go down it still didn’t add much confidence. Plenty of Spider Nation wanted him gone after 2019, and after 2021, which was by no means unwarranted. The success of 2022 did reveal some hope that he may finally have figured out how to play in the CAA so while his seat isn’t hot in 2023 (this is the University of Richmond, no one’s seat is hot the year after making the playoffs) I still feel it’s a rather important season in terms of building back the program.

The biggest gripe against him was the lack of change offensively, as 2021 was effectively a lost season due to lack of offensive creativity – something that had been a lingering issue. Billy Cosh and Reece Udinski erased nearly all offensive concerns last year but it still has many wondering what the Spiders can do without a star grad-transfer QB and soon to be high profile offensive coordinator. While we’ll look at the offensive numbers that led to success last season we can’t ignore the turnaround Huesman has orchestrated defensively. There are no excuses for how things started but what he’s done the last two years on the defensive side of the ball are exactly why we hired him. If he can continue that success while maintaining some offensive firepower he can put a lot of fans’ uneasiness to rest.

2022 Quarter by quarter breakdown

I’ve got some overall trends that summarize Russ’ time here so far down below but the quarter by quarter really stood out for the 2022 season alone. For a team that hadn’t done a great job of starting well and keeping themselves in ballgames throughout the year we saw that change last season.

Fast Starts

After St. Francis last year it didn’t feel like we’d be a fast starting team however the Spiders ended up taking care of some bad competition early on, while also jumping out to strong leads against their best opponents.

• Lehigh – up 20 at half
• Stony Brook – up 28 at half
• Elon – tied at half
• Villanova – up 4 at half
• Hampton – up 14 at half
• Maine – up 14 at half
• UNH – up 17 at half
• Delaware – up 6 at half
• W&M – down 4 at half
• Davidson – up 27 at half
• Sacramento St – up 4 at half

It doesn’t matter who you’re playing, only being down to one team at half the last 11 games of the year is impressive and shows the focus the team came out with each week. Here’s where thing stood after 3 quarters against the best competition:

• Elon – up 3 entering the 4th quarter
• UNH – up 10 entering the 4th
• Delaware – up 9 entering the 4th
• W&M – down 11 entering the 4th
• Sacramento St. – up 7 entering the 4th

Beating every playoff caliber opponent except W&M entering the 4th quarter – you can’t ask for much more than that. That’s great, until you realize that Richmond inexplicably went 2-3 in those five games listed above. If the FCS went by LIV golf rules and only played three quarters instead of four we’d have been a semi-final team, so either we need some better donors or we’ve got a 4th quarter problem.

4th Quarter & Overtime

The 2022 season ‘Score by Periods’ is super fun if you stop reading roughly halfway through. +37 in Q1, +76 in Q2, +41 in Q3. No complaints, no weaknesses, and exactly what a top tier CAA team should do. Yet -11 in Q4 (I know it says -5 but it’s really -11) with an OT loss tacked on shows this team likely didn’t fulfill their full potential at the end of the day.

Like all data this can be somewhat flawed as games with big leads can have the better team “lose” the 4th quarter due to playing 2nd & 3rd stringers. Yet in Richmond’s case we didn’t see that at all – all blowout games averaged out to around even, as the loss differential truly came in the undecided games.

• Elon – lose 4th by 3, lose OT by 3
• UNH – lose 4th by 4 (full 2nd half by 11)
• Delaware – lose 4th by 7 (no I’m not counting Gio’s random TD at the end)
• W&M – tied 4th quarter
• Sacramento St. – lose 4th by 14

As exciting as the first group of stats were, the face that we didn’t win a 4th quarter against a solid team last season is quite concerning. Was it the lack of running game? Too conservative play-calling on offensive? (should I do the full Elon rant again?) Too conservative on defense? I’m sure each game is different however no matter how you look at it going 2-3 in those 5 games based on where things stood with 15 minutes to play is disheartening. Fast starts are great, but if you can’t win a 4th quarter it tends to not matter much.

High level metrics | 2018 – 2022

The scoring by period was purely 2022 focused – below are some high level stats on both sides that span all the Huesman years and show where real progression has occurred. I only want to compare “true” Russ Huesman years, so I won’t be using 2017. Completely different offense due to Kyle Lauletta and the first year after switching schemes isn’t entirely fair. I’m also not counting the four COVID spring games as both W&M and Elon were abysmal opponents. Anything below is strictly 2018, 2019, 2021, and 2022.

Complete 180 in PPG and 3rd down

Pretty easy to see how the Spiders flipped a 3-8 record in 2018 to an 8-3 record in 2022. Basically every statistical category shows a strong positive shift and there’s plenty more good ones that I didn’t have room to put. So much focus this past season was on the offense and what the newcomers were able to bring that almost no one talked about how Russ’ defense followed up a ridiculous 2021 year with a nearly-as-good 2022 campaign. Second straight year allowing 20 ppg, top-3 scoring defense again, 33% 3rd downs allowed, and the top ranked rush defense in the conference. For as bad as his scheme, personnel groupings, etc. looked early on he’s really got this group moving in the right direction. It was no accident one of the top rushing teams in the FCS (Sac St.) was barely able to move the ball on the ground against us. The great Huesman defenses from the 2000s were built from the D-line and things are no different in the 2020s. Russ deserved 100% of the criticism thrown his way early on however if you go and hire a defensive minded coach and he puts up these numbers you’ve got to offer praise at the same time.

Now, a lot of these jumps are due to the extremely low bar set in 2018. 22 points a game on offense, converting 28% of 3rd downs, and finishing last in scoring defense aren’t too difficult to improve upon. However most teams only experience a dramatic rise on one side of the ball at a time, not a complete reversal on both sides in the four year span. It’s no excuse for how poorly 2018 & 2019 looked, but a turnaround like that shows there’s real reason to have hope that this success can be sustained.

Redzone

I harped on redzone a lot last year and since I haven’t had the chance in months I won’t miss my opportunity now.

A near 20% jump in TD efficiency for the offense over a four year stretch however that’s more of a low 2018 bar than anything. 61% puts UR 55th out of 123 FCS teams for 2022, despite having the 17th most redzone appearances in the FCS. If we didn’t get down there very often and had one or two bad games then that would throw the whole season off, but to be nearly top-15 in redzone attempts and still not get 6 at a good clip is annoying.

For as much grief as I gave the offense last season I did a poor job doing the same for the defense, who didn’t end up much better. For all the progress shown in the previous table one of the biggest gripes last year ended up being redzone – on both sides of the ball. Run defense has been better, sacks are up, red zone attempts are significantly down (far right column) yet allowing TDs 59% of the time puts us outside the top third of FCS defenses. Percentage wise there’s essentially no improvement from the 2018/2019 seasons, so for all the steps Russ has made with this group I’d imagine this is an area that’s high on their list for the fall. When you’ve got as many starters returning as we do it’s not unfair to want to see that % drop into the mid/low 50s.

Special Teams

I struggle to dig into special teams stats during the season, so I made sure to do so over the summer. My overall sentiment after 2022 was that punting has taken a nice step forward, kicking remained solid, yet the kickoff game brings more anxiety than excitement. What I found was all those takes were technically correct, but not nearly as extreme as they needed to be.

Kicking/Punting

I know these are 11 man operations but ultimately so much of it comes down to one guy, with Larson and Trusler being special for the Spiders the past few seasons.

The Spiders entered Huesman’s tenure with a strong punting unit, lead by DJ Helkowski (very underrated in his time as a Spider). After 2017 the punting dropped off despite Russ being adamant that his style worked. Similar to the defense it took him a few years longer than anticipated however we enter 2023 with one of the strongest groups we’ve had in a long time. Since 2018 we’ve added over 8 yards per punt, which over the course of a 11 game schedule adds up pretty quickly. Richmond finished 2022 9th in the nation (1st in the CAA) in net punting yard average and there’s plenty of reason to believe we can crack the net-40 yard mark this season.

Field goals have been steady, and even with Larson kicking hurt for a good part of 2022 we still eclipsed the 70% mark. That’s a good number for FCS programs, with a high premium on 40 yards and in. Griffin Trau was a 2nd team All-American for UR in 2016 despite making only two field goals longer than 40 yards. Perfect on PATs, 23/26 overall, and converted just about every one you “needed” to make. Lopez doesn’t have the leg Larson does but if you can be rock solid inside 40 yards that’s a huge plus for an offense.

The last thing you shouldn’t take for granted at the FCS level is snapping and we’ve been fortunate for a while with this position. Brian Catanzarite continued that trend last season so we’re glad to have him back, although I’m curious how true freshman Weston Sharpe fits into the picture. With multiple talented snappers we could see a designated short-snapper & long-snapper, a somewhat rare occurrence at the FCS level, but no matter how it shakes out we’re in a tremendous spot at a very thankless position.

Kickoff coverage & returns (KOC & KOR)

With the good comes the bad, and just about everything regarding kickoffs sucks. 2018/2019 felt like error after error with this unit (Yale onside kick was the low point), with Dykes’ two TDs at Delaware the sole bright spot. A few years later and 2022 was somehow statistically worse, with the Spiders allowing two more kickoff returns for TDs, including one to open the 2nd half against Sac St. and essentially remove all momentum gained in the first 30 minutes. I knew this area wasn’t great for us but had no idea just how bad it had gotten.

Kickoff return yardage is undoubtedly trending, and not in a good way. Dykes’ talent likely covered up our issues early on but teams clearly have figured this unit out. Less than 16 yards per return is unfathomably poor so I sure hope we’ve got some ideas for 2023. Jasiah Williams going down doesn’t help things out too much so I’m curious where we’ll turn for some production. Don’t think we’ll see Savon back there but if we could just get this up to around 20 yards per return that would feel like a small victory.

Kickoff coverage has been better (?) than our return game, but not by much. A fully healthy Jake Larson in 2021 skewed these numbers significantly, with this group returning to a below average level in 2022. I’m not sure how strong the leg of Will McManus (Illinois transfer) is however I’d imagine he’ll get a fair chance to take kickoff duties away from Lopez. Touchbacks or not we have a ton of work to do with both of these units so I’ll be eyeing this heavily when the Spiders return in August.

Right now both groups feel like they could lose us a ballgame, but never win it. You don’t have to be exceptional in all areas but getting these groups out of the bottom of the CAA should be a top priority for the staff this summer/fall.

Recap

It obviously took us too long to get back to this spot, but I do think there’s too many areas that show significant progress for us to not feel confident about how things are trending. Putting together two straight playoff seasons is the next stepping stone so we’ll see how the Spiders handle success. So much will hinge on the new offense and personnel but the positive defensive and special teams stats are a welcomed sign of growth.

Next Post

Focused entirely on the defense: How much 4-2-5 should we expect to see with the new transfers and what does that look like from a personnel/scheme perspective?