An upset Saturday for the Spiders. Richmond shut down the Rhode Island Rams offense in route to a massive CAA victory. It was yet another top-25 road win for the Spiders, who kept their slim playoff & CAA hopes alive with a favorable schedule on the horizon.

Drives

1st half drives on the left, 2nd half drives on the right

Offense

12 drives – 5 punts (42%), 3 TDs (25%), 3 turnovers [1 on downs] (25%), 1 FG (8%)

The explosiveness was there early but overall Saturday was about balance. The stars had some great plays and we saw some progress in a few key areas.

Camden Coleman plays like a QB1 – The 2nd half against Hampton and the entire game against Maine felt too good to be true however Coleman cemented his status as a true QB1 talent despite his youth. He made some huge throws early on to give the Spiders the lead and once again looked comfortable commanding the offense. Wasn’t a high completion percentage day but his ability to find the chunk play has been crucial to this offense’s recent success.

Camden Coleman also plays like a true freshman – With the good… comes the bad. Second straight game with multiple INTs and neither of these were “good” interceptions. Such is life though – you can’t ask a true freshman to throw the ball 60+ times in two games and not expect some bad decisions. They’ll continue to work to cut down on the mistakes, and while this shouldn’t be something we become accustomed to we’ve got to keep in mind that this is bound to happen early in a QB’s career.

Great running tweaks – The opening drive of the game saw Richmond run a toss play, an off-tackle run, and pull the backside guard and tight-end. We saw a lot more wider runs for four quarters and the adjustments were incredibly effective. Still had the typical inside runs but the balance and different looks led to a strong day upfront.

This is much more up Savon’s alley, as he really excels in space and moving laterally. His best game of the season and Fonnae Webb ended up snagging the second most carries from the RBs. Safe to say the wider running tweaks were solid and should be something we see a lot more of moving forward.

Wickersham is back – Don’t tell me you forgot about that second name on the rushing box score. It felt like Wickersham was close to full-go last week and we had a great plan to get him involved upon his return. Coleman remains QB1 until further notice however there’s plenty of situations to take advantage of what #16 does. He took control of the final drive and gave the Spiders a two-TD lead behind his powerful running. The more he runs, the more defenses cheat up, and the closer we are to getting that big play over the top. I’d imagine Wickersham gets 8-10 snaps next game, with potentially a stronger focus when it comes to redzone/short yardage.

3rd downs – 2/12 won’t get many excited however our average yards to go was 9.7. Only three of the 12 3rd downs were 3rd & 6 (or less), as we either had early success in drives or stalled quickly.

Passing chart – Dare I say we were too aggressive? “Too aggressive” isn’t the correct phrase however it felt like one too many home run shots when we had chances to pick-up solid yardage in the intermediate game.

Contradictory of me to come on here and ask us to throw it to DeGennaro deep more often and then be disappointed when 40% of our attempts are 16+ yards downfield, but that’s where I’m at. When you’re winning you can be picky. I’d rather us throw it deep too often than not often enough however with a good running game there’s a ton of space in the mid-range that we aren’t capitalizing on. We also are favoring the sidelines still as the middle continues to only see about 20% of the targets. As the deep threats continue to develop and our running game remains strong there will be plenty of space over the middle that we’ve got to capitalize on. Can’t live on throwing outside the numbers forever.

Defense

11 drives – 4 punts (37%), 3 turnovers (27%), 2 FG attempts (18%), 2 TDs (18%)

Once again this Spider defense rises to the occasion and plays to its highest level against the best opponents. We saw this last year against Delaware and it was the defense that won us this game on Saturday.

Pressure – Going against one of the better O-lines in the CAA, the Spiders tallied seven TFLs and six sacks. Another great game by a Spider edge defender, this time from Jeremiah Grant. Three sacks and six tackles, with constant disruption in the running game as well. That was our fourth game of the year with 3+ sacks and our fifth game with 6+ TFLs. Kasim Hill never looked comfortable in the little time he had in the pocket, and while some Rhody fans might try and put this loss on his injury it was clear we had this team figured out pretty early on.

Turnovers – Richmond has forced multiple turnovers in six of seven games this season. We only did that in seven of 13 games last year so it’s nice to see this trending upwards.

Tristan Wheeler – Now officially top-5 in tackles in UR history. Currently sits at 417 and is just 30 away from taking over the #2 spot. We knew this was coming and he had a solid game this past weekend. Plenty of great runs fits, made a few key 1-on-1 tackles, and nearly had an INT that might’ve gone back the other way. On pace to take over the #2 spot on senior day against Elon – couldn’t script it any better.

Red zone – I talked in the preview about how important the red zone defense would be for Richmond and that’s exactly where we won this game. Rhode Island had four red zone trips:

• 1st & Goal @ 4 yard line | Result = FG
• 1st & 10 @ 11 yard line | Result = Fumble
• 1st & 10 @ 12 yard line | Result = missed FG
• 1st & 10 @ 16 yard line | Result = TD

10 total points on four red zone trips for the Rams. Remember, they were converting those into TDs at a 77% clip for an average of 5.2 points per red zone trip. The Spiders held them to just 2.5 points per trip, and the stops in the 1st half really put the game in our hands. All around this defense stepped up in the biggest spots and got stops when they needed it most.

Special Teams

Unsung play of the game was Aaron Trusler’s 64 yard punt early in the 4th quarter. Richmond was up 7 but faced 4th down at our own 10. The Rhody defense had just pinned us deep and they were set to flip the field and potentially tie up the game. Trusler’s 64 yard punt put them all the way back to their own 26, and after a 3-and-out Richmond got the ball at our own 35. What should’ve been a big swing in Rhody’s favor ended up going our way.

That 64 yarder led Trusler to average 46 yards per punt on the day. Not much excitement in any other special teams areas but we can’t let that play go without praise. He’s come up big all season and really changed the tune of how that 4th quarter might’ve gone.

Top-25 success on the road

Saturday was Richmond’s sixth top-25 road win since 2017. When eight wins is the magic number grabbing a critical road win each season goes a long way towards that goal. This has a become a common occurrence for this program and it’s great to see us bounce back after a disastrous September. No doubt this team remains focused, and although the margins remain razor tight it’s clear we’ll see the Spiders’ best effort each week from here on out.

Next Post

North Carolina A&T preview (Friday morning)