The Spiders of October used the bye week and came out with an even better version of ourselves in November. Amazing 1st half offensively, great pressure on defense, and a statement win to remain in the hunt for the CAA title and a playoff bid.

Drives

Offense

11 drives – 5 TDs (46%), 4 punts (36%), 1 FG (9%), 1 turnover (9%)

Offensive line passes a big test – The Hawgs stepped up in a huge moment and delivered their best showing to date. The Spiders ran for over 200 yards, at >6 YPC, and only allowed two sacks (one was partially Wickersham’s fault) to a pressure heavy Elon D-line. I questioned whether their statistical progress was because of improvement or lack of competition, and the former is the resounding answer. We saw both Gray and Mitchell work in at RT, as we can probably pencil those two in as our two tackles next season. Right now Coach Ross has this group playing at an extremely high level with the Capital Cup showdown on the horizon.

Kyle Wickersham – We’ve seen him show the passing ability the past few weeks but he wasn’t about to let us forget the damage he can do with his legs. Remove the sacks and he ran for 147 yards on 11 carries, with plenty of crucial 3rd down runs and a huge 52 yarder to seal the victory. His command of the offense has been the most promising sign the past weeks. He looks comfortable in the pocket, has done an excellent job mixing up the snap counts (4 Elon penalties in the 1st half for offsides), and makes quick decisions in the RPO game. Five starts in and #16 is really rounding into form.

Coaches improve during the season too – We can talk about how far along the O-line has come, or how Savon Smith has returned to his old form in recent weeks, yet the two that deserve the most praise might be Co-OCs Winston October and Adam Ross. Not only has this offense turned into a group that can beat you in a variety of ways, but they’ve also had to navigate injuries to multiple QBs and win some big games with a true freshman QB. The downfield passing attack continues to shine each week, we’re getting our best players the ball in space, and we’re starting to find our powerful ground game again. It’s clear they hit the reset button after September and that has put the Spiders in a position to go win a CAA title. The 1st half they called on Saturday was one of the best in recent memory, capped off by a beautiful redzone design to get Savon wide open for a TD – one more gem from these two and we should be playing some Thanksgiving football.

Bye week adjustments – Richmond was busy over the bye week. We went under center three or four times, something we hadn’t seen all season. That plays directly into Wickersham’s skill set as you aren’t stopping him very often on a 3rd/4th & 1 QB sneak. Throw in a few more trick plays and this unit was simply more prepared and more talented than Elon. Great to see us take advantage of the time off, as the late bye looks to be perfectly timed.

Passive 3rd quarter – I’m too pessimistic to not find something I didn’t like, even during a 5-game winning streak, so let’s get a little picky. We took our foot off the pedal way too early. First three drives of the 3rd quarter didn’t have any passes that traveled more than 3 yards downfield. Most were screens, with a few to tight ends in the flat. That resulted in just 21 yards and one 1st down which felt overly conservative in a spot where we could’ve closed the door on the Phoenix. Is a 5 TD, 38-point game that saw over 400 yards of offense good enough to win most games? For sure. But like I said, I’m picky.

Defense

11 drives – 5 punts (46%), 3 TDs (27%), 2 turnovers on downs (18%), 1 FG (9%)

A garbage time TD make this look closer than it was, as the Spiders held the big-play Phoenix offense to only 17 points up until then. Jalen Hampton broke off a long TD run, but outside of that we contained him well. This group set the tone in the 1st half and didn’t let off in the 2nd.

Steady play – The rise of the Spiders offense has overshadowed how well this defense has been playing. The past four games (starting @ Rhody) this defense is allowing 16 PPG while tallying 4 sacks/game. We’ve seen great individual games from a number of players, as well as plenty of turnovers forced as a group. Against a strong W&M front next week we’ll need these guys at their best once again.

Pressure – Richmond’s D-line disrupted Elon’s game plan all day. They had no time to work the ball deep as often as they would’ve preferred, as even when we weren’t generating a sack the pocket was quick to collapse. Four sacks, eight TFLs, and multiple penalties & QB hurries forced. We did all that without blitzing, as we rarely saw an extra rusher used. It was exactly what we needed to knock them off balance and their offense never was able to settle in.

Tristan Wheeler – Four consecutive seasons of 100+ tackles isn’t likely something we’ll see again anytime soon. Everyone talks about his durability and no stat better displays it than this. 11 tackles, one TFL, and a QB hurry on the day, and it’s his ability to cover sideline to sideline that makes him so valuable. Tremendous senior day sendoff for #30.

Defending the boundary – Again, this is picky, however DC Justin Wood was fairly animated for the second straight week when it came to giving up 8-10 yard passing plays in the boundary. Not sure if we weren’t playing it correctly or if there are communication issues, however that’s been the only real negative you could find in recent games. He’s an excitable guy on the sidelines but seemed even more so on a few of those plays. Interested to see if we see a noticeable change, especially against a W&M team that will attack the flats much more often.

Special Teams

A solid job by our KOC unit on Saturday. That was a well above-average Elon KOR unit and we didn’t let them break anything big. That’s all we need from our kickoff coverage.

The Aaron Trusler section of the recaps now includes rushing stats, as #36 wasn’t content with continually downing punts inside the 20. Sure, he averaged over 45 yards/punt, with two more downed inside the 20, but the highlight everyone was talking about was him seeing the lack of an Elon rush and taking it 20 yards down the right sideline (+15 for the late hit). That felt like Trusler’s discretion, with Huesman giving him the ability to take off if he sees open space. Either way, it was another highlight for our soon-to-be All-CAA punter.

CAA Auto-bid

If three teams tie at 7-1, it goes to point differential. We’re far behind Delaware and Villanova in that category so we’ve got one shot at this.

• Richmond beats William & Mary
• Delaware beats Villanova
• Monmouth beats Albany

First two are very realistic, the Monmouth part is where it gets tricky. Can they go on the road and beat Albany when the Great Danes know they are playing for a CAA title and potential bye week? Let’s hope so.

Bubble Watch

Walking out of Robins Stadium I was 99% sure a win @ W&M meant the Spiders were in – now I’m about 80% sure. I messaged with Sam Herder on a few things and here was his response to UR being a guaranteed at-large with a win at W&M.

Unfortunately three teams played their way back onto the bubble over the weekend, while the experts online are still favoring six Missouri Valley teams to get in. That’s quickly eating up the at-large spots and most projections keep mentioning UR’s lack of quality wins. I still feel the committee will value an 8-win CAA champion, however having seen an 8-3, CAA champion Richmond team not make the playoffs (2012) has me on edge.

The good news is that as of yesterday College Sports Madness has us IN and Brian McLaughlin has us as the 2nd team OUT – the caveat is McLaughlin is projecting a loss to W&M, so I’d imagine a win would move us to the right side of the bubble in his mind. Herder’s projection won’t come out until later but he’ll likely have us IN as well.

Our problem isn’t where we currently stand, it’s what happens when a few other bubble games go the wrong way. I’ll be sure to outline the few games we’ll need to keep our eye on in the W&M preview.

Next Post

William & Mary preview (Friday morning)