The Spiders are 60 minutes of good football away from clinching a third straight playoff berth. No doubt we’re aiming for much more than that but still a significant achievement on the line tomorrow. Hampton is no free game, something this team learned all too well last season.

Hampton Pirates

A resurgent 2024 for Hampton, earning five wins before November for the first time since 2017. They sit at 5-5 but they’re a few plays away from being a playoff contender. In three CAA homes games they’ve suffered a double-OT loss to Rhode Island, beat Elon by 20 points, and lost to Villanova by six. Cleary a team that can compete with the best the CAA has to offer, and if we make the same mistakes for a second consecutive game we likely won’t be as fortunate to head back to Richmond with a win.

Betting

Richmond -8 with an O/U of 52 is the average of the lines I’m seeing. Projected score would be 30-22. Hampton is 6-3 against the spread on the year, and 4-1 ATS at home.

Spiders on Offense

Plenty of talk about how Hampton’s offense matches up against Richmond, yet our offense could be facing the more difficult test tomorrow. The Pirates are #3 in the CAA in total defense, pressure the QB well, and are great on 3rd down.

Nick DeGennaro – Coach Huesman announced on Wednesday that DeGennaro will be out, which obviously changes things for this offense. DeGennaro missed the Delaware State game earlier this season and the targets from that game should give us an idea of how tomorrow looks.

Expect the Spiders to spread the targets around to fill DeGennaro’s absence. Landon Ellis’ role expands as the primary option, something we’ve already seen in recent weeks. Ja’Vion Griffin is the other main outside threat, as getting him back last week ends up being great timing. I think Griffin has the most untapped potential right now and I’d love for him to have a big game before playoffs begin. I’m also expecting Garcia Jr.’s production to stay high. He’s had 10 catches the past three games after only having 13 in our first seven.

Keith Gouveia – The positive injury news is that Keith Gouveia is set to return. #66 was active on the sidelines last weekend despite not playing, and per the Wednesday press conference we could see him against Hampton. Scott Hummel has filled in well during his absence, so I’ll be watching to see just how many snaps Gouveia gets and how we manage that moving forward.

Cam Coleman – Richmond’s offense under Coleman is rounding into form. In the last four games he’s thrown for 240 YPG despite averaging only 17 completions. We’re keeping the yards/completion and yards/attempt high, and although the running game hasn’t been outstanding, we’ve balanced things enough to score 31 PPG.

The Pirates give up 7.9 yards/attempt, 4th most in the CAA. For an overall strong defense they are susceptible to chunk plays, meaning we’ll need Coleman to have a great game stretching the field. He’s missed a few bigger throws the past couple of weeks, so if he finds the form he had in October we could see another big day.

We’re also seeing him run it more. #14 has run it 9+ times in three of our last four games, adding that extra wrinkle to our rushing game. I’d prefer that number not get much higher however his ability to create with his legs is another problem that defenses are having to account for.

Offensive line – Remove the William & Mary game and Hampton would have the #2 run defense in the CAA. A physical 4-2-5 defense awaits the Spiders, and although our pass protection remains solid our ability to win the line of scrimmage in the run game has slowed down. I mentioned that ZPS’ yards/carry is down to 4 during the last month, and our rushing success on early downs has dropped. Hampton has done the opposite, with their best games coming in late-October/November. The past four games Hampton is allowing just 45 YPG rushing, with the Pirates holding Villanova to 92 and Towson to 57 yards. They’ve also tallied 15 sacks and 27 TFLs in that four-game stretch, as their defense has come on strong after a rough September.

These guys took the fight to us last year. Richmond only managed 30 yards on the ground, while being sacked four times. I don’t know if we’ll view this as a revenge game or not, but for me this is a statement game. We knew physical teams were on the schedule in November, and two weeks in we’ve played ok but not great. Having this O-line put together a complete game would be huge towards securing a win and showing that we’re ready for whoever comes our way in December.

Spiders on Defense

Not much to say here, as facing Hampton will be like watching a replay of Campbell. Running QB, run first offense, just with less passing.

Top rushing offenses – Here come the big tests for the UR defense. After allowing 270 yards against Campbell, UR will face the #3 and #1 rushing offenses in the CAA the next two weeks. Hampton runs for 195 YPG – running backs Ja’Quan Snipes and Elijah Burris both average more than 50 YPG, while both quarterbacks they use combine for 50 yards. A very balanced attack that uses options and designed QB runs to force defenses into 1-on-1 situations. 53% of their QB runs have been outside the tackles, as they’ll test our discipline on read options while forcing us to make plays on the edge. We need a better tackling effort than last week.

If we can slow down the Pirates’ ground game it almost certainly will lead to a UR victory. In five losses this season Hampton ran for 146.8 YPG, scoring just 20.6 PPG. In five wins they ran for 243.4 YPG, which led to nearly 40 PPG. These guys don’t want to throw the ball and it’s on our defense to make them. Winning early downs and forcing them into passing situations is the blueprint tomorrow.

Time of possession – Hampton keeps the ball for nearly 33 minutes each game. A lot of their success stems from controlling the clock, keeping the opposing offense on the sidelines, and wearing teams down. They’re great on both 3rd (45%) and 4th down (67%), as they do an excellent job of controlling the game and limiting possessions. We want our offense having 11+ possessions, and any game that sees our defense have to continually defend 5+ minute drives gets increasingly harder. We always need to get stop, but 3 & outs or short drives are imperative in a game like this. Finding ways to keep our defense fresh and ensure our offense has the chance to get 30+ points is key.

Contain – Less about pressure, more about contain. Hampton has only thrown for 200 yards once in six CAA games, so it’s unlikely they drop back enough for us to get 4+ sacks. What has to improve is our QB contain. Delaware State and Campbell looked eerily similar in this regard, with the Spiders doing a nice job of creating pressure yet not able to keep the QB contained. This led to both QBs picking up numerous 1st downs and creating big plays with their legs.

I’m curious if we’ll see the Spiders blitz more. We brought almost no extra pressure last weekend, clearly with a focus on QB contain. That didn’t work as well as we wanted it to so there could be some tweaks tomorrow. With Hampton’s struggles passing the ball we should feel more comfortable leaving our secondary 1-on-1, so I’d love to see Wayne Galloway bringing more pressure rather than being a spy. He’s the highest rated pass rusher of UR linebackers and we’re at our best when he’s creating disruption behind the line of scrimmage. We may stick with our original plan, however if the blitzes do increase expect #9 to be a big part of that.

Special Teams

Hampton averages the 4th lowest yards/return on kickoffs in the entire FCS (15.18), so Richmond should have no issues covering kicks. I know I said the same thing against a bad Campbell unit last week (we know how that went) but look for the Spiders to get back on track here.

Hampton has the advantage on the other side – their KOC unit allows the 9th lowest return average in the FCS (15.73). Richmond’s struggles are well documented here and unfortunately it won’t get any easier tomorrow. I’m interested to see if our scheme or personnel changes.

The biggest area to watch is punt return. Hampton has the lowest punting average in the CAA (33 yards), nearly an entire 1st down shorter than Richmond (42.1). Who returns punts for the Spiders could be the interesting part. Quanye Veney had no intentions of fielding his punt return last weekend, similar to what we saw at Delaware State. With DeGennaro out, who we put back there and how we approach each punt return will be telling. We probably see Veney but don’t count out Ja’Vion Griffin – he looked comfortable in this spot during camp.

FCS Preview

Top 8 teams

There are six teams I don’t see us jumping in the rankings – Montana State, North Dakota State, South Dakota State, UC Davis, Mercer, and Idaho. They either have multiple ranked wins, a better SoS, or some combination of metrics that puts them ahead of a 10-2 UR. For now, our watching interest is on four teams:

• Incarnate Word – @ Stephen F Austin
• South Dakota – @ North Dakota
• Montana – vs Portland State
• Villanova – @ Monmouth

Any of these four teams losing the next two weeks only strengthens UR’s odds to get a first round bye.

I keep seeing Villanova ranked just as high as Richmond, and although a 10-2 undefeated CAA champ should be ahead of 10-2 non-CAA champ Villanova, they’re going to have a better strength of schedule with more ranked wins. Again, the CAA champ should take priority, but the committee has done crazier things. Having Villanova lose a game down the stretch wouldn’t hurt.

Next Post

Game 11 – 2024: Hampton recap – Monday, November 18th