Your Richmond Spiders are CAA Champions for the second straight season and have qualified for the FCS Playoffs for the third straight season. The winning streak is up to nine and we’re now aiming for more than a playoff berth in the final regular season game of the year.

From 0-2 to CAA champs

Damn if they didn’t do it again. Richmond survives another 0-2 start to come back and win the CAA title for the second straight season. What this group has done recently can’t be overstated. Two CAA titles. Three straight playoff appearances. A 20-3 CAA record since 2022. 13 game CAA winning streak. That’s the sign of a great program and that doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the result of great coaching, great recruiting, and great commitment by the players. As a fan there’s nothing better than seeing your team continually play in meaningful games, and while it’s easy to get caught up in the week to week we can’t lose sight of just how impressive these accomplishments are.

For a program entering unchartered territory in 2025, we couldn’t be in a much better spot. We’re winning with great transfer help, we’re winning with our own younger guys, and we’re winning with fantastic veteran leadership. The Richmond football program has made the playoffs in three consecutive seasons for just the third time in program history (2007-2009, 2014-2016, 2022-2024). Congrats to the older guys that have been a part of all three, and I’m sure the younger guys don’t plan on letting up anytime soon.

Drives

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

Offense

55 snaps | 7 drives – 3 TDs (43%), 2 turnovers [1 on downs] (29%), 1 FG (14%), 1 punt (14%)

With everything I said above, that only means I’m going to keep viewing this offense from a “December football” lens. This group has been solid, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed with how November has gone. None of our opponents have been easy, but the offense not scoring 30 points in any of the past three games isn’t what any of us were hoping for. We’ve scored when we’ve needed to and made plenty of clutch drives, however we’ll need another gear to beat any top 10 we’ll hopefully face here soon.

Run/pass balance – These numbers keep jumping out at me and it was pretty clear what our trends were during the game on Saturday. Below are the 1st half numbers:

• 1st down – 7 run, 5 pass (58% run)
• 2nd down – 6 run, 4 pass (60% run)

Great splits because we were having success. It started with a 54-yard run on the opening play of the game, with ZPS tallying 111 yards in the first 30 minutes. Richmond ran for 7.1 YPC in the 1st half, converted well on 3rd down, and even picked up one 4th down conversion. Now for the 2nd half numbers:

• 1st down – 12 run, 0 pass (100% run)
• 2nd down – 8 run, 3 pass (73% run)

That’s not a typo. Zero 1st down runs for the Spiders in the 2nd half. The predictable early down running led Hampton to pack the box with eight or nine defenders. If our 1st half success continued or if we opened up a big lead it would’ve made sense, yet neither of those happened. The lead was either 10 or 3 points the entire half, our average yards/rush dropped from 7.1 down to just 3, and we finished with 10 rushes (27%) going for zero or negative yardage. Hampton knew what was coming and we didn’t seem to adjust.

The result was Cam Coleman only attempting five 2nd half passes (he completed all five) and Hampton hanging around until the very end. I’m sure some of this was designed to give our defense rest, however we were playing with fire once again. I’ll view the October/November trends more in the W&M preview, but for now I feel we’re missing chances to extend leads with our run heavy approach.

Red zone – Only seven full possessions in this game for each team, as both teams running the ball kept the clock moving. A crazy low number for college football and it naturally made the scoring lower. Despite that, we still found ourselves in the red zone four times, scoring TDs on three drives. A solid 75% day for the Spiders with just a 4th & 1 conversion away from likely a perfect day. This hasn’t been our strong suit but in a game where we really needed to execute well the offense came up big.

Landon Ellis – Let’s get to some individual performances. With DeGennaro out, Ellis stepped up. #1 hauled in five passes for 70 yards and a TD, with a huge 38-yard grab in the 3rd quarter to set up our final TD. Ellis now has 502 receiving yards and four TDs on the season, a great sophomore season for the VA native. He’ll be called on even more moving forward, as from the looks on the sideline it didn’t feel like DeGennaro was coming back anytime soon.

Zach Palmer-Smith – Saved the best for last, as ZPS has the first 1,000-yard season for Richmond since Jacobi Green in 2015. An absolute gem out of the portal from this staff and he should be our first all-conference running back in a decade. With one regular season and X number of playoff games remaining, ZPS already has the 9th most rushing yards in a UR season (1,146) and the 8th most TDs (12). Congrats to Zach on the excellent season!

Defense

79 snaps | 7 drives – 3 TDs (43%), 3 turnovers [2 on downs] (43%), 1 punt (14%)

Tackling – A great tackling day from the Spiders. This was our highest rated day from PFF in this category, with our secondary doing a great job of tackling receivers in space and helping in run support when needed. An up and down area for Richmond this year thankfully had a solid day on Saturday, so I’m hoping we’ve built some consistency before a Tribe team that we know will force us to tackle well.

Carter Glassmyer – 15 tackles and a sack for Glassmyer, who now has 77 tackles in his first season for the Spiders. He’s played some of his best football in recent weeks, especially in run support. We didn’t see UR pressure like I thought we might but #10 secured some big tackles for the defense.

3rd down – Hampton went 13/18 (72%) on 3rd down, a stat that single handedly kept them in the ball game. Our defense couldn’t get off the field, with nine of the 13 conversions coming via the pass. We looked to be in relatively good position but they took advantage of some 1-on-1s and it led to sustained drives for their offense. The Pirates’ success on early downs helped here, as their average yards to go was just 5.4. That’s a short distance for a team that faced 18 3rd downs.

Defensive line – Amazing toughness from our D-line once again. It was a war upfront all game yet we held them to roughly 4 YPC in the end.

All four starters played 90% of the snaps, and how about Matei Fitz never leaving the field? That’s special from a defensive tackle. Similar to the Towson game, these guys only got better as the game went along. Hampton’s YPC dropped slightly in the 2nd half, but it was four important sacks (three in the 4th quarter) that brought this one home for UR. Stocklinski and Fitz combined for two sacks, and each now has 3.5 sacks for the season.

The endurance from all four to play that many snaps over the course of a game, and season, remains underappreciated and has carried this UR defense down the stretch. Credit to the players and credit to both D-line coaches (Chris Ellis, Rob Noel).

Special Teams

I said the Spiders were trending in the wrong direction here and they got things turned around over the weekend.

Solid game from Will McManus, with multiple touchbacks and great placement on kickoffs into the wind. The wind-aided kickoff recovery five minutes in gave the Spiders a lead they would never surrender. Nice awareness by Chance Graves to locate and secure the football.

Aaron Trusler was special again. He kept the ball on his version of the read option, resulting in UR converting a 4th & 10 near midfield. The offense didn’t do much after that, so Trusler came back out and pinned Hampton at their own 2-yard line. Excited for #35 to earn another 1st team All-CAA honor.

Coach Huesman turned things back over to Sean O’Haire, with #36 handling both PATs and FGs. He drilled another 47-yard field goal and is now a perfect 7-7 on the season. He’s secured the redshirt at this point so we should see O’Haire moving forward.

FCS recap

Richmond will enter the top 10 in the FCS Stats poll this week. Villanova’s loss helps UR’s case towards a top 8 seed but that was the only other positive result from our teams to watch. More on this Friday, however I’m still seeing scenarios where a 10-2 Richmond squad doesn’t get a first round bye.

Next Post

Game 12 – 2024: William & Mary preview – Friday, November 22nd