“Embarrassed. I’m embarrassed. It’s an embarrassment. That’s ridiculous out there… I don’t think we competed. It’s not fun.” — Coach Huesman

FBS/FCS results

Welp, I guess we have to talk about it. Nothing fun about this road trip, with an early deficit growing after each drive until I saw a number on the scoreboard I never imagined. We had to get our 2s and 3s in to build experience and to protect our starters, so once it got out of hand in the 1st quarter you could tell it was going to be an ugly night.

While our game was bad, fortunately (?) neither our points allowed nor losing margin was the worst of 2026. The disparity between FBS/FCS rosters is only growing as the money gets crazier and crazier, with plenty of our peers suffering the same fate.

It’s really disheartening how easy it was to find 60+ point differentials, with plenty of FBS schools putting up 70+ points. Discussions about whether or not these FBS/FCS games should be played are alive and well, which is more of an offseason topic. Obviously the payday can be a deciding factor, and that may be all we need to make our decision. If so, then so be it.

In the end, we shouldn’t be on the wrong end of a 70-point loss no matter who we’re playing. There’s no excuse for being that uncompetitive against an FBS roster. Many of the FCS schools listed above are nowhere near our level, so while they suffered similar fates we shouldn’t care to compare ourselves to them. Surely we can do better than that as a program.

Game thoughts

There’s no point in diving into the numbers like I usually do. They scored a bunch, we didn’t. They moved the ball, we didn’t. I’m not putting on rose-colored glasses to tell you everything is amazing, or to act like it wasn’t a humiliating night.  It’s a nasty looking box score and we need to move past it QUICKLY.

Injuries – Safety Caleb Geronomi, receiver Andreas Hill, and tackle Godwin Burger did not play. Geronomi and Hill looked fine on the sidelines, but I did not see Burger.

Running back Michael Creamer went down and returned with a wrapped leg and a limp. Fellow running back Jamaal Brown was out with a brace on his knee but was fairly active on the sidelines. Jordan Allen did not play after the lightning delay, with ice on his right hand. Braxton Lassiter left with a shoulder/arm injury, but seemed ok afterwards.

Like Coach said, every time we get someone back it feels like we lose somebody else. It was great having a defensive captain return, but we’re insanely thin in the RB room if Creamer and Brown are out for extended periods of time.

Player participation – Lots of Spiders saw game action in this one. Glad to see Jack Callaghan get the entire 2nd half at QB, along with a couple reserve linemen. While nothing worked defensively, we seemingly got the entire travel squad some game action.

Offense

The drive chart summarizes the offense’s night well:

• Only one drive lasted more than five plays
• Only one drive amassed over 20 yards
• Richmond ran just eight total plays in their territory, never getting inside the NCSU 35-yard line

Butter Stephenson – Awesome game from Butter. The walk-on from Douglas Freeman High School got his first real game action Friday night and didn’t miss his chance. 14 carries for 58 yards won’t jump off the page, but his quickness and toughness are going to win over UR fans quickly. No one played harder than #36 and it was a bright spot on a rather bleak evening. Let’s also be clear — Butter is not some feel-good story that you won’t hear about again — he’s now your RB2. With Jamaal Brown and Michael Creamer likely missing time, Stephenson is going to have the ball in some critical moments the next few weeks.

Play calling/Passing chart – No messing around in terms of approach. I’ll steal a line from the SpiderNation message boards — “You wanted more passing, you got it; you wanted fewer QB runs, you got it; you wanted the TE more involved in the passing game, you got it.” I wanted the Spiders to maintain the approach that yielded success against Bucknell and Howard, and we did just that, staying away from QB runs and targeting receivers farther downfield.

Richmond had 31 1st half plays — 24 were called passes. We had a couple of nice screen designs for Sean Clarke that didn’t pan out, got Bryce Allen plenty of targets, and had a man wide open for an easy TD on the botched flea-flicker.

Now, obviously Snelsire going 8/23 isn’t going to get the job done, but it’s a pretty solid passing chart in terms of where the ball was thrown.

My point isn’t that the offense played well. I expect better from #18 against Georgetown and we need Aziz to reestablish our running game. I was encouraged, however, that the Spiders didn’t shy away from what worked in our first two games. If you’re looking for something positive to take away from Friday night, it’s that.

Bo Fowler – Fowler has slid over from RG to RT with Godwin Burger’s absence. Burger was playing well, so how we adjusted up front was a big concern; however, Fowler has done extremely well. #72 was Richmond’s highest-rated offensive lineman (both run & pass blocking) against NC State, a good sign that our new O-line combination can work.

Defense

This is far more shocking than the offense’s performance. 11 scoring drives, six consecutive TDs to open the game, and only one punt the entire evening. We don’t need to dive into their total offense or record-setting scoring — like the offense, we all know it was bad, so let’s move on. I’ll keep it to two statistics:

Chunk plays – The Wolfpack had 10 plays of 20+ yards, amounting to 426 yards of offense. Those 426 yards are more than some teams produce in an entire game, as any chance of the Spiders hanging around was quickly dashed by an explosive NC State offense. Five came via the run and five via the pass. No matter what NC State called, we didn’t have an answer and were exposed at every level.

Tackling – PFF has the Spiders missing 33 tackles on Friday. With the Wolfpack running 73 plays, that’s nearly one missed tackle for every two plays NC State ran. For reference, the 2025 Spiders missed 122 tackles last year, so in one game we had over 1/4 of our total allotment from last year. Again, another stat that doesn’t need much commentary — you have to get the ball carrier on the ground. I do wonder if our thin numbers hurt our ability to practice tackling during camp (we had to shut down the full tackle scrimmage after Jordan Allen’s injury), but that’s no excuse for what happened on Friday.

Special Teams

No returns from the Spiders and no PATs/FG attempts for Bitsko.

It was effectively the Ned Gray show once again, averaging 42 yards/punt with a couple downed inside the 20. He did a nice job of limiting returns, as NCSU finished with 38 return yards, but it should’ve been half of that (blatant missed block in the back). I hate seeing #37 out there too often but he continues to excel when called upon.

Going Forward

I said in the Schedule Preview over the summer that the Furman/Lafayette two-game stretch feels just as critical as our November gauntlet. A huge non-conference home game plus a tricky road test in early October could determine our November trajectory. Now, you may as well put the Georgetown game right at the top. It’s not a resume-building game by any means, but I think we’re going to learn a lot about the character of this team this upcoming Saturday.

We’re supposed to lose to NC State — they didn’t pay us $400k for a good game. Yet 73-0 is nothing like FBS losses of the past.  Sure, we caught them at the wrong time, coming off a bye week and fired up after a bad loss to UVA, but having to play a shortened 4th quarter just to get things over with is brutal. Ultimately, a loss is a loss, especially one that won’t impact our FCS playoff resume.  Now it’s about not letting a demoralizing defeat affect your play moving forward. A hurt ego is no reason to lose sight of bigger goals, all of which are still in play. It’s on the staff and our captains to put this behind us and come out with the same enthusiasm/fight we saw the first two FCS games.

The momentum from Games 1 & 2 should still be there — the defense gave up 14 points each game (really good) and the offense displayed an identity that got us early results (seven 1st half TDs in two games). None of that goes away unless we let it; how the Spiders respond and move past this will define the next few weeks and potentially our season. Leaving Saturday’s struggles down in Raleigh and turning that frustration towards Georgetown is the mark of a mature locker room, and now it’s on this group of Spiders to show they can do exactly that.

Next Post

2026 — Game 4: Georgetown Preview – Friday, September 18th