Another 2nd-half thriller in Robins Stadium, and another one the Spiders found a way to survive, moving to 3-1 (2-0 Patriot League) on the season.

Game thoughts

Box score – Richmond dominated the box score on Saturday.

Yards, plays, time of possession — there wasn’t a major stat that the UR offense didn’t win. Still, we found ourselves in a game that was far too close, allowing Georgetown to tie it before putting together one final drive to steal the win. It’s more of the same from the Spiders compared to our first two FCS games — fast start, bad finish.

1st half/2nd half – After three FCS games, you can officially call this a theme.

UR Offense:

• 1st halves — 69 points, 10 TDs
• 2nd halves — 18 points, 2 TDs

UR Defense:

• 1st halves — 15 points allowed, 2 TDs
• 2nd halves — 41 points allowed, 6 TDs

It’s not as bad on the defensive side of the ball, but you can condense these game summaries into one point — the Spiders can’t close teams out. Injuries certainly aren’t helping, as we’ve clearly lost some of our edge as these games have gone along. We’ve seen past Richmond teams wear opponents down and finish strong, but right now it’s the Spiders who look more worn down late. That’s a trend that has to change because better teams aren’t going to keep letting us survive it.

Offense

Ultimately, we moved the ball well. Nine drives of 35+ yards allowed us to control field position, with six possessions getting inside the G’Town 25-yard line. Finishing drives, however, was a different story, as Kyle Bitsko’s name wouldn’t even be mentioned had we been better in the red zone.

Red zone – Six trips inside the G’Town 25 (high redzone), but just two TDs. Forget the missed field goals, that TD ratio is poor, especially against a well-below-average redzone defense. We had 18 plays within the high redzone — 10 passes, 8 runs. Snelsire was just 3/10 on those passes, and I think we’re throwing it more in those situations because of our short-yardage rushing struggles. The incompletions don’t concern me nearly as much as why we’re having to throw it so often in the first place. Either way, Saturday was a great reminder of how important redzone execution is.

Ashten Snelsire – 29/49, 322 yards, 1 TD, 0 INTs. Another box score that you can’t argue with. I thought #18’s pocket presence was excellent. After the sack on the opening drive, there were a number of plays where he eluded the rush to either pick up yardage with his legs (three scrambles for 21 yards) or find open receivers outside of the pocket. That game probably doesn’t go our way without his ability to create when the pocket broke down.

Extremely balanced passing chart, even with 49 throws. Eight passes behind the line of scrimmage isn’t a problem, as a few were pop-passes and most were checkdowns.

Running backs – Butter Stephenson continues to win fans over, with some great 1st half rushes (six carries, 31 yards). The star of the day was, of course, Aziz Foster-Powell. He tallied 17 carries for 87 yards and 2 TDs, along with five catches for 35 yards and a receiving TD. #3 carried our offense at times, continually shedding tackles and generating 53 yards after contact. With Michael Creamer and Jamaal Brown still out, Aziz had no problem handling the lion’s share of snaps and leading the Spiders to victory.

2nd half offense – Our 2nd half struggles are pretty easy to pinpoint — we can’t run the ball. In the 1st half, UR running backs had 14 touches for 108 yards (7.7 YPC). In the 2nd half, they ran it nine times for 10 total yards. Excluding Snelsire’s scramble, our longest rush in the 2nd half was 4 yards. It doesn’t matter how good our passing distribution is or how balanced our run/pass splits are, you can’t close out games with a one-dimensional offense.

Eventually, the lack of a run game started making life harder on the passing game too. Georgetown started bringing more blitzes to disrupt our rhythm and protections. With no threat of a run game, their secondary was in much better position, and our receivers were getting hardly any separation, forcing Ashten into a few throws trying to make things happen. I love that we’re willing to throw the ball on early downs, and we’ve seen the upside of that approach. But when the run game disappears completely, so does a lot of what makes this offense difficult to defend. Opponents are adjusting, and by the 4th quarter it feels like we’ve become far too easy to defend.

Defense

The first three FCS games have followed a pretty similar script for the UR defense: great 1st half, a bit of bend in the 2nd half, but ultimately solid enough to get the job done. The defense held Georgetown to 110 yards on the ground and just 12 1st downs, winning the line of scrimmage most of the day and finishing it off with a big 4th quarter stop.

Chunk plays – Three plays accounted for 50% of the Hoyas’ yards. I always talk about how you can’t remove chunk plays from a game, but they’ve become the one real weakness in an otherwise strong start for this defense. Between Bucknell, Howard, and now Georgetown, there have been very few sustained drives against the Spiders’ defense. Teams aren’t consistently moving the ball on us — they’re staying in games because we’re giving up a few too many big plays.

Blake Houser – How good has Houser been so far? Nine tackles, 2.5 TFLs, and 1.5 sacks on Saturday only added to what has been an excellent start to 2026 for #11. He’s our leading tackler on the season and has settled into the MIKE linebacker spot perfectly. With all the different lineups we’ve seen on defense, Houser has been one of the few constants right in the middle of it. Through four weeks, PFF has him as the 4th-highest-rated tackling linebacker in all of FCS.

Snaps – Interesting movement in the two position groups where I’ve been watching snap counts:

Washington and Richardson got a heavier load at corner, likely due to Georgetown picking on Bullock throughout the afternoon. On plays where #12 was the primary defender, G’Town receivers had 132 yards, including chunk plays of 71, 36, and 21 yards.

D-line continues to surprise me. Seeing both starting DTs play 75%+ of snaps is shocking. Those guys are doing well, don’t get me wrong, but that’s just not something you see. Moses Bailey got a little more run at DE, but we’re still relying heavily on a three-man rotation. At some point, you have to wonder how much that’s contributing to the 2nd half drop-off. Georgetown running backs had just 31 yards in the 1st half, a number that jumped to 97 in the 2nd. The combination of teams running the ball better against us late and some lingering tackling issues looks a lot like a defense that’s getting tired. If we’re going to keep this group fresh in 2nd halves and into November, I feel like we have to find a way to trust more guys up front.

Special Teams

Kickoffs were disappointing. Bonser sent two kickoffs out of bounds, both low and well left, bringing his season total to three. Our coverage was good on the other two, but we can’t give away free yards like that.

Ned Gray is special. 47 yards/punt, with a long of 60 and three downed inside the 20. #37 continues to excel and be a bright spot for our special teams.

And then there’s Kyle Bitsko. Everyone’s talking about him, so I surely don’t need to recap his day. I’ll say this — I’ve never been so confident in a kicker who is 1/6 to start his college career. Hopefully the game-winner is the start of a much better finish to his freshman campaign, because we’re going to need him. More than anything, the resilience from #45 was incredible, and seeing the entire team rally around him — both on the field and in the postgame interviews — tells you a lot.

Next Post

2026 — Game 5: Furman Preview – Friday, September 25th