31 August 2010
No more waiting. We're here. It's time. Yada, yada, yada.
While most of Eastern Virginia will be soaked from Hurricane Earl on Friday, we will be enjoying picture perfect weather in Charlottesville. And what more fitting way to start the London Era than to bring in his old team, the Richmond Spiders. To preface this article, this is not the team that won the championship in 2008, or the team that went to the quarterfinals of the D-IAA tournament in 2009. This team lost 15 of its 22 starters from last year and is going though a little bit of an identity crisis of their own. Let's take a gander at the 2010 version of the Richmond Spiders.
Coaching Staff
When you poach their top man in Mike London in the off season, Richmond turned to UVa assistant coach Latrell Scott. Unlike London, Scott spent most of his time on the offensive side of the ball, serving both UVA and Tennessee as an WR coach. In addition to Scott, there are 7 assistants for Richmond with ties to the Hoos. But it's not a one way street. The Cavs have 5 assistants that have ties to Richmond, including former head coach and new defensive coordinator Jim Reid. To say that these two teams know each other well is an understatement.
Offense
Richmond's bread and butter has been running the spread offense. And not that "spread" that we saw the first 4 games of last season, a REAL spread offense. It starts around their wide receivers RSr. Kevin Grayson, RJr. Tre Gray, and RJr. Donte Boston. This trio is arguably the best WR core in D-IAA. Grayson has 2,368 yards and 12 TDs in his career, Gray has 1,436 yards and 8 TDs, and Boston has 577 yards and 4 TDs. Grayson only needs 302 more yards to become U of R's career receiving yardage leader, which he will get plenty of chances to best this year.
The biggest battles in the offseason came at quarterback and running back. Luckily for Richmond, half of that battle was over when former USC quarterback Aaron Corp transferred to Richmond over the summer. He won the "battle" in fall practice to start over last years backup, John Laub. Say what you want to about Corp, but to be recruited to start for a national championship team shows that he has some skills, although this is a departure from the traditional pro-set he was used to playing with the Trojans. The running back contest has still not been won, so Richmond will use a "running back by committee". Sound familiar? The winners this week are Jr. Garrett Wilkins, who can catch it out of the backfield and run laterally off the delayed handoff, RSr. Tyler Kirchoff, and RFr. Jovan Smith, who they believe can be the next Tim Hightower.
But Richmond's biggest holes to fill are along the offense line. They only return 1 starter: RSr. center Drew Lachenmayer. Anchoring the line is another transfer student from Rutgers, Richard Muldrow. Outside of that, it's going to be interesting who else can step up to keep pressure off of Corp.
Defense
Richmond runs a 4-3 base with one NG above center and a DT on the strong side. This side of the ball was decimated as well due to graduation, but the players that return are very good. Three of them have been named to the Buck Buchanan Watch List, which is D-IAA's version of the national defensive player of the year award, and they have one at each level. RSr. Martin Parker is a captain and will be playing the DT along the line, and had a nasty ability to get in the backfield (15.5 TFL, 6.5 sacks in '09). Another captain is RSr. OLB Eric McBride, who has started 43 straight games for the Spiders and has 327 tackles in his 3 years in Richmond. But the most dangerous player on this defense is defensive back/kick returner Justin Rodgers. The Preseason All-American has 10 INTs and 2 TDs as a corner and 2,102 yards and 2 TDs as a kick returner. This defense last year set up 116 points off of turnovers last year, most of the turnovers coming from the secondary, which is by far the best overall defensive unit that Richmond fields.
Special Teams
Uh, this is an interesting unit. The good: their returners are really good, headlined by the afore mentioned Justin Rodgers, who already has the U of R all-time record and only needs 332 more yards to break the CAA record. The bad: the kickers. Sophomore Wil Kamin will replace four year starter Andrew Howard and converted QB (yes quarterback) Nick Hicks will handle the punting.
How Virginia Wins
As I am writing this I am watching the special on HBO about the 1980 US Hockey team. During that famous game against USSR, Herb Brooks kept telling his players to "Play your game". London should be telling his team the same. The energy and emotion will be running wild in the first half. They need to keep it up throughout the game. On offense, they will need to establish the run to keep the secondary honest, so that Verica can find his receivers in space. Hopefully, one of the 4 Cav running backs will step up and shoulder the load. Keeping the pressure off of Mark should be job number two, not only for the line, but for the fullback as well. The Hoos must win the turnover battle. Better yet, you can count on Richmond scoring off turnovers, so keeping that number at 0 would be great. On defense, the corners win the battle vs. the Richmond wide receivers, which should be the best matchup of the evening. Other than that, rattling Corp early should be fairly easy, considering London loves to blitz. Richmond will score, but if the Hoos can get to 24 points, they should have this one wrapped up.
How Virginia Loses
They have the W&M game in the back of their head and aren't ready mentally for Richmond, who has nothing to lose. Some interesting stats for Richmond:
- Richmond has the nations 2nd longest road winning streak at 12 games, only I-A Boise State has more at 13.
- Since 2005, the Spiders are 35-3 when scoring 30 points or more per game.
- Richmond is the only D-IAA team since 1985 to beat ACC teams back to back seasons (Furman over N.C. State)
- And since 2005, they have scored first in 42 of 66 games, going 35-7 in those games.
