By Ryan Tipps
D3sports.com
EMORY, Va. -- Talented teams have a knack for throwing other good teams off their game and for making opponents' strengths seem more like weaknesses. Winning in these situations comes down to coaching and on-field adaptability.
That tells much of the story of the meeting between undefeated teams Hampden-Sydney and Emory and Henry in front of a homecoming crowd at Fullerton Field in Southwest Virginia. The Tigers showcased their passing game from the start, and burst out to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter and never looked back. But en route to a 23-12 finish, an interesting story unfolds.
“We’re winning differently,” said H-SC coach Marty Favret, now having taken down two of the Old Dominion’s biggest threats. “We’ve got a very good defense. … Let’s manage the game, and then we go on the road and find a way to win. It’s not about scoring 40. I just thought defensively, despite all the penalties, for the second straight week, we were really good in the red zone. We forced four field goal attempts, and we got a stop inside the 5.”
The Tigers defense did shine on Saturday, bottling up Wasps All-American Caleb Jennings for all but one costly play -- a 74-yard run in the second quarter that shifted the momentum of the game going into the break.
Still, Hampden-Sydney was on top by at least a touchdown most of the day, completing passes and keeping the E&H defense on it toes. Rarely did the Wasps seem fully ready at the line before Tigers quarterback Corey Sedlar snapped the ball and rifled passes to his skyscraping wideouts, who in some cases towered as tall as 10 inches above the E&H defenders. Sedlar’s 320 yards and three touchdown passes was dampened only by the four sacks he endured.
In all, the day was a tug of war in the trenches.
Few would argue that each team was the best the other had seen this year, and that was evidenced in part in how adjustments were constantly being made throughout the game. Reading the opponents became an art form, and neither side ever seemed comfortable to settle into a consistent game plan.
Emory and Henry -- playing without All-America linebacker Evin O’Sullivan, who will be sidelined for weeks with an injury -- had strong pressure on Sedlar all game, which contributed to two interceptions. The Wasps were physical and hard-nosed, and got much of the same in return. But with the Tigers’ receiving corps so spread out, E&H also juggled how many guys could be sent to attack the pocket. Four Tigers had at least five receptions, led in catches by Craig Warnament, who seemed to muscle through the defense every time he got the ball, and 6-6 Adam Gillette, who combined height and skill to be a threat.
“We’re not a dominant powerhouse team,” Favret noted. “We got to scrap and claw, and if we do, we’re going to be hard to beat.”
The Wasps were crushed in many respects on special teams, often getting pinned with lousy yardage during punts and missing three field goals by Matt Turchin. The only time E&H got the ball through the uprights was from a kick by freshman Ked Byrd, who booted it 27 yards in the third quarter.
One thing that was easy to come by was free yardage. E&H had 53 yards in penalties, while H-SC gave up 112 yards in 10 penalties, seven of them being from personal fouls. Face masks and late hits put a hurt more on the Tigers than on the Wasps. Hampden-Sydney’s standout linebacker Andrew Sellers also was ejected from the game after an incident.
“Some guys lost their cool out there. And I think it’s a good crew, so I’m not pointing fingers,” Favret said. “We’ll look at the film, and I don’t even know what the [penalty] numbers are, but they must be astronomical. It’s not the way we want to be playing, and I think we crossed the edge there. But I got to look at the film; I know there was some frustration on both sides.”
For the second year in a row, Hampden-Sydney improves to 6-0, while Emory and Henry drops to 4-1. H-SC was riding this wave in 2008 before a late-season collapse forced them out of playoff contention. Though E&H might be the Tigers’ biggest win to date, the coaching staff can’t afford to be thinking postseason right now -- not yet anyway.
“I just told the kids, I don’t want to hear about inside track, I don’t want to hear about driver’s seat,” Favret said. “We got burned last year looking ahead, and if anything, it’s a great history lesson.”
Speedy and scrappy
Around the Mid-Atlantic caught up with Jennings, the Wasps’ starting running back, after the game and heard some thoughts about how he felt he played, what it’s like to wear the label of All-American and how physical things were on the field between Hampden-Sydney and Emory and Henry.
D3football.com: How do you feel about your performance today?
Jennings: I’m really disappointed in myself about special teams. I feel like I just didn’t perform. That’s one thing that I got noticed for last year, and I feel like I just had too many mistakes. I should have caught a couple of balls, caught a couple of fair catches. … Offensively, I think we did good as a team. Credit Hampden-Sydney though; they had a good game plan, and we just hurt ourselves too much today. We had too many penalties. We’d get 10 yards, then we’d get sent back after a holding or personal foul, you know 15 yards. You can’t have that. … I think we played hard. That’s the main thing I knew we were going to do until the last snap.
D3: You talked about special teams. Was it frustrating that Hampden-Sydney was kicking away from you the whole time?
CJ: I’ve kind of gotten a little used to that this year. But it doesn’t matter if they kick away from me. We have another returner back there, and he’s just as good. You know, it’s frustrating, it is. And then when I had the opportunity, I just did not capitalize on it. I had one down there that rolled down to the 1-yard line that was clearly my fault. I should have called a fair catch and gotten up there and caught it. But I didn’t. It’s my fault, and I take full blame for those two points that they got. It was a real momentum shift.
D3: I got to imagine that part of the reason that they’re kicking away from you is because D3football.com picked you as a preseason All-American. Does that factor in at all into your personal expectations of how you play or is it in the back of your mind that you’re on a national stage individually?
CJ: That doesn’t bother me one bit. … In my opinion, there should not even be an award for that. We have a team out there, and we play as a team. We have blockers, and most of the time, maybe 89 percent of the time, or 90 percent, it’s the blockers who are making the return [a success]. It’s all them; it really isn’t me. God blessed me with speed and vision, but other than that, it’s all them. It is all the time, on offense, special teams, it’s a team game. It’s the greatest game in the world. … It’s an honor for someone to recognize me like that, but it doesn’t bother me.
D3: I have to ask you about two plays specifically. The first one was that huge run you broke in the first half. Tell me what was going through your head. Did you think the defender was going to catch you because he definitely had the angle on you?
CJ: Yeah, he had the angle, and I thought about cutting back. I saw that I had about 5 yards of sideline to mess with. So I figured if I were to just hit second gear, I thought I could get by him. He grabbed me, and the thought crossed my mind that I had made the wrong decision. Thankfully, somehow, he didn’t tackle me, and I just turned it up just as fast as I could go.
D3: Were you proud that that was one of the big momentum shifts in the game?
CJ: Oh yeah, absolutely. It was huge momentum. It was perfectly blocked; you couldn’t have asked for better blocking. I was second level with one-on-one. That’s basically what you want every play. For a run play, if you’re getting one-on-one with the free safety, your offensive line, tight ends and fullbacks and wide receivers were doing their jobs.
D3: The other play I want to ask you about is a lot of the personal fouls seemed to be directed at you, specifically in the closing minutes of the game, when the Hampden-Sydney guy had a violent face mask penalty on you. Is that frustrating? Irritating?
CJ: To tell you the truth, it’s very upsetting that this game has come to that. … That’s not how this game is supposed to be played. It is upsetting they can’t just tackle me. Hit me good, if they kill me and hit me good one time, that’s fine -- if they’re fair about it. But if they’re grabbing me by my helmet, that’s just not football in my opinion.
Straightening out the Centennial
Two Centennial teams suffered their first conference losses on Saturday, leaving only Johns Hopkins at the top of the pack. The Blue Jays were able to keep previously undefeated Dickinson out of the end zone all day in the 23-12 win. It was the fewest points that the Red Devils, who were missing two key players on offense due to injury, scored since their 2005 season. Johns Hopkins was led by running back Andrew Kase, who had 116 yards and two scores, and wideout Tucker Michels, who tallied 141 yards in just four catches and also found the end zone.
Ursinus, which came into the weekend at 2-0 in conference play, fell 21-14 to Franklin and Marshall. The Diplomats were helped by a 305-yard passing day from quarterback John Harrison.
Currently, three teams are hovering in the Centennial with just one in-conference loss, with plenty willing to play spoiler to the top of the heap. Johns Hopkins certainly has the biggest target on its back and still has Ursinus and Franklin and Marshall to play. Meanwhile, if Dickinson still wants to stay in the playoff hunt, whether via a Pool A or Pool C bid, Gettysburg, Muhlenberg and Ursinus are all on the slate in the final few weeks. Come to think of it, maybe the Centennial isn’t straightened out much at all.
Blitz package
Christopher Newport steamrolled Averett to the tune of 588 yards, and Tunde Ogun had the game people have been looking for since the start of the season. The 43-12 win came as the All-America running back found the end zone three times and almost covered the length of the field thrice over with 285 yards. Both yardage marks were school records. For Averett, three players -- Mario Huffman, Logan Smyth and Justin McCauley -- all had double-digit tackle tallies.
Randolph-Macon capitalized on a blocked punt late in the fourth quarter to set up the winning score in a 23-19 decision over Frostburg State. The victory came despite FSU’s successes on offense, where the Bobcats registered 262 yards of offense compared with R-MC’s 163.
Maryville quarterback Tim Conner connected in the end zone with receiver Wesley Idlette with just 17 seconds to go to give the Scots a 22-19 win over USA South opponent Shenandoah. Idlette accounted for 147 of the team’s 206 receiving yards on the day.
