The Collegian
Thursday, March 28, 2024

Football returns veteran team to defend FCS title

Spider fans may still be reminiscing about Dec. 19, 2008, but the football team is looking ahead to Sept. 5, 2009 — the season opener at Duke University.

"We don't talk about what happened," coach Mike London said, referring to the team's Football Championship Subdivision national title last season. "What's behind us is behind us ... We're thinking about moving forward and what this team's going to do this year."

The Spiders return 16 of their 22 starters from last season. But that makes them far from invincible in the Colonial Athletic Association, which produced five of the 16 FCS playoff teams last year.

"They're all very competitive teams and every year it's a dogfight with all of them, so we look forward to playing them," junior linebacker Eric McBride said. "We see them all as rivals."

Despite its national championship, Richmond finished third in the CAA last year. In this year's preseason poll, it was projected to share the CAA South title with Villanova University, and the University of New Hampshire was predicted to repeat as CAA North champions.

"We realize that this is a very hard conference and to go out and win it is going to be a hard task, a hard goal to achieve," McBride said. "But we've got the coaches to do it. We have the players to do it and we're all buying into our program so we believe that we can."

McBride said the Spiders knew other teams would target them and they were focused on defending their title. The team is hungry, motivated and has a new set of goals to get back to the national championship, McBride said.

Of the 16 returning starters, 10 are seniors, including the four captains - quarterback Eric Ward, offensive lineman Matt McCracken, defensive back Seth Williams and linebacker Collin McConaghy. The starters on the preseason depth chart include 14 seniors and eight juniors.

"We have a team that has some veterans at some spots so we're not going to change a whole lot of things," London said. "But we do have different wrinkles that we'll put in here and there and, as I said before, different players have to step up and emerge as playmakers for us so it'll be exciting to see as the season approaches who those players are going to be."

One of the most experienced groups on the team is the offensive line - junior Drew Lachenmayer and seniors Jared Decker, McCracken, Chris Kondorossy and Michael Silva. Kondorossy was injured at the start of the 2008 season, but played in all four playoff games.

"We've got a veteran offensive line coming back and a lot of good chemistry on the offensive line," McCracken said, "so hopefully we'll be able to continue to open up holes for any one of those guys, whoever's carrying the ball."

In 2007 and 2008, they were blocking for running backs Tim Hightower, now in his second year with the Arizona Cardinals, and Josh Vaughan, who signed with the Jacksonville Jaguars on Aug. 12. This season, they will have to block for senior running back Justin Forte and sophomore Garrett Wilkins.

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"The guys we have aren't those big 230-pound backs" like Vaughan and Hightower, Ward said. "I'm interested and ready to see what each of them can do for us."

Forte played during the first four games last season, but suffered a season-ending leg injury against the University of Maine on Sept. 20. Wilkins, then a true freshman, played during the remaining 12 games of the season and earned one start.

"Forte is going to be able to slip his way through," Silva said. "It's a different style of running. Ever since we came in as freshmen he's always been that wow factor."

Wilkins said the whole unit of backs was meshing together well, but that junior fullback Ben Keating and sophomore fullback Ben Bryer had big shoes to fill as they prepared to replace the two fullbacks, John Crone and Shawn White, who graduated last year.

As the running backs and fullbacks develop, so do the wide receivers. Junior Kevin Grayson, who stayed on campus this summer along with about three-quarters of the team, said there was a different side to the wide receiving corps that Spider fans hadn't seen yet.

Juniors Jonathan Mayfield and Max Prokell played well in training camp, he said, and will supplement the four receivers on the preseason depth chart - Grayson, Mitchell, and sophomores Tre Gray and Donte Boston.

Defensively, the Spiders are working under first-year defensive coordinator Vic Shealy, whom McBride said provided laughs on and off the field. Shealy is keeping practices energetic and fun, London said, with a focus on creating turnovers and sacs.

McBride said Shealy had introduced a new defensive scheme, with a focus on making big plays themselves instead of conceding opponents' short-yard plays. They rotate different players depending on the situation, which McBride said should give opposing offenses a hard time.

McCracken said the team was deep on defense, particularly the linebackers and cornerbacks. He also said the team was gearing its efforts toward making Richmond a championship program. None of the players seem satisfied with just one title.

"You can never rest on past success," Wilkins said. "You always want to keep pushing and you don't want to be complacent. ... We have an even bigger target on our backs. It's good to look back but we've just got to keep pushing forward."

Contact staff writer Barrett Neale at barrett.neale@richmond.edu

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