It has been a rough three weeks for the Richmond Spiders football team.
In front of a sold out home crowd at E. Claiborne Robins Stadium on Saturday, the team lost 20-7 to Elon Phoenix.
The loss for the Spiders was the teams third straight after opening the season with two victories.
“We’re pretty upset. Starting the season we didn’t think we’d be a 2-3 football team right now. We were expected to win that game, but we had a few injuries here and there, but with those injuries we still thought we had enough guys and enough talent to beat Elon”, said Dressler on how the team is feeling after the loss to Elon Saturday.
The losing streak started against Villanova. The team had a double digit lead with five minutes left in the game and went on to lose 34-27.
The following week the team fell at Virginia Tech 21-10. Despite the loss, the Spiders had numerous opportunities that could of changed the outcome of the game.
Then this past Saturday and the tough home loss to Phoenix.
Dressler on the teams losing streak, “We don’t point the fingers at anybody, that’s our mentality. We think as a defense, if the offense puts seven points on the (score)board, that’s enough for us to win a football game. We trust our guys that we can get back on track and win some football games.”
Going into the game the Spiders were looking for their third win this year alone over Phoenix and were the favorites heading into the game.
On the Spiders second drive of the game, midway through the first quarter, the team got on the scoreboard thanks to a Beau English touchdown pass to Aaron Dykes.
It was the start the Spiders wanted as the team forced Phoenix to punt on their first three drives.
However, the Spiders, would not find the endzone again nor did they find themselves putting points on the scoreboard despite numerous chances in the redzone.
Towards the end of the first quarter, the team missed a chance to go up double digits when kicker Jake Larson missed a 46 yard field goal attempt.
After that, Phoenix found a turning point and in the second quarter grabbed 10 points on a made field goal and a touchdown.
Leading 10-7 going into the second half, on Phoenix first drive, they punched their way into the endzone and followed that drive with a field goal to take a 20-7 lead.
In the games final 17 minutes, the Spiders had numerous scoring opportunities in the redzone, but could not finish the job.
Spiders head coach Russ Huesman had been criticized for his play calling and inability to score in the final 17 minutes despite three chances in the redzone. The first coming on 1st-and-goal on the Phoenix one yard line, 1st-and-10 on Phoenix 14 yard line, and 1st-and-goal on the two yard line.
“At the end of the day, they’re (coaches) not the ones on the field executing plays. We got the ball to the redzone and we just couldn’t put points on the (score)board”, said Dressler on the loss to Elon.
Dressler finished the game with six total tackles.
One critical player who was not out on the field for the Spider was the teams starting quarterback, Joe Mancuso.
Mancuso was lost to a broken right index finger on his throwing hand that occurred last week against the Hokies. The injury came on the teams the first drive of the game.
Mancuso is expected to miss four to six weeks.
Dressler on not having Mancuso on the field, “He’s the leadership of our offense. A lot of guys look up to him. He knows how to run the offense in an efficient manner. He knows how to spread the ball out so it was pretty devastating to not have him out there.”
Backup quarterback English grabbed the start for the Spiders. Being a stronger runner than a passer, the ideal plan for the team and for English was to establish an effective run game while grabbing the lead and taking some pressure off of him.
English though finished the game throwing the ball 42 times while completing half of his throws. English finished with 192 passing yards and the one touchdown pass coming in the first quarter.
The Spiders were held to just 119 rushing yards against a Phoenix team that had been averaging giving up 186 rushing yards a game. The week prior against Virginia Tech, the Spiders ran for 160 yards.
The Spiders will have a helpful bye week this week before their critical home October 16th CAA battle with rival James Madison University.
Since joining the Spiders program, Dressler has not been on a winning side of a game against JMU. “If we want to make the playoffs, it’s critical that we win this game and show that we can beat the top team in the CAA.”
Dressler added “Right now, it’s getting everyone healthy. The bye week was strategically well placed for us. We have time to heal up and a plenty of time to game-plan for JMU.
What’s even more derailing for the Spiders is the team is looking at possibly needing to win out their final six games of the season to have a chance at the FCS Playoffs. Something the team has not been able to do since 2016.
Dressler on the FCS playoffs, “At this point, everyone is well aware of what we need to do to get into the playoffs. That’s the ultimate goal. Right now, no one is panicking whatsoever. Our goal is to go 6-0 and its achievable. Every week in the CAA, you don’t know what’s going to happen. It doesn’t matter who’s at the top, who’s at the bottom, there’s upsets. There’s games you expect to win that people lose, like what happened with us last weekend. We’d like to think we take it one game at a time, but it’s 6-0.”
After the JMU game two Saturday’s from now, the Spiders will have tough back to back road games that follow with Stony Brook and New Hampshire.
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