When Maryland has the ball

UMD OL vs. W&M DL

Our D-Line needs to step up to have any chance in this game. Maryland’s O-Line is one of the top in the ACC, and our defensive line is one of our weak points. Their OL, on average, have 39 pounds our DL. Tracy, Williamson, and Wright are going to have to be monsters this game if we want to get any pressure on Hollenbach and maybe win this game.

Maryland RB’s vs. W&M LB’s

This will be the best match-up of the day, as the 2 teams strong points face off. Lance Ball leads Maryland in rushing and catches for returning players. He is an all ACC candidate, and whether or not we can stop him(or even just slow him down) could decide the game. As I said, I think LB is William and Mary’s strong point. Former all A-10 Chris Ndubueze and Travis McLaurin, Josh Rutter who led the team in tackles as a frosh, Michael Pigram who got a bunch of playing time last year and was described as the most improved player of the spring, strong LB TJ O’Neill, and Trevor McLaurin who made the switch from RB to LB last year. If these guys can pressure the QB and slow down Ball and Lattimore this game will be fun.

UMD QB/WR/TE vs. W&M DB

Maryland QB Sam Hollenbach had average stats last season, until you look at his TD/INT. 13 TD’s 15 picks. It probably doesn’t help that only 2 of those TD’s were to returning receivers. The loss of top 10 draft pick Vernon Davis will be a big hit, and so will the fact that his top 4 receivers from last season are gone. The Tribe doesn’t look much better at DB, with Zach Stout and Kevin Allen not on the two-deep depth chart. I think we are solid with Richard Riley, Alan Wheeling, and Derek Cox, but after that we look thin. 4 of the remaining 5 players on the two-deep are Freshman. Another injury would be devastating.

When W&M has the ball 

W&M O-Line vs. UMD D-Line

W&M’s offensive line will be the biggest question mark on the offense this season, but we still return starters in Brad Stewart, Brent Cochran, and all I-AA center Cody Morris. Jake Phillips mobility should help the O-Line this season. UMD, on the other had, has all of their starters returning. DT Conrad Bolston led the Terps in sacks last year with 5. DL should be one of UMD’s most improved positions.

W&M RB vs. UMD LB

Starting tailback Elijah Brooks returns home to face the terps(he is from Largo, MD and went to DeMatha). Last season he scored 11 TD’s and averaged 93 yards per game. Speedy Sophomore DeBrian Holmes is second on the depth chart, and should get significant play time. The only other back who may see the field is Tony Viola, who got a bunch of reps in the scrimmages and looked solid. The Maryland linebackers lost all ACC performer D’Qwell Jackson and also starter William Kershaw. Trey Covington and David Holloway are the only returning starter from last year. You can expect the LB’s stepping in to start this year to be talented as always at schools like UMD. JR. Wesley Jefferson and Sophomore Erin Henderson(who is returning from an injury) should be the other 2 starters.

W&M QB/WR/TE vs. UMD DB

I think Sophomore QB Jake Phillips is primed for a breakout year, as the starting job is finally his. Last year he threw 12 TD’s, 7 picks, and ran for 8 TD’s. Expect a big game out of Jake(if he gets any time). W&M loses a solid receiver in Josh Lustig, but with a steady-handed Joe Nicholas, a big-play threat in Elliot Mack, and the best receiver of the scrimmages DJ McAulay, receivers should be a bright spot this year. Tight ends also will be good, with th consistent Matt Trinkle and tall(6-7) Andrew Atchison. UMD’s defensive backs are headlined by senior cornerback Josh Wilson, one of UMD’s faster players. Experience isn’t an issue, as all 4 projected starters are upper-classmen.

ST

Last year Jo Jo Walker did most of UMD’s returning, but with him gone DB Josh Wilson should step in. Cox, Mack, and McAulay should be doing the returning duties for W&M. The Tribe got the edge in net punting yards, but only by .2 yards. They return kicker Dan Ennis, who went 17-25 in FG’s last season, and was 23-25 on PAT’s. W&M PK situation isn’t quite as good. All everything kicker Greg Kuehn graduated, and hopefully Freshman David Miller will take over the kicking duties as he was solid in the scrimmages. If it is instead Blair Pritchard, all hope is lost.

Final Prediction

W&M keeps it close and slows Lance Ball early, and has a 10-7 lead at halftime. UMD comes out pumped and Lance Ball gets it going, with the score 21-17 late. W&M has a chance to win, but a turnover turns into a TD and UMD wins it 28-17.

Recent W&M article

Recent UMD article

W&M Media Guide

UMD Media Guide

W&M Game Notes

Predictions(this will be updated as they come out)

Harmon Forecast UMD 33 W&M 7

Talk about this at the forum!

Here are the game notes for MD…

No Courtland Marriner(as a returner), Zach Stout(who was on crutches at the scrimmage), John Taylor or Kevin Allen. According to the depth chart the starting defensive secondary will consist of Derek Cox, Alan Wheeling, Sheldon Alexander, and Richard Riley. True freshman Gareth Hissong(DE) and Max Harris(CB) made the two-deep. Max Harris was impressive in the scrimmage I saw, with the biggest hit of the Fall. Blair Pritchard is ahead of David Miller at KO/PK. Bad news in my opinion.

Ground-breaking for the Laycock Center

Will be on Saturday the 15th of September at 5:30. I’ll be there and get some pictures for the out-of-towners.

Lang Campbell was cut by the Browns today

Terrible how Lang hardly gets a shot while Marcus Vick gets chance after chance because of his last name. Hopefully someone else will pick him up.

BEAT MD!!!!!!!!

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I’ll have the chat room up and working soon.

The Tribe Men’s Basketball program announced their 2006-2007 schedule on Friday, and I’ll give a month-by-month breakdown.

November

The season starts off @ Kansas State to kick off Bob Huggins career at K-State. This game was obviously not meant to be a win, but it will be nice to give the Freshman and Sophmores a chance to play at a big-time arena. The home-opener will be against Wagner, who went 13-14 last year. Their season highlight was obviously their 2-point loss @ UCLA, but outside of that game they were very mediocre. This is a winnable game. W&M’s third game of the season is @ Holy Cross, a team that beat them by 12 points at Kaplan last year. HC had 3 20-point scorers in that game, and 2 are returning.  The final game of the month is at Navy, who went 10-18 last year. If we don’t win this game we are in trouble.

Predicted November record-2-2

December

The start of December also marks the start of the William and Mary tip-off classic, where W&M faces Jacksonville State in the first round. They were #4 in the Ohio Valley Conference last year, with a record of 16-13. It is unlikely they are that good again this year, though, as they are losing 6 players. The second game of the Tip-Off Classic is against either VMI or Cornell, VMI being the inferior team. Like the Classic, the entire month is at home, and Towson comes to the Hall on the 5th. They are expected to be one of the top teams in the CAA this year, with nation’s leading scorer Gary Neal returning. North Florida is up next, and they are W&M’s version of a cupcake. 3-17 in conference, 6-22 overall. Ouch. UMBC is the next game, and they narrowly defeated W&M in Maryland last year. They are losing 2 of their top 3 leading scorers, and were a not-so-impressive 10-19 last year. This is the type of game we need to win. The next 2 games are Hampton and Richmond. Last year we barely lost to Richmond and beat Hapton by 10 at their house. We need to go 1-1, hopefully 2-0, in these games.

Predicted December Record-5-2

January

The month of January begins at last year’s final four team and conference foe George Mason. They lost their 3 best players from last season, but still return Will Thomas, one of the best players in the CAA. We then come back to Kaplan to face Northeastern, who lost their top 2 players and if I remember correctly their coach. This could be the battle for the basement of the CAA. We then go to Atlanta to face the Georgia State Panthers. We split with them last year, but they are expected to be significantly improved from last season. Up next is VCU at the Hall, another team breaking in a new Coach(Jeff Capel moved to Oklahoma). They, as always, are expected to be in the top half of the CAA, but I could see an upset in a game like this. Then it’s off to Newark to face the Blue Hens of Delaware(who don’t come to Williamsburg this year for football or basketball). They lost all-CAA center/foward Harding Nana, which will surely be a shot to the team. Last year in the only meeting they beat us in OT at the Hall. We then get Mason at home, followed by a trip to Long Island to face the favorites to win the CAA, Hofstra. This one will probably be ugly, as Stokes and Aguido are a leathal combo. The schedule doesn’t get any better, as we face ODU who is always near the top of the CAA. They did lose Alex Laughton last year, and he always seemed to kill us. After facing GSU at home home and traveling to Richmond to face VCU, Madison comes to the Burg. Last year we swept them, and they had 6 players leave from last year, but the best one, James, isn’t going anywhere and will be tough to stop.

Predicted January Record-4-7

February

We start off the final month of the regular season with UNCW, who is always a favorite to win it all. Last year they beat us at the Hall and in Wilmington. We go to JMU later in the week, and just a week after playing them at home we play @ UNCW. We get Drexel at home, who beat us last year and is supposed to be MUCH better this year, then play away vs. an unknown team in the bracket buster game, and then play in Philly vs. Drexel. We close the regular season on 2/24, at 2 PM at the Hall, and it will be rocking as always when ODU comes to town. It would be great to beat them just once…

Predicted February Record-1-5, plus the bracket buster

Predicted Final Record-12-16

Some more basketball news, the rosters have been update and here are the changes-

Danny Sumner-#22

Matt McFadden-#31

David Schneider-#2

Stephen Hess-#00

The entire schedule can be found here

I just did a full write-up and it deleted it. ugh.

QB

Phillips was the best QB tonight, showing much more mobility and connecting for a higher percentage than last game. If there was any doubt about him being the #1 QB it is now gone. His highlights were a 40 yard pass to DJ McAulay over the middle, a lazor touchdown to Nicholas, and a 20 yard TD also to Mack. Potts also played and solid but not on Phillip’s level. Taylor didn’t get any play time tonight.

RB

No Marriner tonight. Elijah and Holmes got a bunch of the carries, and both were solid but not spectacular. The same can be said about Tony Viola.

WR/TE

Mack had another solid game, showing his big play ability. Nicholas, in my opinion, was the best of the wide-outs, catching several passes and showing off his good hands. He really stepped up after his lack-luster performance last week. McAulay was good yet again, and had a bunch of solid catches. Taylor made a great jumping TD catch on a Jake Phillips toss.

OL

Protection seemed a little better, but that may have been due to Jake’s mobility. Another positive was washed away by the several false starts.

Defense

I decided to bundle all the defense into one. The line’s top play was a Sean Lissmore 4th and goal stop on the 1 for a loss of 3. Josh Wright had one of several sacks. Chris Ndubueze had a great tackle early in the game for the LB’s. The LB’s as a whole were great as usual. Max Harris and Cody Tomon(I think) had huge hits in the game also.

ST

Mack and Cox handled all the returning duties. David Miller did the kicking tonight instead of Blair Pritchard. He was perfect in extra points and made field goals from 23, 27, and 37, while missing one of 27.

Here is TribeAthletics version. I must have mixed up McAulay and Mack once or twice.

As some of you may know, GoHens.net(UD fan site) has a yearly I-AA pick ‘em and spead pool where you pick all the top 25 games as decided by AGS(link in sidebar). This year, I started 2 TTHS group’s, so join if you are interested!

http://www.gohens.net/i-aapool/

On the left side of the page, under join a group and spread group, scroll down until you see TTHS(private) and do the same thing below in pick ‘em!

Password is Jimmye

You can do spread, or pick ‘em, or both!

I am hoping to have a new website before the MD game

Go Tribe!

The Roanoke Times reported today that the scholarship used the season prior by Calvin Baker will be given to Provost award winner Adam Trumbower. I am glad a great kid like him finally gets a schollie, but am not so excited about the increased playing time in his future the Times suggests:

William and Mary men’s basketball coach Tony Shaver has extended a scholarship to senior Adam Trumbower, a walk-on guard from Cave Spring, where he was a first-team All-Group AA selection in 2003. Trumbower could be in line for increased playing time with the departure of Calvin Baker, whose transfer to Virginia also opened up a scholarship.

Trumbower is a great kid who gives a spark off the bench and always gives everything he has and more, but he just isn’t athletic enough to be anything more than a role player. Hopefully it won’t be an issue, as many think McFadden will step in and get a large chunk of the guard PT anyway.

That’s all I got, hopefully this is the last post on this site(move coming this weekend…..hopefully)

The strong point of the defense this season when it comes to depth and skill will be the linebackers. With the McLaurins, Josh Rutter, T.J O’Neill, and Chris Ndubueze, this will be very strong LB crew this season. I got a chance to talk to Chris Ndubueze, Josh Rutter, and Trevor and Travis McLaurin.

Travis McLaurin on his season expectations

“Just to come back healthy for a whole season instead of half, and contribute to the team as much as I can in any way possible.”

Travis McLaurin on the expectations for the LB’s as a whole

“To be leaders out there, and go to practice and lead defensively, and use the experience to our advantage.”

Trevor McLaurin on how he made the offense to defense switch so successfully

“I had great coaching, and a lot of help from my teammates and I felt I had the athleticism to make the switch, so it wasn’t too hard, I just had to get used to seeing the ball from the defensive side as opposed to the offensive side.”

Josh Rutter on how he will follow up this season after leading the team in tackles

“We’re going to have a real solid team, everbody is going to get a lot of playing time, so I just want to contribute to the team however I can, and play to the best of my abilities, and hopefully I don’t let the coaches down.”

Rutter about all the LB’s returning this season

“I think we’re going to be a real solid core, or unit. We have enough guys to make 2 starting rotations because we have a ton of talent there. I think we are going to look to the linebackers for leadership on the defense since we have a lot of guys returning this year, a lot of experience there, so I think we will be a real solid unit this year.”

Chris Ndubueze on his expectations for this season

“I’m optimistic, excited for a lot of new things, we have the new field, we’re playing Maryland, it’s really exciting, it’s my last year so I’m really looking foward to it.”

Chris on the new field

“It’s looks great, it feels great, it’s a combination of grass and turf, the best of both worlds.”

Chris on the Maryland game

“I expect a lot, I’m going back home, I’m from Maryland so I’m playing against some friends, playing in front of some friends and family. I played in MD’s stadium my senior year for our championship game, and it’s a great atmosphere, so I’m really excited, it should be a good game.”

Chris on our chances vs. MD 

“I definitely think we can beat them, I think we can beat everybody, but it’s about believing in the coaches, and trusting them to go get us prepared, and showing up and giving effort, that’s what it’s all about”

Tomorrow is the defensive backs, with Derek Cox.