The Opponents: UR, Huesman Trying For Drastic Turnaround

“We got to get back to the postseason,” third-year Richmond coach Russ Huesman said. “That has to be something that we’re striving for — to get to the postseason and play in the playoffs. And I think if we stay healthy, we’ve got a good enough team.”

The Spiders were 4-7 overall and 2-6 in the Colonial Athletic Association last year while being outscored by opponents 359 to 243 and missing out on the FCS playoffs for a second straight season.

So, this offseason has been all about addressing the primary problem and other detrimental issues that derailed the 2018 campaign. Richmond opens its 2019 season on Aug. 29 against Jacksonville.

“The turnovers were a killer for us,” Huesman said. “The number of turnovers we had, that has to be corrected and the biggest part of it were the interceptions that we threw. We threw way too many interceptions and actually I think we had six defensive touchdowns scored on us, which you can’t have one, let alone six.”

Richmond had the worst turnover margin in the CAA last year and it was never more evident than during the Spiders’ 63-10 loss at home to rival James Madison in September. The two sides meet again this year on Nov. 16 in Harrisonburg.

“When you start to get into the red zone or you’re backed up and you’re throwing interceptions, pick sixes, games kind of get out of hand,” Huesman said. “That’s what happened to us, so we’ve got to eliminate turnovers and create more turnovers.

“I think our defensive coordinator did a thing and found where teams started inside our 20[-yard line] 11 times on top of giving up the pick sixes, so that means we can’t have drives starting inside our 20 that many times either and that there’s a lot of things to fix. But we have great kids on this team, great kids in the program and it was one of those tidal-wave years where we had a boatload of injuries and didn’t hang onto the football like we should have.”

To combat against the plague of mistake, Huesman has upgraded the personnel on offense.

Quarterback Joe Mancuso, who appeared in nine games and started four last year, but threw 10 interceptions, must compete for his job with Air Force transfer quarterback Beau English, who starred at prep power DeMatha (Hyattsville, Md.) before beginning his college career with the Falcons. At DeMatha, English threw for 4,558 yards and 45 touchdowns and ran for 23 scores.

“If we get some good quarterback play, that’d be pretty good,” Huesman said. “I think our thing is we’re going to play better defense than we did last year and we have to hang onto the football, so if that means running the ball 80 times a game, then we’ll run the ball 80 times a game. But we’re not going to throw 18 interceptions again. We’re not going to do that, so whatever we’ve got to do to revamp it, we’ll do.”

Huesman said he’s likely to use the quarterback in the running game more than he did in his first two seasons leading the Spiders, and estimated about 10 to 12 designed carries for the signal-caller is ideal as long as the running backs have the majority of rushing attempts.

Junior Xavier Goodall, who missed all of last year with an ACL injury, headlines a group of running backs featuring redshirt freshmen Aaron Dykes and Milan Howard. Dykes, taking advantage of the NCAA’s new rule allowing players to see action in as many four games without burning their redshirt season, rushed for 154 yards and two touchdowns on 32 touches last year.

In addition to English, Huesman brought in Northwestern transfer wide receiver Charlie Fessler and Duke transfer wide receiver Keyston Fuller to bolster the offense.

“Charlie was here in the spring,” Huesman said. “And he had a great spring. We love him and he’s going to be a great addition. Then Fuller, we think, can be a great addition. He can run, but we needed some experience there because we lost four wideouts off the roster to graduation and Cortrelle [Simpson] came out early for the draft, so we knew we had to fix that a little bit with some experience.”

Fuller wasn’t the only Duke transfer to join the Spiders either. The defense should benefit from the help of former Blue Devils defensive back Brandon Feamster, who played in 37 games at Duke, which included starting the final seven last season.

Feamster provides the defense with another seasoned player considering the unit brings back starting defensive linemen Colby Ritten and Maurice Jackson as well as linebacker Billy Caughell and Trent Williams and Daniel Jones on the back end.

Jackson had 10 sacks and 15 tackles for loss last fall.

“We like our defense,” Huesman said. “We feel good. We’re pretty good up front with not a ton of depth. I think we can be good in the secondary with a lot of depth there. And then at linebacker we’ll be a little inexperienced.”

Because the defense should be good Huesman said as long as the offense corrects its turnover problem, the Spiders should be much improved this year.

“We’ve got to run the ball better and play better defense,” Huesman said. “And if we do that we’ll have some better chances in games. There were some that got kind of out of control just because we were just throwing pick after pick or turning it over or not executing like we’re supposed to, so we’ve addressed that in the spring with the offensive coaches and what our expectations are offensively and how to move the ball, and what we expect defensively.”