Let it be said that the defense was superb. Click on image to enlarge
Umass held Richmond to just 291 total yards of offense.
The Umass secondary intercepted four passes (Brandon Smith 2, Tracey Belton 1 and Shannon James 1 ----- his 17th career interception!). Umass got their hands on at least 3 or four more. The interception record could have been even better.
Last year’s bugbear, the run defense, looked much stronger. Umass held Richmond’s TB David Freeman 6-1 210 to 13-34 (a 2.6 yds/carry). Stacy Tutt, the man that killed Umass last year, was 3-4.
The revamped DL of Keron Williams, John Hatchell, Jason Leonard and Justin Schweigherdt held Richmond to 147 yards and most of that came on two plays.
All this despite the fact that Umass was missing two starters (L.A. Love and Steve Costello). They said at the game that Love has a knee injury and will be out for the foreseeable future. Costello got a one game suspension.
We had three sacks in the game. We also limited the Spiders to 92 yards in the first half...
All in all, a very impressive effort by the defense to start the 2005 season
