Well, the offense was not on fire.
We had only 305 yards in total offense and 16 first downs (Richmond had 15). Umass was 3-14 in 3rd down conversations and that really hurt our ability to keep drives going.
A couple of things seemed to contribute to the problem. Note in the image above, Baylark is on one knee watching the action. Click on the image to enlarge. The game quotes seem to indicate that he was having trouble with dehydration. That could bee the case, because he kept coming out of the game and going to the training table with a bucket in front of him. He left early for half time. Maybe he got an IV because he seemed better in the second half.
Next, Matt Lawrence ran for nine yards on his first carry and that was the end of him for the day. It looked like an ankle or foot injury. He was up walking around and was not iced, but he did not come back from half time.
The Umass offense line was playing with two new starters for much of the game Brent Caldwell and Sean Calicchio. It is impossible to review offensive line play from the stands, but it seemed to me the pass blocking was good, but the run game was not getting holes.
Day did some good things. His roll out pass to J.J. Moore was great. However, he did throw two interceptions..
I’d put R.J. Cobbs back at TB if Lawrence is hurt. The 2002 A10-rookie-of-the-year did not touch the ball much and did not provide much in the way of offensive fire power. He’s too good a player not to be involved in the offense.
Of course, there is no way to tell how good Richmond’s defense was. They looked like they had decent speed...
If we get some starters back, we will perk up. To me at least, we looked close to being good. IHMO, one more score and the Spiders would have folded.
