Know Your Enemy: Q&A With William & Mary Sports Blog

One of the many things that make us enjoy JMU’s rivalry with William & Mary is the fact that most JMU folks have friends, coworkers, or family members who are Tribe fans and alums. And unlike a lot of CAA schools, William & Mary has bloggers. Good bloggers in fact, who we’ve been fortunate to interact with. Davey and Kyle, the guys behind William & Mary Sports Blog, were gracious enough to answer some of our questions about the Tribe. You can also check out the Q&A we did for them here. Read their blog. It’s basically the W&M equivalent of our fine blog here. Except because it’s focused on William & Mary it’s predictably less snarky, more intellectual, and it covers a football team that’s never won a National Championship and a basketball team that’s never been to the Big Dance. Anyway, read it and if you’re on Twitter, give them a follow @wmsportsblog.

The Tribe has struggled to find consistent QB play and a reliable starter for the past few years. Steve Cluley seems to have stepped up and taken hold of the position this year. What does he bring to the Tribe offense?

Steve Cluley has definitely served as a beacon of hope for this William & Mary team. Throughout his 35+ year tenure at W&M, Head Coach Jimmye Laycock has been known for developing solid quarterbacks. However, in recent years, the Tribe has been hard-pressed to find a capable signal caller. Enter Steve Cluley. Following the graduation of Brent Caprio and Michael Graham last year, a heated QB battle ensued over the offseason. The competition included Raphael Ortiz, Christian Brumbaugh, Steve Cluley, and Jhalil Mosley. Most expected either the experienced senior in Ortiz or the talented freshman Mosley to get the job.

In the end, Ortiz was declared out with a career ending injury, Mosley could not overcome injuries of his own, and Cluley just beat Brumbaugh for the starting gig. Athletically, Cluley can just about do it all. He has a big arm that can certainly throw it deep. In addition to his ability to put good velocity on the ball, he can also run. Coming into the year, this was a little known fact about Cluley, but anyone who saw his high school highlight tape knew he had the ability to run. Overall, he’s still in his first year as the Tribe’s starting QB, and thus has had to overcome a couple dud performances. Even still, he has performed admirably considering the Tribe’s recent QB track record. His performance against Villanova especially, in which he threw for 350 yards and 3 TDs shows his potential. Of course, he still has a lot of growing to do, but we see a high ceiling for Cluley in the years to come.

We know Tre McBride is a tremendous receiver and Mikal Abdul-Saboor has become a dangerous threat running the ball. They both seem to carry a heavy load for the passing and rushing attacks respectively. Who else should JMU be worried about on the Tribe offense? 

Aside from McBride and Abdul-Saboor, William & Mary does have a couple more offensive weapons. Senior wide receiver Sean Ballard has the potential at any time to go off for 100 yards and a touchdown–much like in the Stony Brook game, where he tied it up late on a 52 yard dash to the end zone, forcing the contest to overtime.

Another offensive weapon for the Tribe is a true freshman, DeVonte Dedmon. Dedmon is a local Williamsburg product who hails from Warhill High School. He is used exactly like Percy Harvin of the New York Jets. He takes handoffs, runs intermediate routes, punt/kick returns, and catches deep throws. He is an incredible threat for this offense, and is only in his true freshman year; the last true freshman WR to come through this system was Tre McBride, and we all know how that turned out!

Finally, another stud to watch on offense is Kendell Anderson–brother of former JMU running back, Jordan Anderson. As the Tribe figures to establish the run in this game, both Abdul-Saboor and Anderson hope to make an impact. This year, as the second option to Abdul-Saboor, Anderson has accumulated 219 rushing yards and 4 touchdowns. In the Villanova game, Anderson had a big 42 yard run on a drive that he later capped with a touchdown. However, in the Delaware game, Jimmye went with Jarrell Cooper as the backup and did not give Anderson the ball, which surprised us. However, if Anderson does play (we expect him to), he is truly an all around back who can make a big play, where as Abdul-Saboor is more of an in-between the tackles and first down yardage kind of guy.

Much has been made about JMU’s struggling defense this year. In terms of total numbers, JMU’s D looks much worse than the Tribe’s, but when you break down the per play numbers, they look quite similar. JMU is giving up 4.7 yards/rush and 7.7 yards/pass attempt, while W&M is giving up 4.6 yards/rush and 7.8 yards/pass attempt. What are your thoughts on the Tribe D and what do they need to do to slow down Vad Lee and the Dukes?

The Tribe defense is not what it was last year. That being said, it still has several pieces in place. Losing safety Jerome Couplin III to the Detroit Lions was a huge loss on the back end, especially in terms of team tackles and stopping the big play. And that’s been the problem for the Tribe defense this season: giving up the big play. It seems the defense will force three and outs and turnovers–but all of a sudden, they will give up a huge play in which the other team takes it to pay dirt. This was incredibly apparent in the Lafayette game at Zable Stadium, in which the Tribe found themselves in a hole early against the Patriot League opponent. A couple huge Lafayette run plays almost put a dagger in the Tribe early in the first half, but W&M was able to come from behind in the second half and secure the victory.

That being said, there are still big pieces in place from last year’s powerhouse defense. Junior captain Luke Rhodes is a tackling machine, leading the team with 62 tackles at the middle linebacker position. CAA preseason defensive player of the year Mike Reilly leads the team with 6.5 sacks. Senior linebacker Airek Green also does it all, with 6 sacks, 2 interceptions, 1 forced fumble, and one safety on the year. Most importantly, this W&M unit ranks 11th in the nation in the turnover margin, averaging +.89 turnovers per game. That’s something the Dukes will definitely need to keep in mind in this contest.

What’s the injury situation for the Tribe? Are any players that could make a difference expected to be limited or out for Saturday’sgame?

Last week, we were surprised to see senior kicker John Carpenter, and sophomore punter Hunter Windmuller both out with injuries. Carpenter apparently underwent minor surgery, and we’re not exactly sure what’s wrong with Windmuller. Carpenter has been a beast this year, and he is truly able to connect from 50 yards out when healthy. Windmuller is a transfer from Virginia Tech who can consistently punt booming, spiraling punts. Windmuller did sustain a shoulder injury early in the year, so he may have re-aggravated that shoulder recently. Filling in for both of these players last week was redshirt freshman Nicholas Dorka. Dorka performed very well in relief, he punted the ball 5 times for an average of 48.8 yards per punt–the farthest traveling 63 yards. He also hit a field goal from 36 yards out. Kicking/punting is obviously an area of depth for this Tribe team, however, the loss of Carpenter and Windmuller may be big in this matchup against JMU.

We’ve been to games Zable Stadium and have enjoyed ourselves. There’s no doubt it could use some sprucing up though. How excited are Tribe fans for the proposed enhancements (which look great btw)?

Tribe fans are incredibly excited for the new upgrades–which will total $27 million dollars and be funded entirely by generous, private donations. Zable Stadium renovations will include a new upper bowl seating section, wider aisles, new restrooms, additional hand rails, an upgraded sound system, additional concession areas, and a new entrance area. The work will be done over a two year span (beginning immediately after this season), which will also allow the team to continue playing at the Stadium during the different phases of construction. It should be 100% completed by the beginning of the 2016 season. If anyone hasn’t seen the mock ups of the renovations, we definitely recommend you read about it here. We don’t yet know how this will add to the overall seating capacity, which currently sits around 11-12 thousand seats, but the renovations will be a great addition to the historic Zable Stadium.

Your school’s mascot is a Pantless Griffin. Please explain.

Funny story about that, the current students have actually created a petition to get the secondary mascot changed from the Griffin to the “E’s.” Now you might think, the E’s? Well, that’s to signify the silent “e” at the end of Head Coach Jimmye Laycock’s first name. A lot of support has been thrown behind this movement, and the petition has been signed by thousands of students!

Just kidding. But back in the late 2000s, the College was forced to come up with a new mascot after W&M had to officially remove the feathers from the WM logo. The feathers were deemed politically incorrect for a state institution, and thus concretely destroyed any notion of “the Indians” (William & Mary’s original mascot, which was also deemed politically incorrect). Thus, the Griffin mascot, which is supposed to symbolize William & Mary’s English heritage (Lion’s body), and an Eagle’s head (USA) came about–and the W&M Griffin was born.

The William & Mary students in the late 2000s were actually allowed to come up with and vote for new mascots, and the Griffin beat out “the Pug,” a “Phoenix,” and a “Wren”–don’t ask. The Griffin replaced the interim mascot, which was Colonel Ebirt (Tribe backwards), who was a green and gold frog. You think we’re kidding? You should check out the great wiki page about the entire thing here! In the end, it makes for a great story; what can we say, we know our history at W&M.

So if you are speaking with a Tribe alum this weekend and run out of things to talk about, just bring up the fact that W&M had their feathers and Indians title taken away, and I’m sure he or she will retort with a tangent about how they should bring the feathers back. Hardcore Tribe fans will never let those feathers go away.

Give us your prediction for the game.

W&M 30 JMU 27 — Of course we can’t agree with the JMU SB’s prediction of a Dukes victory! If the Tribe can contain Vad Lee, continue to force turnovers, and put up points on offense, William & Mary will walk away with a victory.