2008 Woodie Awards
Wildcats look forward to tough road ahead
Mark Daniels
Issue date: 10/6/06 Section: Sports
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Aside from the Big Ten's Northwestern and last weekend's No.18 Delaware, the Wildcats have three more games this year against ranked teams No. 7 Richmond, No. 10 Massachusetts, and No. 13 James Madison.
Despite its strength, the schedule sits well with the team.
"It's good for us," said senior captain Corey Graham. "We knew coming into the season our schedule was hard. Our coach knew what he was doing when he set the schedule. We look forward to it. It's a challenge to our defense and a challenge to our team and if we don't step up, we lose."
When it's all said and done and playoff time comes around, these 'Cats will have faced one Division I-A team and four Division I-AA teams in the top 25. One could say that it will better prepare this team for the playoffs compared to last year where the team only played two teams ranked in the regular season in the top 25: No.17 William and Mary and No. 7 Massachusetts.
"In my past two experiences going into the playoffs, yeah, I think you look at our league overall," said Coach Sean McDonnell. "I think we're well prepared these because of our battles week in and week out. It's a challenge week in and week out. I think our league is the toughest league in 1-AA and we've had a lot of success. You've got to be prepared. It's a great teacher and the competition is such that each week, it demands your best game."
If the 'Cats are to get through this schedule with ease, it will no doubt prepare them for the playoffs. However, if they lose, it could do the opposite.
"Whenever you play competition like that, it's obviously going to help you," said senior captain David Ball. "It can easily not help you if you lose. It helps to prepare us only if we win those games."
With the Wildcats being ranked number one, they have a proverbial bull's-eye on their backs. Every non-ranked and ranked team wants to knock them off. But when these 'Cats see a team they are facing is also ranked, it serves as motivation to prove themselves.
"We can take these opportunities to show other programs that there's a reason why we're ranked higher than them," said Ball. "Everyone will tell you rankings don't matter come Saturday. We want to prove that we can uphold our end of the bargain by keeping our number one ranking and doing what we do best out there, and that's putting up points and winning games."
Things should be different over the next two weeks with the Wildcats hosting visiting Richmond and James Madison, compared to last year when almost every home regular season game was over by halftime.
Saturday against Richmond will be a test, just in the fact that the Spiders have the best defense in Division I-AA. They have also beaten a Division I-A team in Duke in the beginning of the season.
"They're good," said McDonnell. "They're real good. They're big, they're strong, they're physical."
Then there is their offense, which has been overshadowed by their defensive play.
"Offensively they're really good," said McDonnell. "They're an all control offense with play action capabilities. When they play action pass, they want to hit homeruns and they've done a good job of it this year."
Come Saturday, the Wildcats will need to play one of their better games.
"This is going to be a big test," he says.
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