Shortly after Elon orchestrated a 13-play, 1:26 drive to end W&M’s postseason hopes, I texted this message into the WMSportsBlog group chat: “Only been watching [Tribe football] since I was a freshman so not a huge sample size, but this is definitely up there for the most disappointing loss I’ve seen from us.”
Ironically, the other loss that stands out the most in recent memory? When W&M gave up 19 unanswered points in the 4th quarter at home in 2022…also to Elon. While we wouldn’t know it at the time, that loss would ultimately prevent an undefeated regular season for the Tribe.
For anyone who has been keeping up with Tribe football this season, how we lost this past Saturday should not be shocking, given some persistent issues all season long reared their ugly heads. Regardless, let’s take a look at two of them.
Personal fouls at inopportune times.
Perhaps the most frustrating occurrence this season has been the frequency of personal fouls from Tribe defenders. Whether it’s unnecessary roughness, unsportsmanlike conduct or targeting, it is hard for this squad to go a game without one of these penalties called.
This past Saturday, the Tribe was burned twice by these errors. With Elon looking to put points on the board to avoid being down double digits at halftime, Alex Washington was called for an unnecessary roughness after a 3rd and 12 conversion from the Phoenix.
Was the penalty the reason Elon got the 1st down? No, Elon converted anyway. The problem was it gave Elon a free 10 yards in the red zone, placing them at the Tribe’s 10 yard line instead of their 20.
3 plays later, Elon would convert on 3rd and goal in the waning seconds of the half, turning what could have been an 11 or 8 point lead for the Tribe at halftime to just a 4 point lead. Football is a game of momentum, and just as the game was starting to slip away from Elon, W&M threw them a bone.
On Elon’s game winning drive of the game, redshirt freshman Sascha Garcia was called for a rather dubious targeting call as Elon receiver Landyn Backey slid to make a catch. Was this an intentional act by Garcia? Absolutely not, but in this day and age of football, they’re going to call anything that looks like helmet to helmet. Situational awareness is key, and even if Backey caught the ball, it wouldn’t have been a huge completion anyway.
Ultimately, the refs upheld their ruling after review and Garcia was disqualified from the game with Elon receiving 15 free yards on the Tribe side of the field.
What these penalties ultimately come down to is discipline, which is a direct reflection of coaching. It would be a different conversation had this not been a persistent pattern across the course of the season, but alas.
Inability to defend the deep ball.
W&M has routinely given up big chunk plays through the air on defense, and the Elon game was no exception. Is it personnel, scheme, coaching, or a combination of all three? At this point, I would argue it’s a little bit of all three. Let’s take a look at a couple of the long passes completed during this game to try to understand.
Play 1: 45 yard touchdown pass to Zimere Winston.
This one might frustrate me the most. Winston is set up in the left slot. He will be running a fairly straightforward Go route to the left sideline. The Tribe have one deep safety and appear to be playing Cover 1 coverage.
Since the corner covering Winston is so far behind the line of scrimmage, Winston is able to make the slightest cut with a full head of steam. Our corner is caught completely flat-footed, and there is no way the safety can get back to that side of the field in time to defend the route.
A lay-up pass and catch between Downing and Winston.
Here’s the touchdown fully played out.
Play #2: 37 yard pass to Chandler Brayboy
All things considered, I can live with a play like this one. It’s a well contested catch, although I would like the corner to be turning around here as opposed to playing with his back to the ball.
Brayboy has two hands firmly on the ball with momentum falling down, making it pretty tough for the Tribe defender to rip it out.
Play #3: 15 yard touchdown pass to Onuma Dieke
So technically this isn’t a deep pass, but I still felt the need to include it. There is no technical analysis from me here, purely situational.
There are 11 seconds left in the game, Elon has no timeouts, they cannot complete a pass anywhere but the end zone or sideline or else the game is over.
Given that, it makes absolutely no sense for our safeties to not already be in the end zone pre snap.
The only way Elon can score a touchdown is if a receiver somehow gets behind the defense, which is made even harder due to the fact that the offense is working with a short field.
And yet, somehow (I just don’t understand how this keeps happening) our corner is caught flat-footed on a fairly simple fade / go route.
Onuma Dieke gets behind a corner and the safety isn’t deep enough to pursue, which results in one of the more infuriating screenshots you’ll see.
The full video is below, and yes I understand that screenshots don’t capture the reality of game speed, but again, a short yardage situation benefits the defense here! To have the season effectively end on this coverage malpractice is unfortunate, but this has been the team’s defensive Achilles heel all-season long.
Not included in this montage due to it not being posted to social media is the 43 yard pass to Winston to open up the second half for the Phoenix. It was a relatively well contested ball, but I would have liked to see our corner turn to track the ball earlier.
Look, the Tribe offense had a stellar day, putting up 36 points and the go-ahead touchdown and two-point conversion with 1:26 left in the 4th quarter. At some point, your defense needs to make a stop. Unfortunately, that just did not happen on Saturday.
A bigger missed opportunity
In just two weeks some of the most prolific offensive talent that has ever donned the green & gold will make their final appearances for Tribe football. This was a veteran offense led by the longest-tenured quarterback in W&M history, the 3rd all-time leading rusher, and an athlete who will most likely end up with 1,000 yards passing, receiving and rushing to end his career here.
It’s rare to have such player continuity between seasons in today’s ever-changing NIL world, throw a global pandemic into the middle of these player’s careers, and it’s downright remarkable they still share the same field every Saturday.
That’s why this season (and potentially era) feels so disappointing.
We are now two years removed from arguably the greatest season in Tribe football history, and things have seemed to return to the mean here. What I mean is by looking at the four seasons post-Covid, the Tribe have been consistently middle of the road.
Comparing last season to now is about as close to Deja vu as one can get, as both 2023 and 2024 Tribe football beat Campbell, Wofford and Hampton and lost to Elon and Towson (look away now, as last year’s squad also lost to Richmond).
The Tribe play an extra game this year so thankfully they cannot finish 6-5 yet again, but I really do feel like W&M’s performance during the Richmond game in two weeks will tell us a lot about the state of the program. Call it a “temp check” game if you will.
You might be asking why I’m skipping over the Bryant (0-6, 2-8) game next week to solely focus on Richmond, and the answer is very simple: I’ve seen this Tribe football team beat up enough of the dregs of the CAA and SoCon this season. I need to see our guys beat a solid Richmond squad, on the road, with nothing to play for but one another and the sweet satisfaction of sending the Spiders to the Patriot League with one final L in the CAA.
Can W&M play spoiler like Elon just did this past Saturday?
I, as I’m sure many of you reading the blog right now, still believe they can.
But until this team puts together a complete 60 minute effort against a quality opponent, seeing is believing.
The William & Mary Sports Blog 
So many of the Tribe’s shortcoming/deficiencies are a direct result of lack of discipline, especially the inexcusable personal fouls, and that starts with coaching. It’s the Mike London era that needs to come to an end. He’s just not that good. (That, and find a quarterback that doesn’t tippy-toe like a ballerina, but actually runs when he sees an opening.)