Stetson football coach Roger Hughes has a unique strategy in mind to help his Hatters get past the problems that have ailed them in home games this year.
“I thought about getting a bus and have them ride around campus for seven hours, just to make them think they are on the road,” Hughes said.
Such is the case for a team that has enjoyed tremendous success on the road this year, winning four of five games, but has yet to taste victory at Spec Martin Memorial Stadium in four tries.
The Hatters will try to put that trend to bed on Saturday when they host Marist at 3 p.m. for Homecoming. Fans can listen to the game on WSBB AM 1230 in New Smyrna Beach and 1490 in DeLand as well as on WYGM AM 740 “The Game” in Orlando. Video streaming of the game will also be available on Hatter Vision through the official Stetson Athletics web site, www.GoHatters.com.
Tickets for the game are also available through the Stetson Athletics Ticket Office. Single game tickets start at just $15 for general admission.
The Hatters come into their second homecoming game since the re-birth of the program having lost five straight games at home, going back to their 26-13 homecoming victory over Davidson last year. Kidding aside, Hughes said that he and the Stetson coaches have taken steps this week to change the way they prepare for the home game.
“We modified practice, changed it around a little, and we are going to modify our Friday preparation to make it more like a road game,” Hughes said. “It is funny because, initially, we wanted to make our road games like home games. Now we are trying to modify our home games to make it more like the road.”
One of the things the Hatters coaches will do is allow the players to take part in some of the Homecoming week activities, including Friday night's pep rally and comedy show at the Edmunds Center.
“We are being a little looser with their time over homecoming,” Hughes said. “They will get to go to the comedy show and to the pep rally. We will meet with them after that to make sure their heads are right. We shortened practice and moved things around, just to try to keep the guys fresh.”
What the Hatters are not doing is taking a Marist team that started the season with five consecutive losses lightly. Last year, at homecoming in Poughkeepsie, NY, the Red Foxes blanked Stetson 27-0. The Hatters managed just 18 rushing yards and 131 yards of total offense in that game.
While this is not the same Marist team, they are still a veteran club, especially on the defensive side of the ball.
“They are almost all seniors on defense and they are big and physical,” Hughes said. “They have a great defensive end (Demetrius Williams) who is great and has a lot of range. Their linebackers are big and physical and their strong safety (Connor Mathias), what we call our Dawg safety, is probably one of the best players in the league.”
Offensively, things started to click for Marist after a quarterback change. Since sophomore Anthony Francis took over from junior Ed Achziger, Marist has won three of five games and is averaging 24 points per game – up from five points per game through the first four.
“I see them as a big, physical team, much like they were last year,” Hughes said. “I know they have gone through a quarterback change and they are playing much better offensively since they did that. They have a big receiver (Armani Martin) and short, scat-back kind of receiver (Matt Tralli) that can both go up and get the ball. They are both threats that have to be accounted for.”
The engine that makes the Red Foxes go on offense is running back Atiq Lucas, who has 596 yards on 171 attempts this year with six touchdowns. Hughes said the thing that makes Lucas so tough is that he very rarely has a negative play.
“They shift a lot to keep you off balance, but they are physical with their offensive line and the back does not make negative yards,” Hughes said. “He might only get four or five yards at a time, but they give it to him enough and, because there are no negative plays, he is over 100 and they have controlled the clock.”
For the Hatters, the focus for this week, as it is every week, will be on forcing Marist into turnovers. After picking up 11 turnovers in two games, Stetson managed to force just one last week at Campbell, but that was a big one, coming in the final seconds to seal the victory.
In addition to trying to force turnovers, the Hatters have a couple of other points of emphasis.
“Don't believe the hype, that has been our motto this week,” Hughes said. “Don't believe that you are all that much better than you were five weeks ago. We are playing better, at times, but we still have a long way to go. We have all of the hoopla going on around homecoming and we have to maintain our focus through that.
“The third thing we are emphasizing is playing fast and physical. We have to have a sense of pride in being physical on both sides of the ball and I think we are getting closer to that. We have been able to run the ball more effectively over the last four or five games, with the exception of Jacksonville, and that physicality on both sides of the ball is really important.”
The running game should get a boost this week with the healthy return of sophomore A.J. Washington and freshman Craig Carrington, along with the continued improvement of sophomore Mike Yonker.
“Andre Washington is back and ready to go,” Hughes said. “Craig Carrington is back and at full speed and I think Mike Yonker is more at full speed now than he has been. He is moving better, thinking better and running faster. Hopefully we are pretty close to full speed.”
On the defensive side of the ball, all of the attention this week has been on the play of sophomore Donald Payne, and deservedly so. All Payne did last week was tie the all-time NCAA all-division record with 30 tackles against Campbell. Over the last three games he has 72 tackles and his 129 total stops this year leads all of Division I (FBS and FCS).
“The numbers are really mind-boggling,” Hughes said. “I am actually tired of people who are skeptical of his numbers. They tell me there is no way and we are padding his stats. I tell them to just come in and watch the film. It is absolutely amazing the number of plays he is making.”
Payne's ability to make plays has been heightened by a subtle shift in the Hatters' defensive philosophy over the last few games. Stetson has evolved from an all-out blitzing defense to one that picks its spots and forces opposing offenses to sustain drives for long periods of time. That has led to more tackles, but fewer big plays behind the line of scrimmage for Payne.
“Because of the change in our defensive philosophy, we have more levels to our defense,” Hughes said. “Instead of blitzing all the time, it takes a runner longer to get through the defense, which gives other players more time to come in from the side, or behind or wherever. All of that is conducive to his game because he has such great range.”
Hughes gives an example from the game last week at Campbell when Payne made an incredible effort to make a play on the other side of the field from where he was positioned.
“He was lined up on the opposite hash on an inside zone play,” Hughes said. “He read it and came all the way across the field to the bottom of the other numbers to make a tackle for a five-yard gain. Frankly, he has great instincts. Our defensive staff has been very smart about where they put him so that he can utilize his talents.”
The change in defensive philosophy has also resulted in the Stetson defense being on the field longer during games. That fact, combined with the Hatters' quick strike ability on offense, means the defensive players sometimes don't get much time to rest.
“Chip Kelly says that time of possession is a stat that is over-rated and I would say he is right, as long as you are scoring points,” Hughes said. “There is not one defensive player who would want the offense to keep the ball for eight plays and not score as opposed to scoring quickly.
“One thing we have been able to do over the last two weeks is every time it felt as if the momentum was starting to swing, we were able to put together a drive or a score to stop it. I am hoping that is a sign of maturity for this team.”
Maturity is an area where a senior-laden Marist team will have a decided advantage again this year, but Hughes said his team now knows that when something goes wrong in a game they have time to recover. With Marist playing on the road for the first time in a month, he is hoping the Red Foxes have to deal with adversity.
“Having a younger team, when you have something happen in your favor it just gives them an emotional lift and they play harder,” Hughes said. “I would love to get off to a fast start. Marist has not played many road games this year, so hopefully that adversity for them will be in our favor.
“I was hoping for 95 degrees and humid but it is going to be a gorgeous day. Hopefully we will have a great crowd, with a lot of energy and, if we can have some early success, we can keep that crowd in the game because I know that has a great affect on our guys.”
