Inside the Patriot League · preview

Both of these teams are 2-4 and neither can stop the run

On October 1 we published a preview of Holy Cross at Zable under the headline "William & Mary finally plays a team that can't run it." Holy Cross ran for 203 yards two days later, their best day of the season, and we said so in the recap.

So here is the same subject handled more carefully. North Carolina Central can run the football, and there is no argument about it.

What the Eagles do

North Carolina Central's rushing totals this season, in order: 190, 166, 223, 68, 35, 160.

The two small ones are the two games against teams a level up or near it, 68 at Gardner-Webb and 35 at East Carolina. Against everybody else they have run it between 160 and 223.

The 223 was the Aggie-Eagle Classic on September 12, when Plez Lawrence carried 22 times for 210 yards and three touchdowns against North Carolina A&T, with a 73-yard run in it. He is not the only one. Nelson Layne went 13 for 116 in the opener at Texas Southern, and Zion Dobson led them with 80 against Campbell last Saturday.

Three different backs have led this team in rushing in six games. That is not a committee that cannot decide, that is a team with more than one answer.

What William & Mary has allowed

Rushing yards given up by the Tribe, in order: 157, 174, 366, 428, 286, 203.

That number has been the single defining fact of their season since September, and it has not moved. Lehigh ran for 366 on them and Fordham ran for 428, which remains the worst afternoon anybody has had against this defense.

The honest note is that Holy Cross had managed 78, 66, 40, 155 and 121 before they came to Williamsburg and put up 203. The Tribe have a way of making a running game look better than it was the week before.

The other half of it is worse

William & Mary ran for 130, 89, 144 and 137 yards in its first four games. That is unremarkable and it is functional.

In the last two they have run for 17 at Duke and 31 against Holy Cross.

So the run game did not start broken. It broke, and it broke at the same time the pass protection did, which is how a team gets sacked six times in an afternoon and finishes with 251 yards. Winston Watkins carried 13 times for 18 yards last Saturday, more often than any William & Mary running back, and Andrew King had his lowest day of the season.

The part that should encourage them

North Carolina Central cannot stop the run either.

Texas Southern ran for 277 on them in the opener. Campbell ran for 262 at O'Kelly-Riddick last Saturday on the way to a 38-31 win. Gardner-Webb had 136 and East Carolina had 148.

So the opportunity is real and it is the same opportunity William & Mary has failed to take for two weeks. A team that cannot run for 50 yards against anybody is going to find out on Saturday whether that is about them or about who they were playing.

We picked them second in August

In the MEAC preview we published on August 17 we had North Carolina Central second in the league, on 42 points and a first-place vote in the coaches' poll, coming off 8-4. They are 2-4.

We also wrote that Chance Peterson, the preseason Offensive Player of the Year, is a receiver rather than a quarterback, and that who throws to him was less settled than the honors suggested.

The answer is Nelson Layne, who is also the man who ran for 116 yards in the opener at Texas Southern. North Carolina Central has thrown for 131, 160, 146, 150, 173 and 199 yards this season, so they have not reached 200 through the air in any game. Peterson has 26 catches for 307 yards and one touchdown in six games, after 48 catches for 720 a year ago. The preseason Offensive Player of the Year is playing on a running team.

None of this is academic for us. The Eagles have not played a MEAC game yet, and their conference season opens on October 23 at Delaware State on ESPN2 before they come to Norfolk State on November 7. Two of the programs we cover most closely get this team inside four weeks, so Saturday is the scouting report for both of them.

So what happens Saturday

Both teams are 2-4. William & Mary is 1-3 in the Patriot League with wins over nobody since Delaware State on September 5. North Carolina Central has beaten Elizabeth City State and North Carolina A&T and lost the other four.

This is the most evenly matched game either of them has played in a month, which is not a compliment to either, and it is the first one in a while where William & Mary is not obviously overmatched.

Kickoff is 1pm Saturday at O'Kelly-Riddick Stadium in Durham, on ESPN+.