One Lenoir-Rhyne defensive player was walking off the field last Saturday and began chirping about how his team had just been beaten by the host Davidson Wildcats.
“They just peck away at you,” he said. “Four yards, four yards, four yards.”
When told this during a post-game interview, Davidson quarterback Jonathan Carkhuff smiled.
“It’s hen-pecking, for sure,” said Carkhuff, who threw for 324 yards and three touchdowns in the Wildcats’ 28-10 victory.
The win, which moved Davidson to 1-1 entering its Sept. 24 home game with Johnson C. Smith, was significant for a number of reasons. First, it was a confidence boost to a team that needed one after struggling to a 3-8 record in 2010 and losing its first game of the 2011 campaign. Second, it showed how effective the team’s new offense, the Air Raid, could become. And third, and perhaps most importantly, it put on full display a team that was having fun.
Before the season, head coach Tripp Merritt couldn’t stop smiling about the prospects. Playing in the only Division I football conference that does not give full athletic scholarships, Merritt knew his team might be overmatched in some games. So a newfangled offense was installed, the thinking being that a wide-open attack would be fun, and that a fast-paced attack might be a neutralizer.
Davidson’s opening game at Georgetown helped get some of the kinks of a new offense out of the way. Last week’s explosion against Lenoir-Rhyne was much better.
“We moved the ball. We scored. Our defensive game plan was right on,” said Merritt.
Carkhuff completed passes to 11 receivers and led first half scoring drives of 82, 80 and 68 yards, the last one coming on a brilliant drive that started with 1:17 left in the half and negated any momentum L-R may have gotten from a field goal that cut the Wildcats’ lead to 14-3.
A perfectly thrown pass between several Bears defenders on the final play of the half was caught for a 29-yard touchdown by Jonathan Adams on a drive that was slowed by a 15-yard penalty. In previous seasons, the Wildcats might have been conservative and ran out the clock, content to go into halftime with a 14-3 lead. Not this year.
“The way our offense is, a two-minute drill is typical,” said Carkhuff. “That’s basically what we do.”
Merritt joked before the season that the team had two running plays.
“We run on the field, and we run off the field,” he said.
That wasn’t exactly the case against L-R. The Wildcats ran the ball 27 times, but it was clear the purpose of the rushing attack was to set up the pass.
The parts in the passing attack, with the exception of Carkhuff, seem interchangeable. Adams’ touchdown catch on the last play of the half sent him to the locker room with impressive numbers: eight receptions, 95 yards, two touchdowns. Unfortunately, he spent the second half leaning on crutches and nursing a sore ankle. Others picked up the slack. Lanny Funsten finished with 85 yards receiving on eight catches, including a touchdown with 3:23 left in the third quarter that
made the score 28-3.
One concern of the Air Raid is that the offense is designed to score so quickly that the defense could be on the field for long periods of time.
Even though the Wildcats didn’t score in the fourth quarter, they did manage to sustain some drives, holding onto the ball for nearly 10 minutes. Davidson actually won the time of possession battle in the game, which Merritt conceded might be a rarity.
