Football: The Citadel's ground game burns defense

Saturday’s football game didn’t go quite as planned.

Despite a promising first career start from sophomore quarterback Tommy Wornham, the team suffered its biggest loss since a 31-point drubbing at the hands of Penn seven years ago and exposed defensive flaws along the way.

Critics may look to blame the loss on miscues, injuries or inexperience, but Princeton (0-1) was simply overwhelmed by The Citadel (1-1), whose confusing offense and swarming defense left the Tigers reeling.

From The Citadel’s first series, it became clear that the Tigers would have trouble stopping the Bulldog running game while containing star receiver Andre Roberts. Though Roberts was held to just 56 yards on three receptions, Princeton’s front line was hit for 173 rushing yards.

With junior linebacker Steven Cody out for the week, the defense allowed four different Bulldog runs of more than 10 yards in the first half alone. Though Princeton seemed to slow down its opponent’s running game for parts of the second half, The Citadel (1-1) picked it back up in time to put the game away by scoring four unanswered rushing touchdowns in the second half.

Last week against UNC, The Citadel did not have running backs Van Dyke Jones or Terrell Dallas to rely on, and Princeton seemed largely unprepared for the attacking power those two provided. By game’s end, the pair had contributed 95 rushing yards and three touchdowns.

Still, when Princeton’s defense did slow down the run, The Citadel confused it by using two different quarterbacks and receivers other than the highly touted Roberts. Led by senior linebacker Scott Britton’s nine tackles, the Tiger defense often fought through the Bulldogs’ offensive line, but it was unable to break through with a turnover, excepting a fourth-down goal-line stand in the second quarter.

Britton said he thought the score of the game was not reflective of the defense’s efforts, and instead Wornham’s emergence provided one of the game’s most intriguing story lines.

Heavily focusing on senior running back Jordan Culbreath, who averaged more than 120 yards per game last season, the Bulldogs allowed Wornham to show his arm off in his first collegiate start. Wornham proved himself a worthy successor to Brian Anderson ’09 by not throwing an incompletion until the waning minutes of the first quarter, and leading the team on a 42-yard touchdown drive in the middle of the first.

With Culbreath amassing 70 yards but absorbing substantial attention from the defense, Wornham ran free, often throwing short passes to his sides and throwing longer, down-the-middle strikes as the game progressed. The Citadel did not know how to prepare for Wornham, and it showed: The young quarterback completed 10 of 16 passes for 66 yards and one touchdown in the first half before turning on the jets for 132 more yards in the second. Citadel head coach Kevin Higgins described his efforts to scout Wornham after the game: “Well it’s hard. We tried to call up his high school coach, and they just tried to tell us all good things. We couldn’t get anything on the guy.”

Though Wornham threw two interceptions — the receiver bobbled the first, Wornham was hit in the arm for the second — he appeared self-assured after the game. “I felt pretty comfortable from the beginning,” he said. “That touchdown drive definitely instilled some confidence in me.”

Given last year’s reliance on the running game and The Citadel’s efforts to wrap up speedy junior wide receiver Trey Peacock, Wornham performed better than expected before giving way to sophomore quarterback Drew Ellis for the game’s final series.

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The team may be happy with Wornham’s performance, but it is likely looking for ways to use Culbreath more effectively in the future after he was held well below last year’s average yardage. By using junior fullback Matt Zimmerman as a featured receiver, the offensive staff appeared to search for creative ways to confuse the Bulldogs and spring Culbreath, who did average 4.5 yards per carry.

But even if Hughes’ staff had found a way to get Culbreath the ball more effectively and more often, it could not prepare for the struggles of senior placekicker Ben Bologna, who missed one field goal and had another blocked. Hughes said he would be looking to “clean up” the team’s kicking game in the coming week, clearly unhappy with Tigers’ lack of scoring.

After Bologna hit the right upright with nine minutes, 34 seconds left in the third quarter, The Citadel began to run away with the game, commencing a four-minute, 27-second drive that resulted in a touchdown to make the score 17-7. Had Bologna hit the ball a few more inches to the left, the game would have been tied at 10.

Still, Hughes did not seem to pin the loss on any player or play, specifically. “Obviously we’re disappointed,” he said. “I’m not sure they’re 31 points better than we are.”