The football team was well aware of the Lord Jeffs' dominant front seven heading into Saturday's game.
"Their front seven is very physical and athletic, more so than anyone I've seen thus far, making it very difficult to run on them," senior running back Will Forde said last week. As it turned out, Forde's analysis of the Amherst defense was spot on.
Football games are won and lost in the trenches, and Amherst's defense won this battle decisively. The Lord Jeffs started off their impressive outing by eliminating Forde from the game.
Through the first five games of the season, Forde led the NESCAC in rushing with 655 yards for an average of 131 yards-per-game. During Saturday's contest, however, Forde totaled just 36 yards on 12 carries. His average of 3 yards-per-carry was a full 2 yards fewer than the 5 yards he was averaging going into the game.
"They came in averaging less than 60 yards on the ground per game, so we knew it was going to be tough and we were going to have to pass the ball more than we were used to," Forde said. "They definitely impressed us with the way they stopped the run."
The Amherst defense did not just shut down the run, however. It also displayed a unique ability to get to the quarterback. Amherst recorded 16 sacks through the first five games of the season, and on Saturday the defense continued this trend with a vengeance. The Lord Jeffs overpowered the Tufts offensive line, taking down junior quarterback Anthony Fucillo a whopping eight times for a loss of 56 yards.
"I think protection-wise we weren't all on the same page," Forde said. "The backs, the offensive line and the quarterbacks all needed to do a better job of getting on the same page and executing our protections."
Senior fullback Kevin Anderson also attributed Amherst's dominant pass rush to Tufts lack of execution of blocking schemes.
"I think we just had some missed assignments," Anderson said. "They blitzed us a lot and we just didn't seem to pick it up as well as we had in the last four or five games."
Tufts' 42 yards rushing, minus the 56 yards lost from sacks, netted a total of minus-14 yards on the ground for the Jumbo offense. When the Jumbos fell behind 24-0 at halftime they had to all but abandon the running game to try and erase the large deficit. Fucillo did all he could with his arm, throwing two second-half touchdown passes to senior wideout Dave Halas, but without the running game, the offense became one dimensional.
With two games remaining on the season, Anderson said he thought that Saturday's rushing effort was an aberration of Tufts' otherwise strong rushing offense.
"We think that we can run on anybody," he said. "We have a great offensive line, and Will is a great tailback. Trinity and Williams both had great run defenses, so I don't think [Amherst's run defense] was anything too special. We just didn't execute the way we had in the past five games."
Tufts needs to get back to what they do best, running the football on Forde's legs, or else the team might be heading for its first losing season since 2005.
