The football team's blowout win over Bates this weekend, fueled by a stark 385-167 advantage in total offense, stemmed from one simple concept.
"Spread the field, open up lanes for Willie," senior receiver David Halas said. "Let him run and we'll be all right.
"Willie" would be Will Forde, the senior Jumbo running back who racked up exactly 100 yards on the ground in the first half en route to 116 in the game. It was his second career 100-yard game, one week after his first.
"He's running like he's not 150 pounds," Halas said. "He's running like a beast. We love it. I don't know, there's not much more to say. He's just running like an animal out there."
The ground game opened the door for the Jumbos' aerial attack, led by junior QB Anthony Fucillo, who first put the Jumbos on the board with an 18-yard bullet to Halas late in the first quarter.
The Jumbos piled it on early, stretching their early lead to 27-0 just before halftime, at which point heavy rain put a damper on both offenses. Fucillo got his money's worth in the first half, piling up 168 of his 195 yards before the break.
"We were definitely concentrating on passing the ball today, before the weather came out," Halas said. "We knew it was going to rain but we wanted to spread the ball out anyway. We liked our matchups. It was just like any other game; we have the talent outside and we can make things happen -- not necessarily by going deep, it just sort of worked out that way that we were getting open deep."
The Jumbos have only recently added the long ball to their arsenal, as it took time for Fucillo, who transferred to Tufts this year, to develop a feel for his receivers. But after some initial streakiness in the first half of last week's Wesleyan game, he's since developed the ability to read his wideouts effectively.
The results have been dynamic. Out of Fucillo's nine completions, eight were for over 10 yards. He hit senior Stephen Black with two passes in the second quarter -- one for 37 yards and the other on the following drive for 71 and a touchdown.
The Jumbos' explosiveness is clearly the result of Fucillo's growing comfort with his receiving corps.
"Everyone can definitely see an improvement," Halas said. "He got those first-game jitters out. He's getting the ball where he needs to get it and he's making his reads a lot better. I expect better things from week to week -- we still have lots of room to improve. We still need to get some work done. This is not anything that we didn't expect to happen."
