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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Friday, March 29, 2024

Tufts hopes to beat Amherst for first time away since 2004

2016-Oct-22-Football187

The rain came, the rain went and the rain came again, but the Tufts Jumbos (4-1) kept their NESCAC championship dreams afloat in a 35-16 Parents Weekend victory over the visiting Williams Ephs (0-5).This Saturday, the Jumbos will travel to face the Amherst Purple and White (3-2). Amherst has not lost to Tufts since 2007, when the Jumbos defense forced four turnovers in a 29-10 home win, and has not lost on its home turf to Tufts since 2004. Last year, the Purple and White cruised to a 32-7 victory against the Jumbos en route to an undefeated season and a NESCAC championship. Though Amherst has fallen twice already this season, it remains a force to be reckoned with.

“They graduated a lot of guys last year, but let’s be honest: They’ve lost to Middlebury [who are 5-0], and they’ve lost to Wesleyan [who are 4-1],” coach Jay Civetti said. “They are still a very, very good football team.”

Any conversation about the Jumbos must begin with senior tri-captain running back Chance Brady. Last week, in far-from-ideal conditions, Brady carried the ball 27 times for 165 yards and four touchdowns. The last score, coming with 4:29 remaining in the third quarter, was historic: With it, Brady scored his 25th career rushing touchdown, breaking the Tufts all-time rushing touchdowns record.

“Chance [Brady] is a great runner. [Brady] is going to get yards no matter how we block it. He does a great job of working hard,” senior right tackle T.J. Muzzonigro said. “This year, he’s really taken on a role of learning what our blocks are doing and learning more about the offensive line, and that’s helped him tremendously.”

Facing Brady and the offense, however, will be the best-run defense in the NESCAC. Through five games, the Purple and White has yielded merely 25.2 rushing yards per game, fewer than half of what second-best Wesleyan 58.2 ground yards allowed per contest. Amherst’s defensive stoutness, according to Civetti, builds upon the continuity in terms of coaches and personnel.

“They’re good versus everything,” Civetti said. “In particular, they have always been great versus the run.”

Muzzonigro offered a similar observation.

“They play the run well, and they have the entire time I’ve been at this school,” he said. “I think the challenge for us is to just be the aggressor in the situation and take charge of the run game from the start.”

When asked about how he and his staff are preparing for the matchup, Civetti emphasized the importance of unsettling the opposition.

“I think when they’re comfortable, they play that much better than they do already,” Civetti said. “So, I think the mindset is and the game-planning always is, ‘what makes them uncomfortable?’ A lot of [our preparation] is figuring out what that is.”

Switching to the other side of the ball, Amherst’s offense has been hampered by multiple injuries under center in 2016. Junior quarterback Reece Foy was ruled out for the year when he tore his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) during the preseason and senior second-stringer Alex Berluti suffered his own knee injury in Week 2’s game against Bowdoin (0-5).Ever since, Amherst has relied on sophomore Nick Morales to lead the scoring effort.

“I think Morales does a great job,” Civetti said. “Last week’s stats [18-for-39 with zero touchdowns and five interceptions] don’t really reflect his ability. I think he’s a very talented quarterback.”

Even after accounting for last week’s shutout loss, the Purple and White remain the second most prolific passing offense in the NESCAC with 254.2 passing yards per game.This success throwing the ball despite the injuries at the quarterback position can be attributed to a number of influential factors. Amherst's strong offensive line has been consistent in pass protection resulting in a conference-low sack rate of 5.21 percent. Accordingly, Civetti sees getting after Morales as a high priority for his defense.

“In terms of our defensive approach to [Amherst], the one thing from last week statistically that you look at is how many sacks Wesleyan had,” Civetti said. “So, I think there is a challenge out there to our defensive line. We’ve got to rush the quarterback better than we have. We have 11 sacks on the year so far, but we need more. We need to be better than that.”

Additionally, Amherst’s passing game benefits from its bevy of talented and experienced skill position players. The most popular target is senior quad-captain wide receiver Devin Boehm, who has turned a league-leading 36 receptions into 423 yards and three touchdowns.Two other Amherst wideouts - senior Nick Widen and sophomore Bo Berluti  - rank in the top 10 in catches among NESCAC players. Berluti has also scored a team-best four touchdowns through the air. Also important to the Purple and White’s offense is sophomore running back Jack Hickey, whose seven rushing touchdowns in 2016 are second only to Brady’s nine among NESCAC players.

Amherst’s wide receivers are tall: Berluti, Boehm and Widen are 5’10”, 6’0” and 6’5” respectively, while senior tight end Rob Thoma -- last year’s first team all-conference tight end -- is also 6’5” and weighs 235 pounds. The Jumbo secondary is a smaller bunch by contrast; sophomore cornerback Tim Preston, at 6’0,” is the only member of the starting secondary taller than 5'9". In the red zone, Amherst has succeeded in creating mismatches through its size advantage. In 15 trips to the red zone, the Purple and White have scored a touchdown a NESCAC-best 73 percent of the time.

“[Size] is always an issue, in particular down in the red zone,” Civetti said. “That’s the one place where size and height really play a factor on jump balls.”

However, Civetti explained how strategic use of space in the open field can ameliorate the disadvantages inherent to disparities in height and weight.

“The places that you work on are the positioning, the depth that you put the corners at and the leverage that you use,” Civetti said.

He also returned to the importance of manufacturing pressure on the opposing quarterback.

“Again, a lot of what helps the corners is the pass rush and the defensive line,” Civetti said. “If you take the timing out of the routes -- because a lot of what Amherst’s offense is based on is timing routes -- if you change the launch point for the quarterback and you change the timing of the play, that typically can help negate the size differential.”

The Purple and White host the Jumbos on Saturday at 1 p.m. at Pratt Field in Amherst, Mass.