Champ Spiders sharp from start

The things that got Richmond to the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision national championship game Friday night were the very things that carried the Spiders to a 24-7 win over Montana at Finley Stadium.

Richmond won with defense, a prolific running game, very few mistakes or penalties and the poise to play its best at the most important moments. It’s what the Spiders (13-3) did for the final nine weeks of the season, ever since a loss to James Madison on Oct. 11 dropped them to 4-3 and put their playoff hopes in jeopardy.

“This team has been through a lot this year — a lot. There’s been some tough times, but you saw the character of this team,” said first-year Spiders coach Mike London, who inherited a team that reached the semifinals last season and led them to the first national championship in any sport in school history.

“Words can’t describe how I feel about this opportunity and this victory, and how these guys just truly performed like warriors.”

The win, in front of an announced crowd of 17,823, was even sweeter for a pair of Spiders: defensive coordinator Russ Huesman, who played at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga from 1978 to ’81, and backup quarterback Will Healy, a Chattanooga native.

Huesman, who interviewed for the UTC coaching job Saturday, had one of the top defenses in the FCS all season. Against a fourth-seeded Montana (14-2) team that was averaging 33.5 points per game, the Spiders allowed just a fourth-quarter touchdown.

“It’s all on the players,” Huesman said. “They did this.”

Healy, a former Boyd-Buchanan standout, played on Richmond’s punt-coverage team and then replaced Eric Ward at quarterback in the final minute. He took a knee twice to run out the clock and ended his career and the Spiders’ championship with the ball in his hands.

Montana hadn’t scored less than 19 points all season and hadn’t been held under 10 since a 41-7 loss at Iowa to open the 2006 season.

“We didn’t run the ball very effectively, we didn’t stop it real well, and consequently they were up 21-0 going into halftime,” Montana coach Bobby Hauck said.

Richmond set the tone for the game in the first quarter. On the first play from scrimmage, Josh Vaughan rushed for 8 yards. Later in the drive, on third-and-15, Ward ran for 18.

The Spiders reached into their bag of tricks on third-and-2 at the Montana 23 when fullback John Crone took a pitch from Ward, rolled to his right and threw back left to a wide-open Ward for a touchdown.

“We’d been practicing that play all season but had never run it,” Crone said. “I’m not going to lie: I was nervous. I had all the time in the world and I made a pretty good throw. It was amazing.”

The Spiders’ pass rush was pretty amazing, too. Taking advantage of a banged-up Montana offensive line, Richmond sacked quarterback Cole Bergquist seven times. Senior defensive end Lawrence Sidbury used a spin move to break free again and again and had four sacks.

“I think we played pretty well (as a defense), but I also think we left some things out there,” Sidbury said. “We want to be perfect on defense, but it’s probably impossible to be perfect in a game.”

The combination of Vaughan’s running (23 carries for 162 yards and touchdown) and Ward’s passing and running (12-for-18 for 96 yards and a touchdown and 46 yards on eight carries) was perfect for the offense. The Spiders had 208 yards rushing and averaged 5.3 yards per carry.

And that offensive efficiency combined with a stellar defensive performance — Montana was held to 39 yards rushing, 145 below its average — proved to be a recipe for a championship.