Another home game for the Towson Tigers, another home loss for the Tigers. Now to be fair Towson has played 3 ranked teams in their 4 home games. It’s tough when you aren’t able to get the crowd involved and have them help make a difference. This one was close until the 4th. Down 14-10 the Wildcats added 2 touchdowns: runs of 82 yards and a 22 yards iced the game for the Wildcats.
The quarterback play between Villanova’s Pat McQuaide and Andrew Indorf was rather mild. 276 yards combined passing 0 touchdowns and each was sacked 1 time. The real strength for the Wildcats came from running back Ja’briel Mace who put up a monster stat line: 28 carries for 291 yards rushing and 4 touchdowns.
Normally David Avit is their bell cow. However, when you got another guy who can go for almost 300 yards and 3 touchdowns on the ground it’s not a bad thing for a team. It’s been that kind of a year for the Tigers. They had the chance for a statement win but let it slip away late.
Towson’s only touchdown was a rushing touchdown by wide receiver John Dunmore. Both Wooten and Battles were shut down by the Villanova defense all day. 131 yards rushing was all the offense could muster on the day. Plain and simple they’ve got to figure out the offensive line and give their backs and quarterback the chance to be successful. Now they have done a bette rob of protecting Indorf as of late and hopefully they can continue to do so.
With the run game being that good the receivers get lost in the storyline of the game. John Dunmore lead the Tigers in receiving and Braden Reed lead the Wildcats in receiving.
Defensively Alfred Thomas had a monster game with 14 total tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss and a sack. They got some big plays from Xavier Thomas, Branson Peters and Shamar Graham that contributed to the big plays in the backfield. For Villanova Shane Hartzell had 5 total tackles and .5 sack on the day. Jason Hall had a TFL and a sack on the day. Ugo Nwotite had a TFL and AJ Koukou forced a fumble that Villanova recovered.
The Tigers get set for their last road game of the season. This time a trip back to the state of New York to take on the University of Albany. The Great Danes have fallen on hard times and just 2 years after an 11 win season they now sport a 1-9 record. They’ve lost to Delaware State, New Haven and are 0-6 in conference play.
Their quarterback is Senior Jack Shields out of Centerville Virginia. He’s in his first year playing with Albany and has made previous stops at ODU and Buffalo. He’s coming off a solid outing against Bryant and will look to keep it rolling. He’s thrown for 1,500 yards and 10 touchdowns, but thrown 7 INT’s. Towson will have to force him into some bad spots to get the ball back.
Their ground game is led by Griffin Woodell. Woodell has slowed down since his 2023 season where he was the FCS Offensive Rookie of the Year. He had just 2 rushing touchdowns last year and has 1 rushing and 1 receiving touchdown on the year. Jojo Uga and Aiden Semo should also get plenty of touches. The receivers to watch are Carter Moses, Caden Bruti, Steven Mahar Jr and Tavahri Groves who have all found the endzone this year.
Defensively, Cam Stodgill leads the team in tackles with 65 total tackles. Balansama Kamara has 7 pass break ups as a D-Linemen and has chipped in 7 sacks on the year. Erv Wiggins Jr has 5 pass break ups in the secondary and could cause some problems for the Towson passing game. The Great Danes do not force a lot of turnovers and if Towson plays clean they should win this game.
The Tigers have to do whatever it takes to get this win on the road. A win today and next week and they would finish .500 at 6-6. Kickoff is set for 1 pm.
GOH TIGERS
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