University of Richmond Athletics
Spider Football Garners Coach Of The Year; Defensive Rookie Of The Year Postseason A-10 Honors
11/22/2005 | Football
Nov. 22, 2005
UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND, Va. - Richmond head coach Dave Clawson and sophomore defensive lineman Sherman Logan headline the 12th-ranked Spiders' postseason honors handed out by the Atlantic 10 Conference Tuesday. Clawson, already a finalist for the Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year award, was selected by league coaches as the 2005 Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year. Logan, a native of Virginia Beach, Va., was named the league's top defensive rookie by league coaches.
Clawson, in his second season for the Spiders, has directed one of the biggest turnarounds in 2005 I-AA football, going from a 3-8 mark in 2004 to an 8-3 record and an at-large bid to the NCAA I-AA Playoffs in 2005. Under Clawson's direction, the Spiders have turned in a season which began by losing their first two and three of their first four, to ending the season on a seven-game win streak. No football coach in Richmond's 123-year history has engineered a five-win turnaround in his first two seasons on the job until Clawson did it in 2004-05.
Clawson, a native of Youngstown, N.Y., is a combined 40-40 in his seven-year head coaching career. He is no stranger to program turnarounds, after helping a Fordham squad go from 0-11 in his first season to 10-3 and a 1-1 mark in the I-AA Playoffs in his fourth season with the Rams.
Logan, a first-year player for the Spiders at defensive lineman, leads the team with eight individual pass sacks for 38 yards. His average of 0.77 sacks per game lead the Atlantic 10 and rank tied for 14th in country. Logan also leads the team 10.5 tackles-for-loss and has made a total of 43 stops on the season. As a unit the Spiders' defense has recorded 35 sacks which lead the league and are the most since Richmond recorded 40 sacks in 2000.
Logan, along with senior David Freeman and junior Adam Goloboski, were named to the Atlantic 10 All-Conference first team Tuesday. Logan was named a First Team defensive lineman, while Freeman was the A-10 First Team kick returner and Goloboski was named a First Team linebacker.
Freeman leads the league with an average of 28.1 yards per return. The Fayatteville, N.C., native has turned in five kick returns of 35-yards or more this season and ranks fifth nationally with his average of 28.1 per return. Last week Freeman jumped into 10th on the Spiders single-season kick return yards list, and needs just 24 more yards to jump into ninth on the list which will put him at 530 for the season.
Goloboski, who was a preseason First Team All-Conference selection along with Freeman, leads the Spiders with 101 tackles this season. His average of 10.1 tackles per game ranks sixth in the conference and 26th in the country. Last week, when the Spiders clinched a share of the Atlantic 10 Championship with a 41-7 win over William & Mary, Goloboski picked off the first pass of his career and returned it six yards. The performance landed him Co-Defensive Player of the Week honors -- the third of three Richmond linebackers to pick up weekly defensive honors.
Senior quarterback Stacy Tutt and senior punter Chris Radford were both listed on the All-Conference second team. Tutt, a native of Tappahannock, Va., has led the Spiders to a seven-game win streak and an eight-game win streak against I-AA opponents since being inserted as the Spiders QB, prior to the Maine win, Sept. 17. Tutt has thrown for 1,964 yards this season, and rushed for a team-best 665 yards on 142 carries. His 2,629 yards of total offense for an average of 239 per game, rank fifth in the conference and 28th in the nation. Tutt has been named A-10 Player of the Week twice and earned National Player of the Week honors after wracking up 450 yards of total offense in the Spiders' 43-37 double-overtime win over Hofstra.
Radford has turned in an impressive senior campaign on the Spider special teams. The Wilson, N.C., native ranks fourth in the conference and 40th in the nation with a punting average of 38.9 yards. Radford has dropped 17 of his 57 total punts inside the 20, and nine of those have landed inside the five-yard line. He has recorded two career-long punts of 64 yards this season, including one at Lafayette and one at Maine.
Richmond placed four on the All-Conference third team, including three from the Spiders' defensive front. Junior defensive lineman Johnny Campbell, senior defensive lineman Dan Mangiero and junior linebacker Lance Gray all represent the Spiders on the third team. The three, combined with Logan and Goloboski, have combined to help a defense rank fourth in the conference and 29th in the country in total defense (328.2 yd/game). The Spiders' front seven, which includes those five listed above along with seniors David Gracia (DE) and Brian Burnette (LB), rank fourth in the conference and 35th in the nation against the rush (183.6 yd/game).
Along with the three defensive players on the A-10 third team, was junior offensive lineman Judd Altman. Altman has helped a Spider offensive line limit opponents to just 16 sacks, which rank fifth in the league. Altman and the Richmond offensive front has also allowed the Spiders to gain 4,256 yards of total offense which ranks fifth all-time at Richmond, and average 386.9 yards a game which ranks 40th in the country.
Richmond, now ranked 12th in the country with a mark of 8-3, will face No. 2 Hampton (11-0) in the first round of the 2005 NCAA I-AA Championships, Saturday, Nov. 26 at Armstrong Stadium in Hampton, Va. Kickoff in a nationally televised game on ESPNU is set for 8 p.m.
