University of Richmond Athletics
Spiders End Football Season At No. 8 In The Sports Network Rankings
Dec. 19, 2005
UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND, Va. - Richmond head coach Dave Clawson and his squad was ranked No. 8 in the final poll released by The Sports Network, Monday afternoon. The eighth-place spot marked the highest final ranking for the Spiders since garnering a No. 6 ranking at the end of the 2000 season.
Clawson and his team engineered one of the biggest turnarounds in 2005 I-AA football, going from a 3-8 mark in 2004 to a 9-4 record and a berth in the NCAA I-AA Playoff Quarterfinals in 2005. No team in Richmond's 123-year football history had made a six-win turnaround in a head coaches' first two years until the 2004-05 seasons.
The Spiders turned in a season which began by losing their first two and three of their first four, but ended the regular season on a seven-game win streak. The streak continued when the team went on the road to face the only undefeated I-AA team in the country, Hampton, and won 38-10 in the first round of the NCAA Playoffs. Richmond's loss to Furman in the I-AA quarterfinals ended an eight-game win streak, and a nine-game win streak over I-AA opponents.
The 2005 Spiders set numerous marks in the Richmond record books including total points, total offense as well as other individual offensive categories. The Spiders scored 349 points, the most ever at Richmond, on what ranked as the highest total offense output ever for the Spiders, 4,957 yards.
On defense, Richmond recorded 41 total sacks for a loss of 273 yards. The total was the most combined sacks for a Spider defense since the 1997 squad recorded 59. Junior Adam Goloboski, a three-year starter for the Spiders at linebacker, was named a Sports Xchange All-American, the first All-America honor for the Spiders since Jonathan Wilfong in 2001.