Wanna beat the Rams? Scheme for more than Edmonds

When you mention  Fordham offensive football, it’s easy to think of Chase Edmonds as a one-man wrecking crew.  But, it simply isn’t true.

He said it himself when somebody asked him about it after his monster night in the Rams’ 58-34 Patriot League victory over Lafayette.

“Are you ever concerned that a lot of the offense is coming from you?” the junior tailback was asked after rushing for 359 yards and scoring four touchdowns to set a bunch of Patriot League rushing records.

“No, no,” he answered immediately. “I’m not sure what Kevin (Anderson) threw for today (181 yards and three touchdowns), but I knew he had an efficient day throwing the ball (12-for-18). He also ran for 100 yards (actually 108 on 10 carries, one for a touchdown). There are going to be games like that. These last couple of weeks, we have high expectations for our offense. We haven’t been clicking on all cylinders as we should be.”

There were times that he didn’t look like one of the best quarterbacks in the league – on the interception that Leopards’ Phillip Parham returned for a touchdown, there was no receiver near the ball and he could have been picked a couple of other times.

But he also ran 33 yards for a touchdown after fumbling the snap from center and nearly being tackled at least twice by Leopards. In that same series, he hooked up with Phazan Odom for a 76-yard touchdown, only to have the play wiped out by a penalty; then he ran for 25- and 14-yard gains on scrambles and a seven-yard gain on a QB draw.

Then there’s Kendall Pearcey. He gained only 32 yards on 11 carries, but Edmonds, for one, knows how important that is.

Edmonds was asked whose call it was to take him out of the game. “”It’s both; it’s definitely Coach Beiner, though. K.P. (Kendall Pearcey) does a heckuva job running the football as I do. People will see that every third series is K.P.’s series. It’s just one way to take the load off of me. Youo multiply those series hits up by the year’s end that’s talking about 60some hits off my body. He does a tremendous job. He gets the job done.”

No Ram had more than four catches on Saturday, but four of the six who did catch balls had gains of 20 yards or more. Corey Caddle caught two TD passes.

Edmonds was asked, “Where do you get this energy from?” His answer was a surprise. “Oh, if you ask the coaches, I’m probably the most low energy guy around,” he said. “I don’t like to yell, talk. I like to stay within myself, actually. It’s all about the team. It don’t mean nothing if we don’t get a win. If we don’t get this Patriot League and get in the playoffs, I’m going to be highly, highly upset. I don’t care what I did.”

Lafayette cares. Edmonds has rushed for 781 yards in three games against the Leopards.

DISSA AND DATA – Edmonds failed to gain yardage on only one of his carries Saturday. After running for seven, 38 and 21 in one series, he was stopped for a one-yard loss at the Lafayette 11-yard line by freshman linebacker Kevin Hutchinson. It was his only tackle in the game, and afterward, Coach Frank Tavani said Hutchinson “has a hand that needs X-ray” … Kevin Zataveski missed the first two games while healing up from a training-camp knee injury, and on Saturday, he reinjured the same knee. So, it could be at least four weeks until he might be ready again … Parish Simmons made his first start for the Leopards and had four tackles … The Leopards, who had fumbles returned for touchdowns by their last two opponents, didn’t lose a fumble on Saturday, but Blake Searfoss did throw an interceptions into the arms of a Fordham defensive lineman, Nick Angelli, to give the Rams the ball on the Lafayette 22. They scored on a second-down pass play … Lafayette’s Jacob Bissell tried a couple of intentionally high and short kickoffs. One opened the game and caught Fordham off guard. The Rams started the drive on their own 10. The next one wasn’t so successful. It was fielded at the 19 by Pearcey, who ran it out to the 48. Two plays later, the Rams were in the end zone. … Bissell had a perfect night kicking for points – two field goals and four PATs … Eric Mitchell didn’t start at corner, but he was one of the kickoff returnees and showed some spark with four returns for 76 yards, an average of 23 yards per return. Then Fordham began kicking to the other side, where C.J. Amill had five returns for 75 yards, with his long being a 25-yarder … In the first quarter, Fordham had 196 yards on 16 running plays. Lafayette ran only four times in the period for no yards, but the Leopards did have 131 passing yards … I used to think Colgate’s Nate Eachus was a Leopard killer, but compared to Edmonds, Eachus is minor league. Nate, a Hazleton native, had 599 yards in three games.