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VMI chasing perfect upset at Richmond

The Keydets travel to Richmond to face a rival that has pummeled them over the past 10 years.

VMI football

VMI at Richmond
Sturday 6 p.m.

Randy King | 981-3126

Friday, August 30, 2013

No ordinary college. No ordinary life. Those two sentences top VMI’s official Web site.

Tonight at 15th-ranked Richmond, VMI’s football team has designs on producing no ordinary victory.

While few outside of those riding the busses carrying the team to Robins Stadium would give the Keydets any glimmer of hope, coach Sparky Woods’ bunch believes it can pull off what would be a monumental upset.

How in blue blazes can the Keydets think they can beat a Richmond outfit that has drilled them by an average margin of 26 points in winning the past 10 games in the series?

Well, listen to senior quarterback Eric Kordenbrock, the leader of the stoked underdogs.

“I don’t believe that we need to play a near-perfect game,” Kordenbrock said. “I think there are other teams in the nation … like we would have to play a perfect game to beat a big-time [FBS] school. I’m not saying that Richmond isn’t a big-time school, but they’re at our level.

“We can play with them, I know we can. I think the one thing that we need to do is execute. Now, everybody sees that we have playmakers on offense and all over the field, we’ve got a lot of guys returning on defense, and the defense is looking good.

“Our offensive line is looking better than they ever have before, so I think if we just execute and don’t have stupid plays … if we just do what we’re supposed to do, I think it will be a good game.”

Can VMI win the game?

“Of course,” Kordenbrock said.

Pull that off and things back on post may go ballistic.

“Yes, sir, I think it will, too,” Kordenbrock said. “I think if we pull this one off, VMI will be wild!”

Party on post?

“I would imagine the Commandant [Col. Thomas Trumps] … the rules would be a little slack for the next 24 hours or so,” senior linebacker Logan Staib said

Who knows? Every Saturday in the crazy world of college football there’s always a stunner or two that no one could have seen coming.

“I don’t think many are giving us a chance,” Staib said. “I can tell you that this defense won’t be intimidated. We’re returning a lot of guys, and we’ve played those years together.

“It would be huge. I hope [the Spiders] play down to our level, but honestly I think we’re pretty equal with them right now. We have a lot more depth than we’ve had in the past couple years. We’re not going to be slowing down now in the third and fourth quarters like we did.

“What is this? Four days to the game? The more we talk about it, I’m more itching to play.”

There will some VMI fans in the house. The Keydets’ roster has eight players who played high school football in the Richmond area, plus the military school’s largest alumni base resides in the capital city area.

Woods, who could use a marquee victory on his VMI resume, is excited about what he calls the best team he’s had in his five-plus years in Lexington.

“We’ll find out how far we’ve come,” Woods said. “This is both teams’ first game, and I don’t know if that’s a good time to play them or not.”

Woods then laughed and added: “It might be better to play them like 30 minutes after they get through playing N.C. State,” referring to the Spiders contest next Saturday in Raleigh.

“We come with all intentions of winning the game, we always do,” he said. “We realize if we were to win, it definitely would be an upset. What we can do is play better. We’ve got to play our best and if we’re good enough to beat them that would be great.

“If we don’t, we’ve got to go the next game [home opener vs. Glanville State next Saturday]. We’ve got to leave Richmond with some confidence as an improved football team, whatever the outcome of the game is.”

Saturday, September 14, 2013