To prep for this year’s iteration of the Monarchs, I focused on their opening game against Norfolk State. It ended up a close game, though it could’ve easily been a blowout by the Monarchs if they’d gotten their act together in the first half. I also watched a bit of last year’s VT/ODU disaster. That experience was a bit like looking down during a vasectomy.

The biggest reason for watching last year’s game was to find returning players, because these Monarchs lost a lot of folks from 2018. The top two three receivers are gone (one currently on an NFL roster, another on a practice squad), as is the QB who got them the ball. Also gone are the starters on the defensive line—this includes DE Oshane Ximines, now a linebacker for the NY Giants, and DE Tim Ward, now a reserve for KC. Their safeties are both gone, too, but that wasn’t as much of a loss. All told, they lost about thirteen senior starters.

Offense

Scheme-wise (terminology, reads, routes, etc.) there shouldn’t be too many differences, given offense-minded HC Bobby Wilder returns, as does his OC. However, the personnel are very different. They’ve gone from WR-heavy to using lots of H-backs and TEs, and they leaned on the QB-running game. They were also very deliberate in their approach, often choosing to work from the traditional huddle. I did notice this split jet sweep call, which is a bit like what Pitt used to run, that doesn’t ring a bell from last year:

Here, half the line blocks for the jet sweep, while the other half blocks for the run going in the opposite direction. It can really wreck a linebacker’s keys having to keep track of this kind of play—even the RPOs we see from schools like Tech don’t have the same stress, since the blocking front is almost always unified. They didn’t have much luck with the play, though it’s still something Tech has to prepare for.

...