Sunday evening thoughts - Elon - Printable Version
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Sunday evening thoughts - Elon - msqueri - 10-18-2026
1. It was great to be on campus for a win on a beautiful day amidst the reunion throngs. It was not great that the state of the program is such that the throngs almost all stayed outside the stadium. I can’t really blame them. I am normally a highly attentive diehard but I focused on the gridiron less than I ever remember doing, deciding that conversations outside the stadium with friends (shoutout Jackie Brown!) were worth missing kickoff and conversations in the stadium with freshmen dorm mates were worth missing plays here and there and there again. If that was my attitude, no wonder the multitudes decided to stay at tailgates, stroll the campus, or play with their kids. The team has not shown it’s worth much opportunity cost or excitement, and this was fairly pointless to play an overmatched Elon (oh so many jokes this weekend asking who/what/where/why is Elon). I basically felt like the game was a pleasant backdrop for conversations among those of us reunion attendees fond about football and gameday tradition. A place to be like a class lunch or class panel, much less appointment necessity than a class party or class tailgate. It gave me something to think about that the Classes Without Quizzes made me feel more connected to the school than the football game did. The crowd (a misnomer if there ever was one) yesterday really drove home that the school needs to get serious about football or else it is probably too embarrassing and wasteful to bother.
2. But we did win handily. More to like than has been our norm. It was the second best scoreboard performance relative to opponent of the Pritchard era and only the second time he’s had a top 100 kind of outcome (outcomes so far befitting #104, #146, #146, #54, #250, #166, and #91). Looking at net yards per play versus an opponent’s norm, this game was on par with 2022 Colgate as genuine domination and better than 2024 Cal Poly despite the score. The offense doing 2.43 yards per play better than Elon’s average allowed is essentially identical to the Colgate game’s 2.42. The defense doing 1.00 yards per play better than Elon’s norm is right in between how we did against Cal Poly and Colgate (and obviously much better than the Sacramento State fiasco). In other words, this game reinforced that we are one of the worst power teams in the country but at the same time was better than most games recently. On the season, we are Sagarin #99 and are in the negative 1.2x net yard for play range, pretty similar to our typical 2020s levels of performance. Having so many reunion conversations with friends close to the program who are being fed lines about our impending investments and dissatisfaction with the status quo, I get a picture we are resigned to the current mire and hope for improvements over the horizon. The horizon has felt like a mirage for quite a while now.
3. Each side of the ball for us had a fun bright spot. On offense, it was getting 200+ yards rushing and our most yards per carry in a game in five years. It’s Elon, but they’re a stout FCS run defense. Based on how we’ve been playing, I did not consider run success at all a given. This was a nice confidence boost for the line and career best stat padding for Ford. The passing game was less impressive, only modestly ahead of our averages, worse than we did against both Hawaii and Georgia Tech. Somewhat jarring to not be able to carve up an FCS pass defense. On defense, it was utter domination of an atrocious passing team. Not a fair fight. 1.9 yards per attempt is one of the funniest stats you’ll ever see. Other than the 2014 Army game, which only had five pass attempts, I can’t recall anything quite like it. The 2017 Oregon game had a better defensive passer rating due to interceptions. This was a serious contender for modern records in Stanford pass defense when the opponent actually passed. Far less happy was run defense giving up similar stats to Elon’s run game as what we accomplished in that phase. Giving up 220 yards on 6.5 yards per carry is a horrid failure. Our run defense was worse than Wofford, Maine, Sacred Heart, Rhode Island, Davidson, and Glenville State. Were it not for New Hampshire, we would have done worse than everybody an FCS team has played two thirds into the season. Shameful.
4. Warren seemed ok, turning in his best Total QBR since Georgia Tech but not one of his standout performances. He’s now 83rd on the season in Total QBR, not holding us back but also not a difference maker. The big statistical star was of course Ford. Happy for him and hope it’s not his last century mark game. I don’t think this fun fact will last but for what it’s worth Ford is now tied with Cole Tabb for 11th in the nation in rushing touchdowns (Ashton Daniels is fourth). Irvin had a few first downs and the touchdown but the fumble made the margin less wide than it should have been. Quiet day for the receivers. PFF thought Prongos was supernova dominant and that House and Williams were good. [Moving the chains (first down) leaderboard: Ford (14), Irvin (3), Hall (2), Nico Brown (2), Onovughe (2), Blackburn (2), Hampton (2), Holt]
5. The defense didn’t have anybody really superlative by either my box score tracking or PFF but had a number of solid performances. Bryant, Davis, Mattingly, Tafiti, Marceau-Olayinka, and Kaminski graded well. Bryant is lately playing like one of our better players. Davis has had a nightmare year, so it was nice to see him affect the scoreboard by making the tackle on third and forever to force an unsuccessful field goal attempt, get a tackle for loss, and defend a pass. It was a nice reward for BMO’s not always rewarded disruption that he twice forced a punt via hurries. Bachhuber, Staples, Rowell, and Galvan had grades that are really tough to stomach against FCS opposition, though Staples and Rowell had several plays each that showed up in the box score (as did Shovlin).
6. What the heck Emmet Kenney? A missed 35 yard chip shot and a missed extra point are horrible looks, and it’s far from the first time this season we’ve had reason to question place kicking reliability. Pretty frustrating for a player of his station in the program. Disappointing career trajectory for him. Those four gimme points off the board plus the Irvin touchback fumble are reminders that the game was even less close than the score. Should have been a cover and more dominant vibes. Winning by 35-38 would have felt a lot better. This team just can’t seem to generate real momentum in the micro or the macro. Flintoft had net punts of 44 to the 37 (good), 30 to the 26 (quite bad), 38 to the 46 (mediocre) and 41 to the 16 (solid). Butler had a return of 13 to give up 12 yards of field position and Davis had a 37 yard return to gain 13 yards of field position. The special teams standout was Thorpe and the punt return unit with a 17 yard return to get to midfield, a 33 yard return to get into Phoenix territory, and a 9 yard return, as well as a fair catch that may have saved a few yards. Eckhardt and Kuo had coverage tackles.
7. Game balls: Micah Ford, Darrius Davis, Liam Thorpe, Tavita Thompson
8. Hard to say any game is big for a program that attracts a homecoming “crowd” like we just did and is just hoping to get to four or five wins that would still place us among the dregs of recent college football. Still, by our standards, Friday night upcoming is one to circle on the calendar. This may be our most winnable game left, certainly one of the two obvious candidates remaining to get another win to get to the modal outcome of a repeat four win season. We can have legitimate hope of stealing one from the cross-country traveling and late night playing NC State. After our blowout frequency and magnitude, it would be wild to get to .500. It could happen. This would be a good time for Pritchard and the squad to show they are capable of playing like an FBS team two games in a row. They’ve yet to show that.
RE: Sunday evening thoughts - Elon - needle - 10-18-2026
Stanford had only 32 yards rushing at half (12 atempts). Can't say I feel like the night was a good performance, though credit to Ford for his long gainer (did not know he had the wheels).
OTOH, with Mattingly in the game the longest run for Elon was 17 yards. Is that great? No. But it's definitely not embarassing. NC State is not a great rushing team, so I have hope that Friday won't be embarassing, either.
SkiBum80 - SkiBum80 - 10-18-2026
Appreciate the detailed and eloquent post game write ups.
Regardless the stature of the opponent, I thought this game was absolute must win.
And coach & team delivered the big win.
Agree that the upcoming NCState is a realistic “opportunity” to win to say we are better than what Wake and Notre Dame games might have suggested.
RE: Sunday evening thoughts - Elon - BostonCard - 10-18-2026
(Yesterday, 09:26 PM)needle Wrote: Stanford had only 32 yards rushing at half (12 atempts). Can't say I feel like the night was a good performance, though credit to Ford for his long gainer (did not know he had the wheels).
OTOH, with Mattingly in the game the longest run for Elon was 17 yards. Is that great? No. But it's definitely not embarassing. NC State is not a great rushing team, so I have hope that Friday won't be embarassing, either.
Yeah, the running game was a bit distorted by the 81 yard TD run, which dramatically brings up the average. Without it, we have 141 yards on 32 carries, which is a much more pedestrian 4.4 ypc. Now, of course, that 81 yard TD run did happen, so it is not entirely fair to just erase it off the books, but looking at the median run might be more instructive than looking at the mean in terms of establishing how dominant the running game was, and, let's face it, in most runs, we weren't picking up chunks of yards.
BC
RE: Sunday evening thoughts - Elon - ADPinWDC - 10-19-2026
FWIW... Curt Cignetti, last year's undefeated Nat Champ at Indiana, served as the head football coach at Elon University from 2017 to 2018 before resigning to become the head coach at James Madison University.
He was 14-9 at Elon. Now he is a genius.
Following Indiana's national championship victory, the university finalized an updated eight-year, $105.6 million contract running through November 30, 2033.
... up from $680,000 a year at JMU
RE: Sunday evening thoughts - Elon - msqueri - 10-19-2026
Cignetti was always a genius. Elon was 2-9 the year before him and had six consecutive losing seasons. He immediately went 8-4. He had two winning seasons in two years. In the other 17 21st century seasons prior to the post-Covid era they only had four winning seasons. Cignetti was awesome at Elon like he was at IUP, James Madison, and now Indiana. He gets the money he does because he’s the best coach in the country.
RE: Sunday evening thoughts - Elon - msqueri - 10-19-2026
(Yesterday, 09:41 PM)BostonCard Wrote:(Yesterday, 09:26 PM)needle Wrote: Stanford had only 32 yards rushing at half (12 atempts). Can't say I feel like the night was a good performance, though credit to Ford for his long gainer (did not know he had the wheels).
OTOH, with Mattingly in the game the longest run for Elon was 17 yards. Is that great? No. But it's definitely not embarassing. NC State is not a great rushing team, so I have hope that Friday won't be embarassing, either.
Yeah, the running game was a bit distorted by the 81 yard TD run, which dramatically brings up the average. Without it, we have 141 yards on 32 carries, which is a much more pedestrian 4.4 ypc. Now, of course, that 81 yard TD run did happen, so it is not entirely fair to just erase it off the books, but looking at the median run might be more instructive than looking at the mean in terms of establishing how dominant the running game was, and, let's face it, in most runs, we weren't picking up chunks of yards.
BC
As you note, the biggest run of a game counts….it’s the most meaningful run of a game! It’s always some sleight of hand to try to subtract that out. And having 4.4 carries without it hardly seems pedestrian, as that’s continual non-big play dependent moving of the chains. Here are Ford’s runs judged by success rate:
2nd and 9 - 1 yard FAIL
1st and 10 - 10 yard first down SUCCESS (double success)
2nd and 10 - 2 yard FAIL
1st and 10 - 2 yard FAIL
3rd and goal from the 1 - 1 yard touchdown SUCCESS (if you’re going to exclude the outlier biggest success you certainly shouldn’t include high leverage plays stopped by the end zone in lowering the average)
1st and 10 - 5 yards SUCCESS
1st and 10 - 4 yards pretty neutral but can call it FAILURE
2nd and 3 - 7 yards touchdown SUCCESS (again, stopped by the goal line)
1st and 10 - 10 yards first down SUCCESS (double success)
1st and 10 - 12 yards first down SUCCESS (double success)
1st and 10 - 0 yards FAILURE
3rd and 1 - 3 yards first down SUCCESS
1st and 10 - 7 yards SUCCESS
2nd and 3 - 13 yards first down SUCCESS (double success and then some)
1st and 10 - 3 yards FAILURE
3rd and 3 - 4 yards SUCCESS
1st and 10 - 4 yards pretty neutral but we can call it FAILURE
1st and 5 - 5 yards touchdown SUCCESS (again, stopped by the goal line)
1st and 10 - 81 yards touchdown SUCCESS (again, stopped by the goal line)
That’s so much success. We dictated the game, did it more through the ground than through the air, and did it against one of the best run defenses in FCS. This was a successful day on the ground.
RE: Sunday evening thoughts - Elon - Goose - 10-19-2026
(Today, 09:31 AM)msqueri Wrote:To complete BC's thought the median is 4.0. IMO the Elon defense wore down in the second half. That helped quite a bit. I didn't "feel" that Stanford was at all dominant on the ground in the first half. We clearly were not a team that could run on every down and physically dominate Elon. I am guessing lots of fans hoped to see that, and it wasn't happening.(Yesterday, 09:41 PM)BostonCard Wrote:(Yesterday, 09:26 PM)needle Wrote: Stanford had only 32 yards rushing at half (12 atempts). Can't say I feel like the night was a good performance, though credit to Ford for his long gainer (did not know he had the wheels).
OTOH, with Mattingly in the game the longest run for Elon was 17 yards. Is that great? No. But it's definitely not embarassing. NC State is not a great rushing team, so I have hope that Friday won't be embarassing, either.
Yeah, the running game was a bit distorted by the 81 yard TD run, which dramatically brings up the average. Without it, we have 141 yards on 32 carries, which is a much more pedestrian 4.4 ypc. Now, of course, that 81 yard TD run did happen, so it is not entirely fair to just erase it off the books, but looking at the median run might be more instructive than looking at the mean in terms of establishing how dominant the running game was, and, let's face it, in most runs, we weren't picking up chunks of yards.
BC
As you note, the biggest run of a game counts….it’s the most meaningful run of a game! It’s always some sleight of hand to try to subtract that out. And having 4.4 carries without it hardly seems pedestrian, as that’s continual non-big play dependent moving of the chains. Here are Ford’s runs judged by success rate:
2nd and 9 - 1 yard FAIL
1st and 10 - 10 yard first down SUCCESS (double success)
2nd and 10 - 2 yard FAIL
1st and 10 - 2 yard FAIL
3rd and goal from the 1 - 1 yard touchdown SUCCESS (if you’re going to exclude the outlier biggest success you certainly shouldn’t include high leverage plays stopped by the end zone in lowering the average)
1st and 10 - 5 yards SUCCESS
1st and 10 - 4 yards pretty neutral but can call it FAILURE
2nd and 3 - 7 yards touchdown SUCCESS (again, stopped by the goal line)
1st and 10 - 10 yards first down SUCCESS (double success)
1st and 10 - 12 yards first down SUCCESS (double success)
1st and 10 - 0 yards FAILURE
3rd and 1 - 3 yards first down SUCCESS
1st and 10 - 7 yards SUCCESS
2nd and 3 - 13 yards first down SUCCESS (double success and then some)
1st and 10 - 3 yards FAILURE
3rd and 3 - 4 yards SUCCESS
1st and 10 - 4 yards pretty neutral but we can call it FAILURE
1st and 5 - 5 yards touchdown SUCCESS (again, stopped by the goal line)
1st and 10 - 81 yards touchdown SUCCESS (again, stopped by the goal line)
That’s so much success. We dictated the game, did it more through the ground than through the air, and did it against one of the best run defenses in FCS. This was a successful day on the ground.
IMO we did indeed overall have a successful running attack. Elon couldn't ignore the run, and we ended up pretty "balanced" for the game. However Stanford did punt 4 times. Our running attack did not "dictate" much of anything until late in the game. Elon had 220 yards rushing, Stanford had 222. That is even. What "dictated" the game was that Elon couldn't pass and we could. Stanford had 293 yards passing, Elon had 52. Of course, if we couldn't run the passing game may have been impacted significantly by more blitzing and a stronger pass rush.
UPDATE: Incidentally, FORD's average ypc including the 81 yard burst was 9.16. Excluding it, his average ypc was 5.17. The standard deviation of the 5.17 was 3.77. This latter number reflects our propensity to get hit at the LOS or sooner was still operational. Ford often has to make 2 yards out of nothing. He is pretty good at that, but it is still a problem in attempting a "run heavy" offense.
RE: Sunday evening thoughts - Elon - msqueri - 10-19-2026
No doubt fans hoped to see physical domination but IMHO that was ignorant. We came in as right near the bottom of FBS run teams and Elon came in right near the top of FCS run defense teams. In other words, it wasn’t actually clear we were a better team in that phase. I wouldn’t have been surprised if we struggled much worse in the run game. Hawaii has a crappy run defense and we only managed 4.16 yards per carry against them. I was pleasantly surprised by how we did in the run game.
RE: Sunday evening thoughts - Elon - Goose - 10-19-2026
(10 hours ago)msqueri Wrote: No doubt fans hoped to see physical domination but IMHO that was ignorant. We came in as right near the bottom of FBS run teams and Elon came in right near the top of FCS run defense teams. In other words, it wasn’t actually clear we were a better team in that phase. I wouldn’t have been surprised if we struggled much worse in the run game.I agree that Elon was a bigger challenge in run defense than most fans expected. That is partly due to fans hearing FCS and expecting a big drop-off from our other opponents. However IMO the bigger factor is that Stanford's run offense hasn't been based on successful "power" running for many years, certainly from Bryce Love onward. The "bottom of FBS" just doesn't sit well, but indeed that is where we are and have been for awhile. IMO unless and until we move up to at least "below average" in FBS we are going to be stuck in the 0-4 win area.
RE: Sunday evening thoughts - Elon - BostonCard - 10-19-2026
Yeah, I guess it depends on what your expectations were, and how much more heavily you weigh the first half in the game, when the game was still somewhat in doubt. I think this game confirms, rather than updates our priors; we are a bad FBS team, but we are not so dreadful that we can't put away a middle-of-the-road FCS team. To the extent that you use the results to extrapolate forward, which is what I think the goal of your analysis generally is, it provides us some hope that there may be another win left in the team against the weaker back-half schedule, but I would expect to be underdogs in our remaining games.
My point about the 80 yard outliers are that they are not necessarily repeatable. If you are pulling 8 yards per carry by consistently getting 5 - 12 yard runs (in the way we could do with the tunnel workers), then you know that you are going to be able to grind down the opposition and impose your will with the run game. If you get 8 yards per carry with one 80 yard run and 9 stuffs at the line of scrimmage, that means that you are going to get one touchdown and 3 three-and-outs, which is certainly much worse than your first situation. Variance matters as much as averages.
Reminds me of the days of Bryce Love when he would have 150 yards running with 2 touchdown runs of 50 and 70 yards, and 30 carries that didn't go anywhere.
BC
RE: Sunday evening thoughts - Elon - martyup - 10-19-2026
Despite Elon being an FCS opponent, they had the number one NCAA running back (total yards gained) in Kamerin McDowell-Moore. He is super talented and has NFL caliber speed and moves. We did well to hold him to 164 yards on 21 carries.
RE: Sunday evening thoughts - Elon - msqueri - 10-19-2026
(2 hours ago)martyup Wrote: Despite Elon being an FCS opponent, they had the number one NCAA running back (total yards gained) in Kamerin McDowell-Moore. He is super talented and has NFL caliber speed and moves. We did well to hold him to 164 yards on 21 carries.
As I pointed out in the original post, we did worse in run defense than Wofford, Maine, Sacred Heart, Rhode Island, Davidson, and Glenville State. Doing worse than six of an FCS team's seven opponents in something is the furthest thing from doing well. We were an embarrassment against McDowell-Moore.
RE: Sunday evening thoughts - Elon - BostonCard - 10-19-2026
I should add that there is a difference between an 80 yard touchdown run and a 1 yard touchdown run; with a 1 yard touchdown run there is no evidence that the runner would have made it to the second level and could have continued going but for breaking the goal line plane. Since most runs make it at least one yard but not much further than 5 or 6, I don't think it is fair to assume that a 1 yard touchdown run would have gone a lot further.
BC
RE: Sunday evening thoughts - Elon - KartyFan - 10-19-2026
(1 hour ago)BostonCard Wrote: I should add that there is a difference between an 80 yard touchdown run and a 1 yard touchdown run; with a 1 yard touchdown run there is no evidence that the runner would have made it to the second level and could have continued going but for breaking the goal line plane. Since most runs make it at least one yard but not much further than 5 or 6, I don't think it is fair to assume that a 1 yard touchdown run would have gone a lot further.
BC
I think msqueri's point is not that you should assume it would have gone farther, rather that you shouldn't penalize it for not having gone farther. So if we're going to throw out extra long runs, we should throw out or otherwise compensate for short touchdown runs.
RE: Sunday evening thoughts - Elon - BostonCard - 10-19-2026
But my point is that a short touchdown run probably wasn't likely to go that much longer.
BC
RE: Sunday evening thoughts - Elon - needle - 10-19-2026
(Today, 09:31 AM)msqueri Wrote:(Yesterday, 09:41 PM)BostonCard Wrote:(Yesterday, 09:26 PM)needle Wrote: Stanford had only 32 yards rushing at half (12 atempts). Can't say I feel like the night was a good performance, though credit to Ford for his long gainer (did not know he had the wheels).
OTOH, with Mattingly in the game the longest run for Elon was 17 yards. Is that great? No. But it's definitely not embarassing. NC State is not a great rushing team, so I have hope that Friday won't be embarassing, either.
Yeah, the running game was a bit distorted by the 81 yard TD run, which dramatically brings up the average. Without it, we have 141 yards on 32 carries, which is a much more pedestrian 4.4 ypc. Now, of course, that 81 yard TD run did happen, so it is not entirely fair to just erase it off the books, but looking at the median run might be more instructive than looking at the mean in terms of establishing how dominant the running game was, and, let's face it, in most runs, we weren't picking up chunks of yards.
BC
As you note, the biggest run of a game counts….it’s the most meaningful run of a game! It’s always some sleight of hand to try to subtract that out. And having 4.4 carries without it hardly seems pedestrian, as that’s continual non-big play dependent moving of the chains. Here are Ford’s runs judged by success rate:
2nd and 9 - 1 yard FAIL
1st and 10 - 10 yard first down SUCCESS (double success)
2nd and 10 - 2 yard FAIL
1st and 10 - 2 yard FAIL
3rd and goal from the 1 - 1 yard touchdown SUCCESS (if you’re going to exclude the outlier biggest success you certainly shouldn’t include high leverage plays stopped by the end zone in lowering the average)
1st and 10 - 5 yards SUCCESS
1st and 10 - 4 yards pretty neutral but can call it FAILURE
2nd and 3 - 7 yards touchdown SUCCESS (again, stopped by the goal line)
1st and 10 - 10 yards first down SUCCESS (double success)
1st and 10 - 12 yards first down SUCCESS (double success)
1st and 10 - 0 yards FAILURE
3rd and 1 - 3 yards first down SUCCESS
1st and 10 - 7 yards SUCCESS
2nd and 3 - 13 yards first down SUCCESS (double success and then some)
1st and 10 - 3 yards FAILURE
3rd and 3 - 4 yards SUCCESS
1st and 10 - 4 yards pretty neutral but we can call it FAILURE
1st and 5 - 5 yards touchdown SUCCESS (again, stopped by the goal line)
1st and 10 - 81 yards touchdown SUCCESS (again, stopped by the goal line)
That’s so much success. We dictated the game, did it more through the ground than through the air, and did it against one of the best run defenses in FCS. This was a successful day on the ground.
You ignored first-half runs by Chris Davis (-2 yards), Irvin (1 yard) and Butler (no gain).
I don't believe you should just wipe away a whole first half when nearly a full quarter of the game is garbage time, but that's just me.
RE: Sunday evening thoughts - Elon - Spiny_Norman - 10-19-2026
With over half of the season played, I think we can look at performance from game 1 to game 7 for trends. And I have to say that I can't see improvement from week 1 to week 7 in any areas. The weaknesses get exploited in the same way about every game. Stanford's passing game has regressed, perhaps because opponents now have plenty of game tape to scout Stanford and prepare better. Pass protection is still a problem. The run game occasionally creates a hole. But mostly they rely on the tough running of Ford for yards. The defense's struggles are well-documented. And now the kicking game seems to be struggling.
Msqueri, what do your eyes tell you and what do the numbers say? Is the team improving at all in any aspect of offense, defense or special teams? I think I read you highlighting Bryant as a player whose play has improved as the season has progressed. Anyone else?