Ad blocker detected: Our website is made possible by displaying online advertisements to our visitors. Please consider supporting us by disabling your ad blocker on our website.
VMI quarterback is one tough Keydet
By Chris Lang
Lynchburg News & Advance
November 15, 2006
LEXINGTON - VMI quarterback Jonathan Wilson knows as well as anyone how to toe the line between playing with pain and playing injured.
In the Keydets' season opener against Davidson, a Wildcats defender popped Wilson while he was in midair, sending him to the sideline in a scary collision.
Wilson got up, brushed himself off and went back to the huddle, precisely the display of machismo the senior leader at a military school is supposed to show.
"He's the type of player who won't back down one lick," said Liberty coach Danny Rocco, whose team faces Wilson and VMI in the season finale for both teams Saturday.
As tough as Wilson is, he couldn't just bounce back from a right shoulder separation suffered in the second quarter of the Keydets' 38-6 loss to William & Mary in September.
The play cost Wilson three games and stunted any real shot the Keydets had in turning around a terrible season. Freshman Kyle Hughes played admirably in Wilson's absence, but there was no doubt VMI missed Wilson's moxie and leadership.
"That was definitely frustrating for him," said VMI senior running back Sean Mizzer, one of Wilson's roommates. "Coming off on the sidelines, you could he really, really wanted to be in there. He definitely has a passion for the game."
Wilson has lost enough games to injury to appreciate every snap he
plays. He missed nearly an entire season with a broken ankle and separated the same shoulder once earlier in his career.
This season, he quietly bought into new offensive coordinator Brent Davis' option-heavy scheme, even though Wilson spent his formative years running a spread offense at Rockbridge County High School.
It turns out Wilson was a decent fit for the option. He doesn't have "4.2 blazing speed," as he puts it, but he moves well outside the pocket and isn't afraid to drop low to block for a running back after the pitch.
Wilson said he developed his sense of toughness from his father. Some high schoolers come to VMI because they crave discipline. That wasn't an issue for Wilson, who got a first-hand look at what he'd be getting into by hanging around his father, who works as the manager of the institute's laundry and dry cleaning services. (His mother works at VMI as well.)
He wanted to play Division I-A football and hoped to get a look at the University of Virginia. But when the Cavs didn't bite, he looked elsewhere.
"This wasn't my last choice, but it wasn't someplace I really wanted to go," Wilson said. "I knew what this place was about, and I really didn't want to do it. But it's worked out for the best for me, and it'll help me in the future."
Wilson will leave No. 3 on VMI's all-time passing yards list. He broke the 5,000-yard passing mark for his career in last week's loss at The Citadel and hasn't thrown an interception this year.
Those numbers don't make up for the losses, though. The Keydets are 4-29 the last three seasons, and the only non-losing season came when VMI went 6-6 in Wilson's freshman year.
"It's rough," Wilson said. "We haven't really done well since our 2003 season. But we've just got to keep working. We haven't been giving up, even though our season isn't going the way we want it to."
VMI will sorely miss Wilson's leadership. Before the season started, Keydets coach Jim Reid joked that if VMI lost Wilson to injury, the program might as well just call off the season. When it happened, Wilson's off-field leadership was crucial to getting Hughes prepared for games.
Now, Reid has to prepare for life without Wilson for good.
"When I think of him leaving, like when I'm up at night, I cry like a baby," Reid said. "I love that guy. He is somebody that you get on your knees and pray that your daughter brings home. He's just perfect.
"You can build an entire program around him. I'm just crushed that he's leaving."
"He's the type of player who won't back down one lick," said Liberty coach Danny Rocco, whose team faces Wilson and VMI in the season finale for both teams Saturday.
yeah- tell me that AFTER Greiser nails him
I'm thinking he gets CRUSHED on an option play and is done by halftime
JLFJR wrote:Thanks for your input, PA! Very helpful.
"When I think of him leaving, like when I'm up at night, I cry like a baby," Reid said. "I love that guy. He is somebody that you get on your knees and pray that your daughter brings home. He's just perfect.
um, get a room coach- yeesh
JLFJR wrote:Thanks for your input, PA! Very helpful.
a little bit of love from the roanoke fishwrap, and a possible transfer for next year.
Snuffed early, Rocco's Flames now burn brightly
By Doug Doughty
During a midseason slide in which it lost four games in a row and five of six, Liberty established itself as a football team that couldn't hold onto a lead and couldn't win the close ones.
The Flames still haven't won any close ones, but first-year coach Danny Rocco isn't complaining.
Liberty visits VMI on Saturday in search of a winning season -- not bad for a program that finished last year with 10 consecutive losses.
Two weeks ago, the Flames (5-5, 1-2 Big South) blanked Western Carolina 21-0. Then on Saturday, Liberty handed 24th-ranked Charleston Southern its first loss in 15 games, 34-20.
"This time, we put somebody away," said Rocco, an assistant for the previous five seasons at Virginia. "We were just so physically dominant that they just couldn't muster any kind of comeback.
"If we get this one and go 6-5, realistically, I'd feel like it's been a successful year. We've got so many guys coming back. You watch, they're going to end up making us preseason favorites next year. We'll have a big bull's-eye on us."
In Liberty's five victories, nobody has come within 14 points of the Flames. Four of Liberty's losses have been by one, two, three and seven points. The crusher was a 14-13 home loss to William and Mary, a team that beat Liberty 56-0 last year in Williamsburg.
"We missed three field goals and an extra point," Rocco reported, "and our best player [Rashad Jennings] didn't play in the second half. He had 180-some yards and then got hurt on the first play of the third quarter. It affected us the next three weeks."
Eddie Pinigis, who transferred from Virginia less than two weeks before the opener, has started every game at left offensive tackle. Former UVa defensive tackle Vince Redd becomes eligible next year and a third ex-Cavalier, scholarship safety Robbie Catterton, has spoken to Rocco about ending his career at Division I-AA Liberty.
"The biggest thing we've tried to do, and I think we accomplished it last week, is changing the expectations," Rocco said. "We're a program that hasn't gotten a lot of respect. In those games that we're coming down to the end, somehow, some way, something wouldn't go our way. It was a flag here, a miscue there.
"What we needed was a statement game and Saturday may have been that defining moment."
By Chris Lang
Lynchburg News & Advance
November 18, 2006
When Liberty and VMI meet today at Foster Stadium, some Flames players will have a keen understanding of what the Keydets have endured this season.
Start the season with a closer-than-expected win against an inferior opponent, then lose the rest of your games, some in embarrassing fashion.
The parallels between the 2005 Flames and the 2006 Keydets are startling:
Liberty rallied from a halftime deficit to beat Division II Concord 17-6 in its 2005 opener. VMI needed a stop on a two-point conversion at the end of the game to escape non-scholarship Davidson 20-19 in its opener.
Connecticut, William & Mary and Youngstown State beat Liberty in 2005 by a combined 157-0. VMI lost to Army, Richmond and James Madison by a combined 165-21 in 2006.
Liberty regrouped enough to be competitive in Big South games, losing the four league contests by a combined 15 points. VMI has been a tough out this year, losing its three conference games by a combined 13 points.
"It's rough," VMI quarterback Jonathan Wilson said. "We haven't really done that well since our 2003 season (when VMI was 6-6). But you've got to keep working."
Liberty coach Danny Rocco is counting on it. VMI's record is not indicative of the Keydets' effort, but more a reflection on the team's lack of depth.
When Wilson went down with a shoulder injury in September, freshman Kyle Hughes was pressed into action, and he helped VMI hang close in its Big South opener, a 27-22 loss at Charleston Southern. Big South leader Coastal Carolina needed a rally in the final minute to beat the Keydets at Alumni Field.
Rocco's also mindful of what's at stake for his own program. A win today gives Liberty a winning season for the first time since 2003 and a three-game win streak to end the season.
"We all know the reality of it," Rocco said. "If we don't win this weekend, we're kind of right back to 'Who are these guys? Are they any good?' That's the nature of college football."
Rocco expressed concern Thursday at the difficulty of preparing for VMI's tricky offense. VMI offensive coordinator Brent Davis spent nine years as an offensive coach at Georgia Southern, which ran the option better than just about anybody in college football until switching into a more pro-style offense this year.
Rocco praised VMI's deceptiveness on offense and compared it to what Hawaii and Rice ran when he was at Texas in the mid-90s and what Army ran when he was at Boston College before that.
"I pulled out notes on all three," Rocco said. "It's just a unique style of offense. In certain ways, the offense is kind of a gimmick offense. It's misdirection, where's the ball going, who has the football? You have to be very disciplined and very focused on every play.
"Obviously, they don't want to end the season on a losing note at home and on an extended losing streak. I do think we'll see anything and everything they can possibly give us."
Liberty defensive end Jason Horn is expected to return to the starting lineup today, Rocco said. Horn, who leads the team in sacks, missed five games with a hairline fracture in his left tibia and returned last week against Charleston Southern, albeit in a very limited role. He played only a handful of plays and assisted on one tackle.
- By Dalegarz1
- By Purple Haize