Sept. 6, 2014
BALTIMORE, MD - Johns Hopkins football coach Jim Margraff pointed out before Saturday's season-opener against Randolph-Macon that for the Blue Jays to be successful they would need to run the ball effectively and not turn the ball over. Point taken.
Johns Hopkins rushed for 261 yards and five touchdowns and the Blue Jay defense forced three Yellow Jacket turnovers while the Hopkins offense kept a clean sheet en route to a 42-3 victory at Homewood Field Saturday afternoon. Johns Hopkins, which is ranked 14th by D3football.com, won for the 16th straight time in the month of September and improved to 34-1 in its last 35 regular season games.
The 39-point margin of victory is Johns Hopkins' largest in a season-opener since 1959, when Hopkins topped Franklin & Marshall, 42-0.
The Johns Hopkins offense got going late in the first quarter as the Blue Jays broke through on their third possession with a 12-yard touchdown run by sophomore Dionisio Roman, who got through the line untouched and then ran over a Randolph-Macon defensive back at the goal line to open the scoring.
On a day where temperatures were nearly 100 degrees on the field, a surprise onsides kick following Roman's touchdown was recovered by freshman Michael Munday. The Blue Jays then used nearly four minutes and 12 plays to go 54 yards with senior quarterback Braden Anderson scoring on a two-yard run.
Needing a time-consuming drive from its offense, the Yellow Jacket defense got less than a one-minute break as sophomore Jack Toner intercepted a Zac Naccarato pass at the Hopkins 44 and returned it to the Randolph-Macon 29-yard line.
Two plays later, sophomore Stuart Walters ripped off a 22-yard highlight-reel run for a touchdown that saw him start to his right, cut back into the middle of the field, elude several open-field tacklers and race into the end zone to give the Blue Jays a 21-0 lead. In game time, JHU's three touchdowns came in a span of just 5:08.
Toner's interception was one of two in the first half for the Blue Jay defense, which also got a first-quarter pick from junior Brady Watts, who halted the `Jackets first drive at the Hopkins 30.
A 24-yard Seth Yurgel field goal capped an eight -play, 38-yard drive for Randolph-Macon midway through the second quarter and sliced the deficit to 21-3, but the Blue Jays had one more scoring drive left in them before intermission.
After trading punts following Yurgel's field goal, the Blue Jays took over at their own 40-yard line with just under four minutes remaining in the first half. Seven plays and 60 yards later it was junior Brandon Cherry scoring on a nifty seven-yard run up the middle to give Hopkins a 28-3 halftime lead. Anderson was 4-for-4 for 33 yards on the drive and Cherry covered the final 14 yards on consecutive seven-yard runs.
Any hopes for a Randolph-Macon comeback were dashed in the first 10 minutes of the third quarter. The Yellow Jackets took the opening kickoff of the second half and marched the Blue Jay six yard line, where they were faced with a second-and-one. A tackle for loss by Watts, an offensive pass interference and a sack by senior Michael Longo forced the `Jackets into a fourth-and-21 from the 26 and Naccarato's pass in the end zone to Mike Doe was incomplete to give the Blue Jays possession.
Johns Hopkins then did what it needed, mixing the run and the pass perfectly in a 10-play, 74-yard drive that included a 19-yard Anderson-to-Ryan Finkel completion on third-and-eight early in the drive and a 28-yard scoring pass form Anderson to sophomore Quinn Donaldson to cap the drive and give JHU a 35-3 lead.
Anderson, who capped his first career start with an eight-yard touchdown run to close the scoring early in the fourth quarter, was 12-of-23 for 190 yards with one touchdown and also rushed for the two scores. He is the seventh straight Johns Hopkins quarterback to win the first start of his career.
Walters paced the Blue Jay rushing attack with 87 yards and the one touchdown, while Cherry added 76 yards and one TD. Donaldson had a career-high five receptions for 111 yards and the one score as the Blue Jay offense rolled up 451 yards and averaged 6.3 yards per play.
Defensively, Hopkins came up with three interceptions, allowed Naccarato and freshman Peyton Henley to go just 15-of-31 for 152 yards and surrendered just the three points; the fewest in a season-opener since 2008. Randolph-Macon did get 125 rushing yards, but averaged just 3.4 yards per attempt against a JHU defense that rotated in two full units throughout the game before subbing liberally in the fourth quarter.
John Byrd rushed 18 times for 75 yards and Doe had a game-high seven receptions for 86 yards, but the two first-half interceptions by Watts and Toner and the successful onsides kick were more than the Yellow Jackets could overcome.
Johns Hopkins will return to action on Saturday, September 13 when the Blue Jays travel to Susquehanna for a Centennial Conference game. The Crusaders dropped their season-opener, 42-13, at Lycoming earlier today.
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