The Paladins opened the 2013 season on the road with two tough losses to Gardner-Webb and Coastal Carolina, losing each game by only seven points. After not getting much going on the offensive side of the ball against Gardner-Webb (sophomore quarterback Reese Hannon was unable to play because of a strained oblique), the Paladins opened up in the next game, gaining 431 yards of offense against Coastal Carolina.

In the game against Gardner-Webb, the Bulldogs controlled the game, possessing the ball for nearly 39 minutes. That control helped the Bulldogs score 21 of their 28 points during their second half comeback.

The Paladins made a big improvement on defense against Coastal Carolina, only giving up 24 minutes of possession to the Chanticleers. Maintaining possession also helped the ‘Dins’ defense stay well-rested as they held Coastal to 370 yards.

The defense is composed mostly of underclassmen so growing pains are to be expected at the beginning of the season, but look for the defense to make big strides in the coming weeks.

Balance is a key factor in a successful offense, and a comparison between the Paladin’s games against Gardner-Webb and Coastal shows whys.

Only three Paladin players made catches against Gardner-Webb, a statistic I found both interesting and concerning. In the next game against Coastal Carolina we doubled that with six catches. This helped open the running game substantially, and we almost tripled our rushing yards from the week before. Having more weapons to spread out the opposition’s defense will help the offense in many ways.

Despite the loss to Coastal Carolina, redshirt junior and starting running back Hank McCloud thinks the game benefitted the team.

“I feel like the offense improved and made some major strides against Coastal Carolina both physically and mentally,” McCloud said via email. “We controlled the time of possession by executing the running game and converted a good percentage on third down to give our defense a rest.”

McCloud added that, unlike against Gardner-Webb, the entire seemed to be on the same page for much of the game.

“As an offense we improved on cutting down on the mental mistakes with everybody executing their assignment whether that be blocking, route running, and etc.,” he said. “Everybody really grasped the game plan and knows what we want to accomplish from week to week.

The Paladins played a hard game against Presbyterian this past Saturday and pulled out a tough team win in the end. Finally securing a win in front of an enthusiastic home crowd could be just what this team needed.