William & Mary Rolls Past VMI In Season Opener (8-29-24)

By: Joe Dillard Jr.

Headline Photo Credit: Arturo Jones-LMS Network
 
 
In the home opener, #15 William and Mary came out in all white looking to start the year off clean facing Virginia Military Institution.  The Tribe came out hot and established their dominance early and was rolling on all cylinders as Bronson Yoder capped off the first score of the season, capping off an eleven-play 69-yard drive to put the Tribe ahead 7-0.  After defensive stops the Tribe marched back down the field and looked poised to pull away early with a Malachi Imoh 1-yard rush on a 6-play 66-yard drive to put William and Mary up 14-0.

 Midway in the second quarter, the Tribe showed it could score with special teams as well as blocking a punt as Clayton Dobler had himself a scoop and scored for 18 yards.  Down 21-0 VMI finally moved the chains enough to get themselves on the board as they went for 9 plays and 75-yards with Hunter Rice scoring on a 12-yard rush.  With the two-minute drill being a crucial piece to a team’s success, the Tribe took advantage of the opportunity going for 73 yards in 7 plays right before the half to go up 28-7.  

In the second half the Tribe came out like the game was 0-0 and marched right down the field and scored again. In the second half, Darrius Wilson came out hot and threw 2 touchdowns to extend the lead to 41-7 with Eric Bernstein missing his first extra point after hitting the first 5.  With just under 2 minutes left in the third quarter quarterback Tyler Hughes and Martin Lucas replaced the backfield as the Tribe, who is very deep this season still has great talent in the second and even third units of their roster.  The Tribe closed out the game winning dominantly holding VMI to under 300 total yards of offense while they showed a balanced attack totaling for over 400 yards of offense. The Tribe will travel to Coastal Carolina and look to improve to 2-0 in this early stage of the season.