Photo courtesy of Luke Zayas/True To The Cru
BELTON — Larry Harmon spoke candidly at Monday’s press conference, getting straight to the point without hesitation.
“We’ve got to get better pretty quick at a lot of things or it’s going to be a long season,” UMHB’s fourth-year head coach said. “I thought #11 [B.J. Stewart] played really well for us on offense and I thought #9 [Joey Johnson] played really well for us on defense. Everybody else struggled. Coaches struggled. Players struggled. We’ve got to get better.”
He was responding to a question regarding his overall thoughts on last Saturday’s 26-6 loss to No. 10 UW-Whitewater, a highly-anticipated non-conference rematch in which all three phases—offense, defense, and special teams—had miscues that played into the humbling defeat.
The Cru’s 30-23 win two weeks earlier over NAIA Bethel (TN), a scholarship program that had beaten UMHB a year earlier, 20-10, seemed to be an encouraging start. Despite a slow first quarter, poise and a pair of 70-yard touchdowns carried the day for Harmon’s team, setting the stage for the duel against undefeated UWW.
The bye week that came between those two games seemed to have potential for another positive step, with two weeks of practice to build up fundamentals and fine-tune the areas of weakness revealed against Bethel.
But things turned in the opposite direction on Saturday. Facing a higher-caliber opponent, they were unable to replicate their Week 1 performance, struggling to maintain any sort of momentum on either side of the ball. And having the bye week leading into the game didn’t seem to help much, either.
“I thought we had a good plan for the bye week,” Harmon said. “But we worked on tackling, and we still had a bunch of missed tackles on Saturday. We worked on blocking, and we still had some missed blocks.”
In the fast-paced nature of a season, there isn’t much time for UMHB to dwell on the “what-ifs” of the loss. Not if they are going to bounce back at D2 Mars Hill this Saturday, facing a scholarship program on a two-game win streak in their first road duel of the season. But last week’s performance still sets the narrative for what is to come and certainly leaves the Crusaders with some questions to answer as they look to turn the page.
That includes an offense that never seemed to find a rhythm against UWW, failed to reach the red zone, and crossed the goal line just once in a game for only the second time since 2022. Much like in Week 1, they experienced a slow start through their first few drives. But unlike in that previous win, The Cru never seemed to fully push past the early struggles. Only two of their 10 drives spanned longer than 2:27, and both of those ended in punts.
That said, UMHB is not making any wholesale changes to its overall approach at the present moment.
“We believe in what we’re doing,” Harmon said. “We’re not going back to the drawing board. I think we can do some things formationally, some motion stuff. We had some other things for the game ready that we didn’t use, and it was really because we weren’t able to execute what we were trying to get done already.”
UMHB ran just 20 plays in the second half, limiting The Cru’s chances to go deeper into the playbook. They held possession for just 6:28 over the final two quarters, roughly 21% of the half.
One poor performance certainly doesn’t constitute a trend. The talent and depth at the skill positions hasn’t gone anywhere, and UW-Whitewater is led by a Top 10-caliber defensive front. But it also isn’t something that will be easily dismissed, with more pressure likely on the offense at Mars Hill on Saturday. There is an opportunity for growth on that side of the ball, especially if UMHB can avoid untimely penalties.
“We have some talent, we’ve just got to stop shooting ourselves in the foot,” Harmon said.
The defense experienced its difficult moments in Week 2 as well. For much of the second half, the Crusaders simply couldn’t get off the field, surrendering three drives of 10-plus plays, two of which went for touchdowns. The Warhawk rushing attack was potent throughout the game, but had its biggest impact over the final two quarters, as UWW rushed for 255 yards, the most by a UMHB opponent since North Central in the 2022 national semifinals.
For as good as UWW’s ballcarriers were, the play of the Warhawk offensive line was the difference. UWW’s O-Line won the battle in the trenches against UMHB’s front seven, an aspect Harmon brought up on Monday as the primary reason for the defense’s struggles.
“The biggest deal defensively that we had is we just got dominated up front,” Harmon noted. “Our front four had a difficult time. Their O-Line was getting up on our linebackers really fast. We’re just not punching and getting off blocks. We’re taking on blocks, but we’re kind of like velcro; once we get attached, we can’t punch and get off. That’s what we have to be able to do.”
On paper, Mars Hill will be an enormous test for The Cru, a valuable gauge of their response to the Whitewater loss and mentality moving into a crucial portion of the ASC schedule. Per ESPN’s Bill Connelly and his SP+ rankings (arguably the most advanced analytical ranking system in college football with the intention to track teams’ overall efficiency, it ranks everyone in FBS, FCS, D2, D3, and NAIA together) Mars Hill is ranked highest amongst all 10 of UMHB’s 2025 regular season opponents at No. 294. Yes, even above UW-Whitewater, who is No. 297.
While Saturday’s contest in North Carolina will not factor into UMHB’s playoff resume (only D3 results count in the NCAA Power Index), Mars Hill is arguably a similar quality of opponent to what The Cru just faced. The Lions are 2-1 in 2025, guided by a veteran core that includes a grad student at starting quarterback, a junior at running back, a grad student as the leading tackler, and a senior defensive back leading the team in pass breakups.
The game also comes at the front end of a three-game road swing, which includes ASC foes ETBU (Oct. 4) and Hardin-Simmons (Oct. 11) in the two weeks to follow. With both programs off to a perfect 3-0 starts, it heightens the importance of answering the call this week, and getting the road portion of UMHB’s 2025 schedule started right.
“Travel has never been a terrible thing for us,” Harmon said, asked about UMHB playing on the road for the first time this fall. “We go first-class. Our university does an incredible job of making sure we get to and back from the game as first-class as we possibly can. The guys are excited to get back to work, and have another opportunity to get better. It’s going to be another really big, physical-type team that we’re going to be playing, much like Whitewater. We’ve got to be ready for the challenge.”
If the offensive play caller had read my statement from last week we would have beaten UWW …,,,,,,,, but on defense they have to tackle the RB and get pressure on the QB ….but if the coaching staff does not read this then myself and many fans in the stands will just say I told you so …….