William & Mary feeling optimistic after a difficult spring football season

The first spring football regular season in William & Mary history was anything but a picture of stability.

Practice commenced with barely more than a week of team weight training because of the pandemic, and injuries were rampant. COVID-19 issues that cut the 11-game schedule almost in half at the outset cut it in half again to three games — one of which the Tribe won.

Just three months later, optimism abounds at W&M. It starts with the large turnout in the weight room this summer — up to 70 daily — for a team that returns every starter, including an all-senior offensive line.

“Our strength coach, Kenny O’Mary, I believe has done a fantastic job with the guys in their overall strength, conditioning and development,” Mike London, the Tribe’s third-year coach, said Tuesday during Colonial Athletic Association media day. “It’s important. The strength coach becomes your MVP during all this time.

“I feel good about the talent of this team, about the depth of this team, about seniority, about the leadership. So, there’s a lot of positive things coming out of the spring into the summer and now getting ready to go into the fall.”

If there’s a question mark heading into camp ahead of the Sept. 4 opener at Virginia, it’s the status of starting quarterback Hollis Mathis, who missed the Tribe’s final game of the spring with an injury. London only said he’s “coming along well and working out with the team.”

There is good news at quarterback with transfers Kevin Doyle and Cole Northrup. Doyle, a three-star recruit from Washington, D.C., spent three seasons at the University of Arizona, although he didn’t play. Northrup threw for more than 200 yards per game this spring for Lafayette College of Pennsylvania, the Tribe’s opponent in its first home game on Sept. 11.

Other transfers expected to make an immediate impact are wide receiver Josh Guilford from Florida International and defensive backs Tate Haynes from Boston College and Tye Freeland from Howard. Haynes is the son of Pro Football Hall of Fame selection Mike Haynes, who helped the Los Angeles Raiders beat the Washington Redskins in the 1984 Super Bowl. Freeland started for London at Howard University.

“We were able to put some pieces together to add to our team to provide depth, to provide playing experience, to provide opportunities and to go along with this senior leadership, this older group of guys I think has a chance to be really good.”

Starting linebacker Tyler Crist, a sixth-year senior, said, “We have a lot of depth in our fourth-, fifth- and now sixth-year seniors. Most of the guys on our defense, like me, have plenty of game experience, so no one is coming in with wide eyes.”

That’s most true on the interior offensive line, where Andrew Trainer, Dan Evers, Cory Ryder, Ryan Ripley and Colby Sorsdal return.

“They’re a veteran group, they’re an athletic group, there’s experience, there’s (versatility) where guys can play different positions, and they’re a smart, tough group,” London said.

Ripley said, “I don’t know if we’re the best position group on the team, but we are a super-close-knit offensive line. I play with some extremely talented guys and I’m lucky to be a part of that.”

Marty O’Brien, 757-247-4963, mjobrien@dailypress.com