TOUGH TASK: Liberty hopes to contain GW’s potent rushing attack

All year, the defensive philosophy of each of George Washington’s opponents has been to contain senior running back David Wilson.

With the exception of Varina in the Eagles’ first game of the season, no team has been able to slow down the back heading to Virginia Tech.

Liberty-Bealeton coach Tommy Buzzo and his Eagles have a tough task ahead of them tonight as they play host to GW for the Northwest Region championship. Coming off a semifinal win in which Liberty (9-2) held William Fleming to 45 yards of total offense, Buzzo knows that the same effort will be needed to slow down GW’s primary offensive weapon.

“I think it would probably be the same thing that every opponent has tried to do all year — stop the run. It’s not whether we can stop it, but slow it down,” Buzzo said Tuesday. “Makes it a little tougher when you have a kid as special as the Wilson kid.”

Wilson has rushed for 2,230 yards this season and scored 33 touchdowns (31 rushing, one receiving and one defensive). Fullback Tahron Goods has been no slouch either, racking up 1,221 yards on the ground and scoring nine touchdowns.

GW (7-4) is riding a four-game winning streak, including three straight on the road, and in those four games, Wilson and Co. have racked up 1,779 yards on the ground. The 217 yards the Eagles managed against Brooke Point last week were the fewest yards rushing since their opening week loss to Varina, when GW was held to 81 yards on the ground.

“It’s going to take a team effort. It’ll take 11 players playing assignment, professional football to stop that running attack,” Buzzo said. “We’re just going to try to play our base assignment football and have our kids play solid football.”

GW’s appearance in the Northwest Region title game is the first back-to-back appearance for the Eagles since they went to four straight from 1980-1983, which includes their last Group AAA state title in 1982. But, in order to get to the state playoffs, the Eagles will need to slow down a solid Liberty squad that is riding a five-game winning streak and finished in second in the Cedar Run District.

“Everything we see out of them is that they’re very disciplined, very sound in everything that they do. They don’t make a lot of mistakes defensively that are going to hurt them,” GW coach Dan Newell said. “They are going to give up a few things to be safe, but they are going to make you work hard to be consistent and get first downs.”

Liberty’s offense is led by quarterback Nick Potts, who has thrown for 1,702 yards and 21 touchdowns this season. The passing attack opens up the running game, where Wayne Fleming leads the team in rushing with 768 yards, including 39 yards and a touchdown in last week’s 35-6 win against William Fleming.

“They’re going to put a lot of pressure on our pass defense,” Newell said. “They’re going to force us to play some man-to-man coverage and load the box up to be able to stop them, because they are a run-first team, but they are going to throw the ball if we load the box up and we already know that.”

Liberty’s other running back is Corey Lillard, who also plays at defensive back and is heading to Virginia next season. Lillard ran for a team-high 61 yards in the semifinal win against William Fleming. The offensive line is anchored by Kory Gough — who, coincidently, will be blocking for Wilson in the years to come at Virginia Tech.

“They’ve never played a team like us before and we’ve probably never played a team like theirs before, so it’s going to be a good game,” Wilson said.

In the Northern Virginia area, most teams play in the spread offense and like to pass the ball often. But in preparation for GW, Buzzo said he had to dust off some playbooks in the archive to prepare for the challenge ahead.

“They run the Wing-T and there was a time period years ago when we played Wing-T every Friday night,” Buzzo said. “It seems like every Friday night we play the spread offense.”

In the second year since moving up to Group AAA, Liberty is enjoying its first Northwest Region playoff experience. GW, which is 6-0 on the road this season, is not overlooking its opponent.

“We can’t sleep on nobody since (Liberty) beat William Fleming pretty bad,” senior defensive back and Z-back Deuntae Motely said. “It’s going to be a hard game.”