Blue Hens Rewind: Tubby Raymond Wins 300th Career Game In Defensive Battle
Andy Lohman
10/17/2020
After graduating a large portion of the veteran leadership from a squad that made the I-AA semifinals the previous year, Delaware football had a rare losing season in 2001. But on Nov. 10, win-loss records didn’t matter at all as the Fightin’ Blue Hens hosted Richmond. There was only one goal: get legendary head coach Tubby Raymond his 300th career win.
Raymond was the Delaware head coach for 36 years after previously serving as an assistant under Dave Nelson. Raymond helped pioneer and perfected the famous Delaware Wing-T offense that utilized motion, misdirection and a unique personnel set-up to march through defenses. With Raymond at the helm, the Blue Hens won three national championships and nine conference championships. Not only a successful coach on the field, Raymond impacted the lives of countless student-athletes he helped grow as young men.
“As a senior class, we felt like it was our duty to bring him that 300th win,” wide receiver Jamin Elliott said. “It was a goal that we set out at the beginning of the season. We were hoping to get it a little sooner in the season, but the way the season turned out, it came down to the last home game of the year. So we wanted to make sure we got it done for him.”
With freshman quarterback Mike Connor making just his third start and facing the Atlantic 10’s top-ranked defense, the Blue Hens were locked in a defensive battle all day long. The two teams traded field goals in the first quarter, but the Delaware defense stepped up to stifle the Spider’s triple option attack. Richmond ran 79 offensive plays in the game, but gained just 250 yards.
Late in the second quarter with the game knotted at 3-3, the Blue Hens forced a Richmond 3-and-out and after a bad punt, started their drive at the Richmond 35-yard line. Elliott caught a seven-yard pass on the first play of the drive, then fullback Antwan Jenkins converted a fourth-and-short situation with a 20-yard burst off the right tackle.
On the next play, halfback Butter Pressey took it up the middle on a classic Wing-T counter run for a seven-yard touchdown to put Delaware on top 10-3 right before halftime. The score proved to be the difference in the game, as the momentum from converting the defensive stop into points carried Delaware for the rest of the game. While the Blue Hens were held off the scoreboard in the second half, the Spiders were held out of the end zone, managing just a fourth-quarter field goal.
In what would be his final home game, Tubby Raymond earned his 300th career victory, a 10-6 triumph over Richmond, and was carried off the field by his players.
“Of course it was a defensive battle, and being a defensive player we met a good number of our goals that game, but the biggest memory of course was carrying Coach Raymond off the field,” linebacker Darrell Edmonds, who had a team-high nine tackles that day, said. “That was the goal, that was our only aim at that point to make sure he got that 300th win.”
Throughout the interview process for the Blue Hen Rewind commentary, we asked the Hens that played for Tubby to share some of their favorite moments and memories of the legendary coach. The best are listed below:
Tubby was one of the reasons I came to UD. I was recruited by a number of other schools, some pretty good programs, but UD had this reputation of winning, of course, you get to play for a legendary coach. And the atmosphere was amazing there. I actually remember in high school, we ran the Delaware Wing-T like a lot of schools in our area, so in our football office, we literally had posters of Tubby on the wall. I came down to the Wing-T camp every year to learn, so for me to come there was a big deal for me. To be a part of that history, a part of his legacy, a part of his system was amazing.Darrell Edmonds, linebacker, 1998-2001
I just remember having talked to Coach Raymond, I was a unique player at the time - at least people thought I was, I never felt any different – but I was a linebacker, but I was also a piano player. So I played for the gospel choir at UD, had written songs for the gospel choir and had been very involved with a lot of campus ministries at the time. For a lot of folks that play the game, and to play as highly as I did, and to also have that other side, it didn’t mesh well and didn’t go with what a lot of people said. But the coaching staff was super supportive. I would talk with Tubby about how he was very involved with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in the early years at UD and different things like that. Just super supportive of me as an individual. Not just as a football player, but as an individual; I’ll never forget that.
I actually loved Tubby Raymond, I really did. When I played for him as a young redshirt freshman, I can remember, and I don’t know if he did this purposefully or not, but he would call me the wrong name. He called me ‘McBride’ for I think the first two years of my career. I would hear [imitating Raymond’s voice] ‘McBride! McBride!’ and I was like, is he doing that on purpose? You know, what is this guy doing? At the time, he was only in his early 60s. Is this guy senile already? But I think deep down, he was trying to motivate me.Joe McGrail, defensive tackle, 1983-86
I used to love, my senior year as captain, I would go up to his office and he would just sit down and we would talk before the game. He was a different guy then, one-on-one. You never saw such a little guy demand so much respect from guys that were 6’4” and 280 pounds. You’ll never see that and he did that; he just had that aura about him. I loved Tubby, I thought he was a great motivator.
He meant everything to me. He’s like a father figure to me. Tubby is one of those guys, he’s a straight shooter. He’s not going to sugarcoat anything, man, and that’s one thing that I love and respect about him. And he always had stories from his coaching days, all kinds of different things that you can relate and translate to real life. It was bigger than football for him, it was about teaching us how to be men. And who better to learn from than a guy who’s been in the coaching ranks for 35 years? Plus he’s helped shape and mold the life of so many young men. I’m just thankful to have the opportunity to have played for a legendary coach like Tubby. There’s nothing more that I can say, but I love the guy and I miss the guy. He was definitely awesome to play for.Jamin Elliott, wide receiver, 1998-2001
This happened my sophomore year, so this was my first year with the varsity after playing freshman football at Delaware, which was required back then in the early 80’s. Tubby would send the quarterbacks over with the defensive backs at a part of the practice to work on tackling. Why would they do that? That’s why Coach Raymond is a Hall of Famer because he left no stone unturned. He figured if there was a turnover, there’s a mistake, there’s an interception, we want everyone on the field to know how to tackle.Rich Gannon, quarterback, 1984-86
And so we went over there, the quarterbacks jog over and we’re doing this form-fitting tackle drill where you have another player across from you and you work on your head placement, eyes up, wrap him with the arms, squeeze it. So we’re doing it, and apparently we weren’t invested enough or we weren’t paying attention enough, and I can remember from literally like 100 yards away Coach Raymond saying [imitating Raymond’s voice] ‘Get him! You better learn to tackle because you’re gonna throw a lot of interceptions!’ That’s like my very first practice with the varsity and I hear Coach Raymond saying you better learn to tackle because you’re going to throw a lot of interceptions. He wasn’t even on the same field, it wasn’t even a drill that he was a part of, but yet he saw that. That was the type of attention to detail that I think permeated the entire coaching staff, which really made us, when we ran [the Delaware Wing-T] offense to precision and execution, it made it difficult for teams like Temple, who we beat twice, Navy, who we beat twice when I was there, some of these schools, there’s just no possible way that they can prepare for that over the course of a week when they were on their campus getting ready for Delaware football.
