Tyler Brown Plays Well For E&H Secondary, but Wasps Fall to Hampden-Sydney

BY ALLEN GREGORY
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER
EMORY, Va. – Tyler Brown had reason to feel anxious Saturday afternoon.

The 5-foot-10 senior cornerback for Emory & Henry was pitted against an array of tall receivers from Hampden-Sydney who operated from a no-huddle, quick-firing spread offense.

“It was a huge challenge,” Brown said.

Brown collected his third interception of the season, but it wasn’t nearly enough to stop Tiger quarterback Corey Sedlar. The 6-foot-3 senior from Richmond topped the 8,900-career yardage mark in passing Saturday, as HSC posted a key ODAC win. 

Working with sure-handed seniors such as 6-foot-3 Anthony Mancini and 6-foot-6 Adam Gillette, Sedlar managed to overcome the persistent E&H pass rush with a quick delivery and big-game instincts.
Hampden-Sydney coach Marty Favret has come to expect precision from his senior leader.

“Corey is like a coach on the field,” Favret said. “He’s bright and he’s been running this offense for a while. Corey got hit a lot today, but he stayed calm and showed a lot of leadership.”

Before every play, every player on the HSC offense stares at the creative Favret for the play call. Sedlar then executes the Tiger offense much like the joystick of a video game, burning defenders on timing patterns, slants, screens and even shovel passes.

“We have a blast in this offense,” Sedlar said. “When we pick up the pace and run up and down the field, it feels really good.”

Sedlar did not even play quarterback in high school. After drawing interest from only Hampden-Sydney and Randolph-Macon, Sedlar spent one season at James Madison University as a student before transferring to HSC.

“I don’t really look back,” Sedlar said. “I love where I’m at and we all love playing in this system.”

The luxury of having a tall cast of receivers makes life more joyous.

“That size definitely makes a difference when we’re trying to run our routes across the middle and or down the sideline,” Sedlar said. “I know those guys can go up and get the ball.”

And Favret is constantly searching for ways to exploit the defense. Borrowing a tactic from the Oklahoma University coaching staff, the HSC coach switched his high-tech offense to an even faster tempo in the second half of Saturday’s game against E&H.

“We wanted to get Emory out of the blitz mode,” Favret said. “We did enough to get the win.”

Sedlar said that while he enjoyed Saturday’s ODAC showdown, the victory was anything but routine.

“Emory did a really good job of bringing the heat,” Sedlar said. “Our line settled down a little bit in the second half and we started picking up a little bit.”

The Wasps did manage to keep the Tigers well under their scoring average of 40 points a game thanks to the blitz and some effective man-to-man coverage in the second half.

“Hampden-Sydney is just well coordinated in everything it does on offense,” Brown said. “The answer to that is to try to get pressure on the quarterback, but Hampden-Sydney guards against that with seven-man protection.
“We had good scouting reports, so we were able to defend them to some extent. [Hampden-Sydney] is just so fundamentally sound, especially at quarterback and with those [tall] receivers. I was just hoping that they wouldn’t throw a jump ball my way.”

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