Stay Classy Tulsa

First, let me say I’m fine with "running up the score." If you score 100 points against me, I don’t care because I couldn’t stop you. But when you throw a pass with about 27(?) seconds remaining and a 21-point lead, that’s where you cross my line.



Let’s take it further. Sure, UCA was still throwing the ball. The Bears were down 28. But after scoring the touchdown to cut it to 21, there was no onside kick. They elected to kick it deep; I’m sure expecting that TU would just run out the clock. And they looked to be doing just that. Until – and this is from memory, so it could be wrong – 27 seconds, and they take a shot at the endzone. One kneel down ends it. But instead the completion moves the ball down to the 1. Again, the game is over right? Wrong. Instead TU runs the ball in.



Fine, say "you should have kept them out" if you want. That may be true, but taking a knee there is the right decision.



It was classy enough when you pull out your starter and then put him back in. You’re welcome for that interception. I wish you could have heard me laughing, because I certainly was.



Now that I’ve got that off my chest:

• Give me Nathan Brown any day. He played error-free football Saturday night, completed 73% of his passes, and led the offense in scoring most points than any FBS team had against the TU defense.
• The fake punt got some criticism on here by people who weren’t there. The play was set up perfectly. If you’ve seen our punt formation, you know there are three guys back as a second line of blockers. Well, after all of TU’s defenders start dropping back for the return, there’s one man – and only one man – that’s close enough to make the tackle before Beard gets the first down. All three of those second line guys looked like they had no idea the fake was on. If just one of those guys gets a hand on the defender, Beard runs for the first down and another 5-10 yards. It was a perfect call that was far from perfect in execution.
• The defensive line was often just a step away from getting to Johnson. But that extra step was the time he needed to complete 82% of his passes. Fortunately for the Bears, two of his four incompletions were intercepted, both in UCA territory.
  
• TU was successful on 10-of-12 third-down plays. Just when it looked like the defense would get a stop, TU would convert again. The two times they were unsuccessful, TU still got points as they settled for field goals. Oh, and six of those conversions were run plays.
  
• Speaking of TU’s run game – they were just gashing the Bear defense. It didn’t seem to me like it was just a bunch of missed tackles. It was just wide open space for the most part.
• Both teams were perfect on scoring in the red zone.
• The kickoff coverage was obviously lacking. I’ll be interested to see if the coaches attribute that to TU’s athletes or missed assignments.
• I was disappointed that the little throw-back pass worked against us. I mean, UCA runs that play often. You can’t fall for it defensively.
• Being within 8 points at the half certainly had to be a surprise to the TU fans in attendance. The UCA gameplan was executed perfectly in the first half and kept TU off balance defensively.
  

The Bears played well. I was happy with the performance. If I were to make score predictions, mine would have probably been pretty close to the final. I expected TU to score in bunches. They did. I expected UCA to be able to score. I don’t think I expected TU to run the ball like they did.



I hope the rant at the top comes across well. My blood pressure rises every time I think about it, so the writing is probably all over the place, like my mind is. I’m sure most will disagree and that I’m overreacting, but I’m pretty manic when it comes to sports. Just ask my wife. I’ll probably change my mind in a couple of days but not yet.

Well, the Bears are 4-0

But the 51-6 win over Quincy, while obviously convincing, still leaves me wondering how good this team is. We have looked great at times in every game and have also looked the opposite of great a few times as well.



What I’d like to see improve:

• The start. We did score in the first quarter. But we went three-and-out and followed that up with a fumble. (cutting Rico Moss some serious slack here since he got injured on the play and basically landed on his head.) Sound familiar? It should we did the exact same thing last week… I know this week’s ended with a missed field goal attempt.
  
• The run game. The starters (Grimes and Ceaser) only combined for 10 carries, but they also only had 24 yards on those carries. This against a team that averages giving up278 a game.
• Getting into the endzone when we have first-and-goal. We struggled against UC Davis in the redzone, and scored X times on fourth day plays inside the 10. We settled for a field goal after 1-and-goal from the 8. We were stopped on 4th down twice!
  
• A game where we don’t fumble the ball.
• Too many plays that result in negative yards.
  

The positives:

• The punt game. Three blocked punts and one that was hurried (and possibly tipped) into going just 19 yards. On the flip side, Jonathan Beard has been booming them (42.8 yards per) and dropping them inside the 20 (4 of 11). Zero of his 11 have been returned.
• Marquez Branson must have heard there were scouts in attendance. Boy, did he show up tonight. 5 catches, 174 yards, 3 tds. And showing some break away speed against the Eagles.
  
• Nathan Brown has played smart football – other than maybe not sliding feet first a couple of times. (joking) He’s only made two throws that I – an untrained eye of course – thought were bad ideas. One against HSU and one tonight. The 5-yard completion to Willie Landers looked like a sure interception for a touchdown out of his hand. Somehow the ball squeaked through the defenders arms and into Landers’.
• There were plenty of plays for over 20 yards tonight. Landers had two catches over 40 yards.
  
• CJ Chaten looked very quick out there against a tired Quincy defense.
  
• There are plenty more, but I’ll probably get to those in the next few days.

I’m a positive guy at heart. I, like most or all of you reading, believe this team is extremely talented and has the potential to do some amazing things in the Southland Conference this season. I’m just ready for them to put a complete game together. The positive side of me says that we’re going to see that complete game soon.

UAPB Second Thoughts

Game Stories

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Claws and paws in LR UCA successful on fourth-down conversions Game is bittersweet for former Bear Coleman UCA-UAPB report COLLEGE FOOTBALL : 2nd half runaway for Bears

• We haven’t been very successful with the deep ball this season. The longest passing play of the game was just 24 yards? And about 5 yards of that was Eric Ware after the catch.
• Nathan is one slippery quarterback. There were several times he should have been sacked but somehow slipped away. This isn’t anything new, but worth noting again after last night.
• The longest run of the night was from Nathan. Without the three sacks – all in the first half – he would have been our leading rusher. I don’t think the coaches want Nathan leading the team unless most of those end with Nathan running out of bounds at the end of the play. He’s taken too many hits for my liking this season.
• He’s stuck behind two pretty good defensive ends right now (Quad Sanders and Larry Hart), but Markell Carter was consistantly driving the UAPB right tackle straight back off the line of scrimmage. He ended up with two of the three sacks by the UCA defense.
• Just four penalties this week, much better than the 10 last week.
• Vance Fizer hasn’t been talked about much on this site. I’m not sure why. But he’s doing his best to create a buzz about his play. He’s started all three games this year on the opposite side of the field of James Lancaster. All he’s done is make 15 tackles, break up a few passes (4) and combine on a sack with Sanders. And he’s a sophomore.
• Speaking of Quad Sanders… what is with the new hair style? Nice.
• The offense has got to start capitalizing on great field position. Last week there were two drives that started in UCD territory, at the 33 and 15 yard lines. We came away with three points. This week we did a little better, but after Dathan Johnson’s interception gave UCA the ball at the 35, we had to settle for a field goal. We did score a touchdown off the fumbled kickoff though.
• The offensive line has struggled at the start of games. Early yesterday Lane Freiwald and Brad Gordon found themselves standing on the sideline as the offense took the field. 3 first half sacks by UAPB. 0 in the second.
• UCA started the game in a five receiver formation. One of those receivers was Preston Echols. It was good to see him out there, but he didn’t register a stat.

“Going through the motions”

Monty Rowell probably came up with the right cliche for the first half. From the start of the game, things just didn’t feel right on the UCA sideline.



And for an entire quarter, things continued to feel very wrong. The Bears finally snapped out of it a bit in the second quarter and coasted to a 41-17 win over UAPB.



War Memorial Stadium, at less than 10% capacity, was host to a downpour about an hour before kickoff. But 30 minutes later, the rain stopped and held off completely for the entire game.



The defense that held UC Davis to only 33-yards rushing was absent in the first half. The offense that we were expecting to see had 31 first-quarter yards, three punts and a fumble.



After much pleading/yelling from the coaches at offensive linemen to block better and the defense to wrap up and tackle, there appeared to be a slight awakening offensively, and the Bears scored 17 second-quarter points to take a 17-10 lead into the half.



The score was almost 14-10 though. After the offense initially lined up to run one more play, the field goal unit ran onto the field. There was mass chaos; two players barely made it off the field; and Eddie Carmona’s 47-yard attempt just squeaked through the left upright. I was standing right behind the left post and until the last few feet, the kick was wide left. Eddie hooked it (he’s a lefty), and the Bears entered the locker room on a good note.



UCA scored on every second-half possession but one – not including running out the clock at the end. We were finally seeing the team we expected from the beginning.



You have to imagine that the coaches said what they needed to at halftime to finally get the team to realize that they’d have to put forth some real effort.



The half and momentum took a UCA turn when Dathan Johnson jumped in front of a blatantly telegraphed pass for his third interception of the season.



The Bears scored touchdowns on three of the next four possessions to put the game away. The only UAPB points of the second half came with just 50 seconds remaining in the game.



Despite playing about as poor a quarter – and really a half, although the offense scored 17 points – as we’ve seen in a while, both sides of the ball played a different game in the second half.



I’ll try and put together some more random thoughts tomorrow.



< Photo Gallery >

One time too many

What a game. The first half was a defensive struggle for both teams, but the Bear defense, led by defensive end Larry Hart, was fired up from the start and locked down the UC Davis offense.



That 10-0 lead seemed pretty comfortable. But there was no comfort to be found as the Aggies were driving down the field for a chance to tie or win. The last second interception in the end zone by Anthony Gambles finally brought some relief and sealed the 24-21 win.



Greg Denham was able to get the ball to wide receiver Chris Carter comfortably and often in the second half. If memory serves me right, all of those big plays were on the left side of the field – and most against the same cornerback.



But they tried getting to Carter one time too many. This time, on 1st down and with just under a minute remaining,  he was lined up against Gambles who went up and created the only Aggie turnover of the game. Just one play earlier UCA missed a chance for another interception, but the drama continued to build instead.



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Let’s talk about some random things that stick out:

• There’s no doubt the officials blew the call – or lack of one I guess – on the botched field goal attempt. It was clearly a forward toss attempt. But the UC Davis offense actually went backwards on the ensuing drive and failed to score.
• Larry Hart is a pass-rushing freak. He had three sacks and was putting constant pressure on #12 on every obvious passing situation. He may not have scored a touchdown, but he’s probably my player of the game. The defensive line has gone from questionable last year to a big strength this year. This without Taylor Scott.
• Carter was just picking on Dathan Johnson. It was tough to watch after Dathan’s performance last week. Carter finished with 13 catches for 189 yards and two touchdowns.
• The offensively line wasn’t always successful at opening running lanes (just 3.7 yards per carry), but hey did a relatively good job in pass protection (just one sack). The ypc stat is a little decieving since we were able to gain a total of 161 yards on the ground.
• Back to the defensive line – holding UC Davis to just 11 yards rushing?  Are you kidding me?
• Eric Ware really took advantage of some short passes and screens – 9 catches for 107 yards. That’s the way to play like a senior in a close game.
• 10 penalties for 84 yards? Too many. And the timing of the penalties were just killers – or almost.
• Both teams had trouble with a field goal attempt.

There’s so much more that I’ll try to get around to putting on here soon.



Oh, one last thing. It was nice to see #11 Ryan Johnson – a player whose only stat of the game was erased due to an Aggie penalty – taunting the fans while his team was still losing. Also impressed with how the refs almost had to escort you off the field at the end. But I did enjoy losing my voice yelling at you.

Former Player Update

Jacob Ford – DE, Tennessee Titans, NFL

Jacob just survived the final Titans cut. After his performance in the preseason, most media sources seemed to believe his roster spot was stable. In the preseason, Jacob had four tackles – two of those were – and forced a fumble. He’s received a few glowing reviews: "continued to shine" and "impressive in camp." He’s also been pinned to the ground during a fight between other teammates and had to sit out one game due to leg tightness. Jacob is slotted to backup Javon Kearse this season, so keep an eye out for #78 when you come across a Titans game on TV.

Todd Gossage – DH, Chico Outlaws, GBL

The season just ended for the Golden Baseball League. Todd Gossage had an up-and-down season for the Outlaws (19-25), who finished third in their division. Todd started slowly at the plate, but in August really picked it up. Through 17 August games, Todd was hitting .390. The good news is that he raised his average .70 points. The bad news is that he finished the season hitting just .259, obviously struggling through most of the season before catching fire at the end.

Tristan Jackson – PR/KR, Edmonton Eskimons, CFL

You’ve probably already read on here about how TJ began the season. He quickly made some fans in Canada. In his first four games, he returned a kickoff, punt and interception for touchdowns. Teams then started kicking away from him a bit, and his numbers have dropped off. He’s still second in the CFL in punt return yards. And Tristan’s 25-yard average per kick return is still high in the league standings, but that number is boosted by the 94-yarder for a touchdown. He’s the only person in the league to return both a kickoff and a punt for a touchdown. Now the bad news on TJ, he’s sitting out today’s Labour Day game (that’s how they spell it up there) with an ankle sprain.

Chris Davis – C, Missoula Osprey, Pioneer League (MiLB)

First off, kudos to The Echo for having a couple of stories about Chris last week. Chris is the leading catcher on the team in just about every offensive category: batting average (.268), on base percentage (.398), and even with just one, homers. Chris is now fighting for playing time with 19-year-old Rossmel Perez and Bill Musselman, a former Saint Louis Billiken that visited UCA Field in 2007.