The Sports Arsenal

““If anybody on offense, defense or special teams had just made one play at any point, it would have been a different game.” — Kevin Higgins

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To review some of the plays that weren’t made:

— UTC quarterback B.J. Coleman threw 61 passes on Saturday.  He was not sacked.  Not once!  To be honest, that’s hard to do.  You would think that at least one time he would have tripped over a lineman’s foot and fallen down, or suffered a leg cramp while in the pocket, or pulled a Brett Favre-against-Michael Strahan move, but no.

What’s more, when Coleman went back to pass, he wasn’t looking to run.  Coleman threw 61 passes and had no rush attempts for the game.  The Mocs only rushed 12 times during the entire game (for 17 yards), so basically on every play, the Bulldogs knew that Coleman was going to throw the ball, and he was never going to be a threat to take off and run with it (and they also knew he was going to throw in Blue Cooper’s direction as often as possible, but Cooper still caught 14 passes).

The Bulldog D held the Mocs in check for a while, and when Chris Billingslea intercepted a fourth-down pass and returned it to the UTC 49, eventually leading to a Bulldog TD, things were looking good.  Then the Mocs went to a no-huddle attack, and from that point on, The Citadel’s defense turned to mush.  The ensuing drives for UTC were as follows:

• 60 yards, field goal
• 56 yards, field goal
• 80 yards, touchdown
• 71 yards, touchdown (plus a two-point conversion)
• 43 yards, field goal
• 9 yards, touchdown (after a long punt return)
• 17 yards, turned over on downs (a clock-eating exercise that left The Citadel just 25 seconds to try to score)

You’ll notice there are no turnovers or punts listed.  That’s because there weren’t any to list once the Mocs went to the no-huddle.

— Speaking of turnovers, The Citadel’s defensive backs probably should have intercepted at least three Coleman passes in the second half.  Should have, but didn’t.  Again, someone needed to make a play, but no one did.

— Not only was Coleman not sacked, he was rarely pressured.  Higgins noted that “looking at the tape, we did have five or six hits on him”.  Five or six hits is generally not going to be enough to make an impact against a QB who threw 61 passes, but as it is the official statistics only credit The Citadel with one “hurry” for the entire game.  Of course, the official statistics also list John Synovec as having played quarterback for the Bulldogs on Saturday…

— The actual quarterback for The Citadel on Saturday was freshman walkon Tommy Edwards, who basically performed at the same level as he did against Samford — that is to say, quite well.  You really couldn’t have asked for much more from Edwards, who did a good job throwing the ball and forced the Mocs to honor him as a runner.  He also committed no turnovers.

After a gimpy Bart Blanchard struggled against Wofford, and with Miguel Starks apparently not in much better shape than Blanchard, the coaching staff’s decision to start Edwards was obviously the right call.  It probably should have been the call last week, too.

The offense did bog down in the second half (and the fourth-down playcall that resulted in Terrell Dallas losing two yards was poor), but the bottom line is that Edwards and company put 28 points on the board, including a touchdown with just over ten minutes to play that made the score 28-13.  That should have been enough to win the game, but the defense didn’t hold up its end of the bargain, and neither did the special teams.

The Bulldogs had another makeable field goal go unmade, failed to recover an onside kick, and also allowed a 53-yard punt return to set up the winning touchdown.  Teams don’t win games with special teams that are less than special.

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The Citadel didn’t perform as badly against UT-Chattanooga as it did against Elon, Western Carolina, and Wofford, but it was still a crushing defeat.  Every week it seems the Bulldogs have another goal for this year go by the boards.  In the case of the UTC loss, that unmet goal is a winning season.

Of course, winning teams make key plays to clinch victories.  The Citadel hasn’t been making those plays for most of the season, and it shows in the win-loss record.

Filed under: Football, The Citadel | Tagged: B.J. Coleman, Bart Blanchard, Blue Cooper, Chris Billingslea, Kevin Higgins, Miguel Starks, Terrell Dallas, The Citadel, Tommy Edwards, UT-Chattanooga |