Upsets turn ASC on its ear
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Payne-ful landing for UMHB
Last year’s national runners-up seemed to have everything going for them upon arrival in Brownwood. The Crusaders had dominated Willamette and Mississippi College and escaped what we all thought was a very good Texas Lutheran squad (more on that later). Saturday they faced Howard Payne, who had struggled to a 1-3 record with only a win against Sul Ross to their credit. No big deal, right?
Like the week before, the Cru (3-1, 2-1 ASC) got off to a slow start. Coach Pete Fredenburg’s squad trailed early before rallying, and went into the locker room tied at ten. Two second-half Howard Payne turnovers led to 10 Crusader points, and things seemed in hand when the visitors, leading 20-17, took the ball deep into the red zone with time running down. Eschewing what would have been a sure field goal, UMHB elected instead to go for it fourth-and-2 from the HPU 8. Landon Dyer and Weston Gebhardt stopped Justin Bryson a yard short, but with only 1:10 left, 93 yards to go, and only one timeout remaining, surely there was no way Howard Payne could score a touchdown. Not against the No. 2 team in the country!
Too bad someone apparently forgot to fill in HPU quarterback Adam Johnson. Johnson skillfully led the Jackets downfield, completing three of four passes to get the team to midfield with plenty of time remaining. After two passes went incomplete, Johnson found Gregory Nixon, and the Jackets were in business at the UMHB 3 with seven seconds left. Johnson found Brandon Tolbert on the next play to give the Jackets (2-3, 2-2) their biggest win since joining Division III. Johnson was so effective that the Jackets didn’t even need to use that one timeout.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about the 24-20 win is that the Yellow Jackets did it despite being held to 4 yards rushing on 25 attempts. Johnson had his best day as a Division III quarterback, completing 22 of 41 for 342 yards and three scores. Chris Jackson (7 catches, 104 yards) and Tolbert (6 catches, 143 yards) tormented the Crusader secondary. Justin Bryson did gain 126 yards rushing for the Crusaders, nearly matching the combined passing yardage of both UMHB quarterbacks (128).
The loss means UMHB no longer has control of its playoff destiny. They can no longer assure themselves of the conference championship (and automatic bid) because, even should they win out, they would be one-half game behind any one-loss ASC team thanks to the cancelled game against Louisiana College.
East Texas Baptist says “we were up-and-coming first”
Meanwhile, about 400 miles away, another unlikely scenario was coming to pass. Everyone’s dark-horse contender for conference champion, Texas Lutheran, faced an East Texas Baptist squad that while undefeated in conference play had yet to impress. Texas Lutheran had played Trinity tough! Texas Lutheran had played Mary Hardin-Baylor tough! They weren’t going to have any problem with East Texas Baptist. The Tigers weren’t even last year’s news. True to form, the Bulldogs led 13-0 midway through the third quarter, at which point ETBU had a whopping 6 yards of total offense. Game over — get the bus warmed up. But football is a funny game, and sometimes a single small mistake is all you need to get the ball rolling. On this day, it was a penalty.
The Bulldogs (2-3, 2-2 ASC) had made yet another stop late in the third quarter when they sacked Tiger quarterback Phil Van Cleave to bring up a fourth-and-19. TLU went for the block but nailed kicker Jeremy Seeton instead. The resulting penalty brought about another first down, only ETBU’s third of the day. Even then Texas Lutheran had things seemingly under control as ETBU was again stopped short on third down. Facing a fourth-and-2, Coach Ralph Harris decided it was time to start feeding Roshawn Johnson. The junior running back gained 4 and proceeded to carry the ball on seven of the next eight plays as ETBU went on its first drive of the day. He finished the drive with an 11-yard scamper to close the gap to six. Suddenly there was a football game on in Marshall.
Enter the defense, the strength of this year’s ETBU ballclub. Micah Rucker sacked TLU quarterback Sean Salinas twice on the next series, forcing a punt, but the ETBU offense was unable to take advantage. After an exchange of punts, TLU finally managed a field goal after a 59-yard drive to pad the lead. East Texas Baptist came right back with another touchdown on a 79-yard drive to close the gap to two. With time running down, the Tigers got the ball back at midfield after yet another stop, but couldn’t go anywhere until Van Cleave found Yosmond Dodd inside the 20. Johnson got the Tigers in close with a 10-yard rush. After three timeouts (two by TLU), Jeremy Seeton nailed the winning field goal from 22 yards out.
You look at the stats and wonder how the heck East Texas Baptist keeps winning these games. Van Cleave had only 119 yards in the air and was sacked six times. Roshawn Johnson did have 106 yards, but the team as a whole only gained 93. You have to look at the other side of the equation, where the Tiger defense sacked Salinas nine times, and forced him into his worst performance of the season (199 yards on 16-for-35 passing). Micah Rucker (14 tackles, 8 solo, 4 for loss) and Micah Huckaby (13-9-2) led the very active Tiger defense.
With the 17-16 win, East Texas Baptist (4-1, 4-0) remained in a tie with Hardin-Simmons. This weekend’s game in Abilene between ETBU the two suddenly takes on a lot more significance as a result. I’ve said it before — ETBU is a dangerous team when the players believe, and if this win doesn’t make them believers, nothing will. The No. 3-ranked Cowboys (5-0, 4-0) had a little more difficulty than usual getting past Sul Ross last week, and had better be prepared to play a full 60 minutes on Saturday.
Second half, second-string lead to Trinity win
This year’s feel-good story, the undefeated Huntingdon Hawks, came to San Antonio looking for a little respect. They almost came away with the biggest win in the program’s short three-year history. In the end, Trinity’s second-half defensive adjustments and a second-string quarterback turned back the feisty Hawks.
In order to neutralize a quick Hawk secondary which had 11 picks in four games, Trinity went with a conservative game plan that emphasized the short passing game. This worked well enough until the Tigers got into the red zone. When that happened, Trinity could neither run the ball nor find open receivers. Two early forays inside the Hawks 20 resulted in two field goals. Huntingdon had surprising success moving the ball themselves, driving into the Trinity red zone on their first series before fumbling the ball away. The Hawks finally struck pay dirt on their third series, when quarterback Zach Golson (11-for-21, 217 yards) found Mark Colson on a post pattern which split the safeties perfectly. Golson found Broderick Smith in the end zone a few plays later, and then led the Hawks on a nearly perfect two minute drill to put the visitors up 10-6 at the half. Huntingdon moved the ball with ease in the first half, piling up 235 yards on the reeling “Black Flag” defense.
Tiger quarterback Jacob Cannon (13-for-19 for 111 yards) suffered a concussion in the first half and was replaced in the second by sophomore Blake Barmore. The Tigers’ hopes would rest on the shoulders of a young man who had yet to throw his first collegiate pass. Resting on that, and a defense which had not stopped Huntingdon all day.
Whatever the halftime adjustments were, they were effective. The Huntingdon offense which had gone up and down the field at will was held to three first downs and 63 yards in the second half. The short passing game worked to Barmore’s advantage, as he completed seven of eight (for 53 yards). The rushing game, held in check during the first half, finally started to wear down the visitors. Perhaps most importantly, Trinity dominated the battle of field position, starting several drives near midfield. Midway through the fourth, Barmore finally got the Tigers into the end zone on a short pass to Ray Valencia, and that was enough after a Golson attempt was intercepted by Lee Patterson. Incredibly, that marked the first time this season that Golson was picked off. The 15-10 win moved the Tigers to 5-0 on the season, and dropped the Hawks to 4-1.
Rose gets the Lynx off its back
The last two years have been frustrating for the Rose-Hulman Fightin’ Engineers. In both 2003 and 2004, Ted Karras’ team got off to a 3-1 start only to lose in consecutive weeks to both Trinity and Rhodes. Last year’s loss to the Lynx was especially heartbreaking; RHIT led by two touchdowns late only to have the Lynx rally and eventually win in overtime. On this Saturday, it looked like a case of déjà vu all over again after Rhodes, trailing for most of the second half, drove the ball 77 yards to tie the game up with 1:06 remaining. The game seemed destined to go into overtime for a second straight year, especially after the Engineers could only return the kick to their own 17.
Engineer quarterback Cameron Hummel put thoughts of settling for OT to rest when he immediately found Justin Meade at midfield. Hummel (14-for-25 for 162 yards, 53 yards rushing) directed the offense on an efficient, time-saving drive by finding receivers on the corners and carrying the ball twice himself. The second carry not only resulted in a 13-yard gain to the 14, but a face mask penalty which put the Engineers inside the 10. Two plays later, Cory Wright booted a 28-yarder which gave Rose-Hulman its first win in Memphis since 1981. The 4-2 start is Rose-Hulman’s best since 1995, which was also the last time the Engineers had a winning season (6-4).
Playoff peeks
This will mean more as the season progresses, but let’s have an early look.
Start with Huntingdon: Fairly or not, the loss to Trinity basically eliminates them from Pool B/C consideration. A note to the voters out there who apparently don’t think that much of Huntingdon: This was the team’s first loss to a Division III opponent in over a year. Put them on your short list for 2006. With only two seniors on the youthful squad, they are going to do nothing but get better.
Looking at the SCAC: Both DePauw and Centre had big wins on Saturday. The DU Tigers (3-1, 1-0 SCAC) clobbered Sewanee 34-0, while the Colonels (5-1, 2-1) bombed Millsaps 38-10. These teams and Trinity are realistically the contenders for the conference championship. Rhodes (1-4, 0-2) visits Greencastle next week, while Centre finishes its non-conference slate against Maryville (1-4). Trinity is off until the Colonels come calling on Oct. 22.
Trinity controls its own destiny; by winning out, they will clinch both a share of the SCAC championship and the conference’s automatic bid. Centre, too, controls its own destiny; it can do the same by winning out. DePauw can clinch a share of the SCAC championship by winning out but needs a Trinity loss to receive the automatic bid.
Pool C bids? Hard to look that far ahead, but a 8-1 DePauw with a win over potential playoff participant Wabash and a close contest against likely playoff participant Wesley could make a strong case for one. A 8-1 Trinity would not have any wins against playoff contenders and would need to hope for a strong Quality of Wins index. Tiger fans would be pulling for Huntingdon and Texas Lutheran to win out to increase TU’s QoW. Centre probably can only get in by winning the conference.
In the ASC, last week’s results scrambled an already complicated situation. TLU is basically out after its second loss. HSU and ETBU both control their destiny as far as the conference championship and automatic bid go. Mary Hardin-Baylor is out of the conference championship race unless everyone else has at least two losses; they probably only get a Pool C bid by winning out. A 9-1 HSU gets a Pool C bid; a 8-2 (8-1 Division III) ETBU would have a decent shot at the same.
The playoff scenarios will become clearer after the next couple of weeks. More to come!
Next week
Someone actually offered to fly me from Dallas to Abilene this weekend to catch the ETBU-HSU contest. And, of course, this is the weekend I have multiple obligations including church responsibilities on Saturday and Sunday. Sigh.
Comments? Questions? Story ideas (hint, hint, hint)? Send ‘em to ron.boerger@d3football.com!