His stats are modest compared to other top college quarterbacks. Fifty-eight percent completion isn't going to win him any awards. Three-hundred total yards were impressive pre-Vince Young and pre-spread offense. Yet, in a nice reminder of how stats do not tell the story by themselves it was his brilliant decision making and leadership that make him invaluable.
He looked amazingly comfortable running the offense and had that coolness about him that makes sportswriters cream their pants.
We couldn't be luckier to have him running the show. He and Coach Bush have a nice connection and together they worked the overwhelmed Riverhawks in that remarkable first quarter. I like to pride myself on predicting the playcall and/or pass target. I was off most of the time. When UTSA passed, I was thinking they would run again. When they ran, I either followed the wrong guy because of the play-fake, or thought they were going to pass.
It was beautiful stuff. There were a couple of times where they ran an outside zone play and got the whole defense moving one way and didn't run a keeper with Soza that would have been an easy six. That is not to say that will be there every week or that we'll be able to seal the edges on those outside runs the way we did Saturday. Obviously as Southern Utah and others get tape on us, the difficulty level will increase.
Randoleeze:
Nic Johnson, he of the baby blue eyes that we talked about on the podcast, set the tone for Neathery's defensive unit. He snuffed out Northeastern's first play and laid that mufugga out. They played quick and with passion. There seemed to be two or three guys making tackles (what you want) and it paid off beautifully late when a big Riverhawk play was nullified by a forced fumble and subsequent recovery.
Didn't like that a ton of people filtered out in the second half. I've always been a stay-to-the-end kinda guy so I've never understood that. That kind of thing concerns me. Makes me doubt the long term probability of getting good sized crowds weekly. Perhaps, though, the majority of this 56K were just curiosity seekers. People who want to be associated with an event and the like. The real desirables are the die-hard football souls. If you are one, you were no doubt impressed by the quality of play and atmosphere. Beats an overpriced ticket to Joe-Jamail Field at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin. I'm not a super-BUY LOCAL dude. I am more a BUY QUALITY ESPECIALLY IF IT IS LOCAL guy.
So it is my hope that we get more die-hards out that know a little about football game etiquette. Quick handy guide:
WHEN TO BE LOUD:
- Is your team on defense?
- YES: Get loud. Especially on 3rd downs and when defending the Red Zone.
- NO: Sit down. Especially if we are in our own territory. Exceptions are made if it is the very first drive of the team's existence and you can't contain your joy.
- Is the other team running on the field? Boo.
- Did a questionable call go for the other team? Boo.
- Did a questionable call go against your team? Boo.
- Did the other team call a timeout with 0:01 on the clock while down 28? Boo.
- Are the cops arresting a fan for running on the field in the first game of the season and was it pretty awesome? Boo.
Don't forget to email Darrell from Rowdy Report your kickoff pics. Darrell, you can find mine in the Flickr group. Speaking of Flickr, go to Flickr and upload your pics of the game/look at our pics of the game.
Podcast will be up this Wednesday, hopefully. It really depends on how quickly our voices recover. (SPOILER: I did a lot of yelling on Saturday). We might be making an appearance elsewhere on the interwebs very soon, so stay tuned to the Twitter for that. We have lots to talk about and we just might do another big blowout podcast special with up to 3 hours of material. You can subscribe to it (recommended way) by clicking on the Podcast link on the banner up above.
Do you have any awesome tailgate stories? We want them. We'll redact the necessary identifying information (if its that kind of story). Send them here.
Is anyone planning road trips? We want to freeload. Well, we want to hang with people we like. Looking like Huntsville is moving from "Maybe" to "Probably" status. Post them on Rowdyville, or send them to us. We love aggregating cool stuff to help the 'munity, man.
Once we gather the prediction data, we will hand out the Prediction Score Prize which is TBA as of now. We'll announce that on the podcast probably while we also decide what the hell said prize will be.
