Post-game Quick Notes

One of the many incredible pictures from mysa.com this weekend.  Indulge.

Wow, what a whirlwind of a weekend it has been. (Alliteration!) Just going to touch on a few things on the top of my mind before I pass out, possibly for days.

All Eric Soza Everything - The young man stepped up to the challenge today. If Soza produces at 70% of what we saw today for the duration of the season then UTSA will do just fine against its higher-tier opponents. Brilliant decision making, particularly on options and zone reads, gave the Runners four first downs with his feet. The ability to extend drives on busted plays is a gargantuan bonus in your play caller, something that separates good quarterbacks from MVPs. Soza showed this ability throughout Saturday's affair.

Defensive Line - Round of applause. As I had mentioned in the podcast last week, there is seriously zero drop-off in talent from the first to the second string. Guys were moving around, sealing gaps, breaking blocks, and making plays. 36 total rushing yards for the Riverhawks. As predicted, Jason Neill played a lot, even at defensive tackle at times. The dude is huge. Once he adjusts to the college game he's going to be a sack machine. Huge showing from Franky Anaya. Anaya looks to be a major asset for Coach Neathery after a clutch tackle for a loss on fourth down and amassing four strong tackles in semi-limited playing time. OkSt transfer Ashaad Mabry may not have lit up the stat sheet with just two tackles, but the NSU offensive line had to change their game plan in order to compensate for his size and power. Mabry drew several extra blockers and NSU generally ran away from him. Dear Richard Burge, I'm sorry for doubting you. You are a great defensive tackle.

First Quarter - Could things have gone any smoother? Kam Jones comes within a few inches of running back the opening kickoff, Eric Soza grabs the NSU defense by the cajones, and an infantile offensive line held up quite well. Which bring us to...

Offensive Line - All in all, fine job by the OL. With a few more games under their belt this group could be salty. I did not notice any blown assignments (Please correct me if I'm wrong, my student section seat wasn't the best to be watching the offensive line from) and Soza typically had plenty of time to make a play. I was mainly keeping my eye on true freshman Payton Rion whom did appear overwhelmed on a few plays. Run blocking needs to improve, there was very limited space for an interior run game.

Running Backs - Solid contributions from CheRod Simpson, David Glasco, Chris Johnson, and Tevin Williams. One major gripe is with Chris Johnson. I'm sure you all saw his boneheaded play where he ran roughly 25 yards backwards trying to create his own dynamite. This isn't East Central High anymore; running like that in college isn't going to get you far unless you're Noel Devine.

REDSHIRT ALERT: Freshman 300 pounder Josh Walker did not play in the game. Neither did De'Metrius Jacobs or Malcom Scott. I would imagine the decision to redshirt Malcom Scott came after the transfer of Erik Brown. Good news for the future.

Darrien Starling breaks up a pass. Again, thanks to Mysa.com on the pics.

Defensive Back Seven - Extremely impressed. Starting with the secondary: Mark Waters was stellar. Maybe two balls total were thrown behind him. Mauricio Sanchez (Six tackles, 1 forced fumble) impressed me immensely. Excellent in coverage and seemed to be following the quarterbacks' eyes as he should. Keep it up and the interceptions will come. Johnston was every bit as strong as promised. Started the defensive season off with a helluva smash on a tackle for loss. The cornerback position was one area that I was "meh" on. Darrien Starling had a strong game with seven tackles and lock-down coverage. Last week he stated that we would shut down leading NSU receiver, Trey McVay. Starling did just that. I wasn't so high on Crosby Adams and Jeremy Hall. Neither had bad games per say, but they do need some fine-tuning on small things, namely learning how to avoid pass interference calls, especially in the red zone. That will come. Hopefully the addition of "veteran" Erik Brown on Sunday will prove to be a boost. Linebackers: Kurfehs, Reeves, and Terry were all on their game for a combined 17 tackles and two sacks. Kurfehs is a big time linebacker. His combination of size, speed, and intelligence could land him playing time for any collegiate football program in the nation.

Receivers - Mixed bag here. Impromptu starter Brandon Freeman was a fairly reliable option for Soza, reeling in five catches for 43 yards. There were some drops, but I feel that Freeman is going to get the same treatment that an athletic third basemen gets in baseball. The average fan complains about the error the fielder makes when they should be grateful that the defender was even capable to be able to reach a position to field the ball. Some of Soza's throws to Freeman were off target but Brandon still made them look catchable. We've still yet to see the game-changing ability that Coker claims Freeman is capable of... but hey, this is just one game. Kam Jones had some terrific catches, including a 38 yard needle-thread from Soza and a stellar catch in the end zone for a touch down. Past that, catches were spread among several receivers-- a very good sign of depth in perhaps the only position where the Runners have it. Reception of the night? David Morgan's catch and run on a wide open play action-pivot tight end screen. No idea how NSU lost track of a dude his size, but Morgan chugged his way down to the goal line, narrowly missing pay dirt  Expect some big plays like this from the Marble Falls product.

Special Teams - Kickoffs and Returns were strong. The foolish mental mistakes that I was anticipating thankfully did not happen. Sean Ianno nailed a 21 yard kick and missed a 38 yarder under blitz pressure from the defense. Much to the delight of the Roadrunner fans, Ianno nailed some lengthy kicks in warm ups. Punts were a bit on the short side (average of 34.2 yards per punt) but Josh Ward puts some nice lift on the ball, preventing the opposition from making some noise on returns. UTSA will be pleased if they can get more punts down in the opponent's red zone like they saw from Ward in the second quarter.

This UTSA team has the capacity of being very good, especially when you factor in a few years of experience down the road. Travis Bush's offense is something to behold. Did he use this much misdirection, play action, and trickery at Texas State? Help me out here, Bobcats. Defensively, the Runners played with energy and passion. Let's not forget that Patrick Hoog, Cole Hubble, Lekenwic Haynes, Earon Holmes, and Drew Douglas were all absent with injuries (to name a few).

Valiant effort from the Roadrunners in game one. Thank you to everyone who laughed at my homer-ific prediction of 30-10 in favor of UTSA. I'm going to scroll through score prediction from our Twitter followers tomorrow, but I think I was the closest out of anyone. It was great to meet some of our readers/followers/listeners at the game. Looking forward to meeting more of your pretty faces next week. But for now it's off for a much-needed period of hibernation for me. Many more posts/podcast coming your way soon.

Link Roundup 8/31/2011 Three More Days

Photo courtesy of the Express News. Love the wide angle lens. Get rowdy.

Quick hitter tonight for you guys. Northeastern uploaded a video highlight of their romp of Bacone College, who look even more miserable than I could have ever imagined.



RiverHawks Update — NSU vs Bacone Football — August 27, 2011 from Northeastern State University TV on Vimeo.

First thing of note is all of the screens and swing passes NSU ran. Very smart choice by the Riverhawks, given their advantage in speed. Taking Bacone's lack of size into consideration, I'm sure that the Warriors were blitzing linebackers and members of the secondary to compensate for their lack of a pass rush, consequently freeing up passes behind or along the line of scrimmage.

Trey McVay is the real deal. Great routes, strong hands, and seems to have good field vision. It will be a great test to see if the Roadrunners will be able to lock him down. Kenny Davis has great mechanics under center. UTSA is going to have to get into the backfield with frequency to prevent Davis from getting into a passing groove.

Bacone is every bit as bad as I had feared, which makes their game against NSU that much harder to read into.

Oddities:

A lot of cool stories and tidbits around the web concerning UTSA today. First off, have a look at this photo gallery from the Express News showing the Alamodome maintenance staff painting the turf for UTSA's season.

Nate Leonard - Photo courtesy of the Express News.

Brandon Reeves and Nate Leonard both had profiles run in the Express this week. I really love Nate's quote: "Swagger is all about your attitude,” he said. “You don't have to dress a swagger or talk a swagger. But when you walk onto the field in blue and orange, you damn well better have a swagger. Excuse my language."

That's pretty bad ass, and Nate is a rad dude. Excuse my language.

If you missed the Larry Coker radio show this evening, feel free to pursue our Twitter feed for some tidbits I found interesting. Head over to RowdyReport.com for a full .mp3 of the show.

Dan McCarney has been busting his ass all week. He recently interviewed Northeastern's head coach, Kenny Evans. Evans is a great coach who inherited a shitty situation and seems to have NSU on the right track. Evidently he and Coach Coker are friends; I found the advice Coker gave Evans after his hire at NSU fairly interesting. You can find all that in the interview link.

It's going to be tough for Northeastern to prepare for this game since they haven't a millisecond of film on UTSA.

With no game film to study, Northeastern State will try to keep things basic on Saturday.

“We’re preparing for everything,” Evans said. “Of course, we’ve looked at things their coordinators have done at past places. But we’re having to prepare more broadly, so wee’re going to have to keep things simple and try to avoid mistakes. It’s unusual. There will be things we see for the first time, and we know that. We’ll have to adjust on the run.”

And my favorite iota of the short interview..

True freshman Logan Andrews will start at outside linebacker. Evans said Andrews had never played in front of more than 500 people before last week’s 43-0 victory over Bacone, let alone the tens of thousands expected at the Alamodome.

Hopefully Andrews, and others on the Riverhawks squad, will be a bit star-struck playing in front of a nearly sold-out Alamodome.

3 days until kick off.

Northeastern State Depth Chart

Northeastern depth chart. Click to enlarge.

Found this crawl across the @CokerChronicles twitter feed. (Side note, we're on a push to reach 100 followers AT LEAST before kick off. So follow us and pass the word along.) Northeastern State has released game notes and an official depth chart for the UTSA game this Saturday. Northeastern State has some pretty big receivers on their roster, but are generally small as a team. Let's take some comparisons to our own squad.

Click to enlarge.

While there are a couple of haus on this offensive line (6'6, 270 lbs at left tackle!), it's fairly small across the board when you take the pathetic right side into account. 6'2, 255/6'0 255 is too small for 5A high school football in Texas. In fact I'm pretty sure Brandeis High's average size on the offensive line  is considerably larger. I'd imagine that NSU favors running behind the side of the line where they have size. This will allow Neathery to key in on those running lanes by blitzing a mix of Johnston and Kurfehs. Ben Beam is a monster  at 335 pounds. Obviously interior pass rushes are going to be affected by Beam's presence-- ways to play around Beam's size? A.) Loop a defensive end around through the middle to catch Beam off guard and counter his size with superior quickness. B.) Blitz a safety through the middle C.) Simply beat Beam with your first step and get into the backfield before he can get his honey hams on to you.

Click to enlarge. Yes, I know there are 12 offensive players. I didn't make the depth chart.

Feeling pretty good about the match ups here. We have our biggest lineman (Harris) on NSU's best defensive lineman (Boswell). Dirteater  is criminally small. Watch for Johnson and Glasco to pound the ball through Dirteater's running lane. Even if Dirteater manages to get through Inskeep, who has 5 inches in height and 50 pounds of weight in his favor, Dirteater is small enough that our running backs could lower their shoulders and plow through the line until they're met by linebackers. Noseguard  Te'O has good size at 6'1, 285 lbs, almost a particle-by-particle mirror of his match up, Nate Leonard. I'm going to guess that Te'O lines up as a 1 shade on the weak side since NSU only listed four defensive linemen on their depth chart. A 1-5 technique gap is quite large for the college game. If I'm Coach Bush, I come out in a pro style set, kick down on Te'O with the OG, let Leonard go after the middle backer or pull to double team the end, then throw Okotcha on the outside linebacker as a lead blocker. Speaking of which, NSU is pretty light at both outside linebacker spots. If Bush and co. are unable to establish the running game, they can easily switch or motion to a 4 WR set to pull out one of the Riverhawk's linebackers. A slot reverse with Armstrong could be killer if NSU bites on that. Pretty good size at free and strong safety for NSU. Might be tough to land corner routes against the height of Leach and Keenum.

Overall, I'm pretty encouraged by seeing this depth chart. As we all know, football is so much more than a game of size, but NSU has some pretty glaring holes that UTSA should be able to exploit. With the speed and athleticism on this young Roadrunner squad a couple of mismatches in the trenches could go a long way towards a UTSA inaugural victory. Speaking of which, tweet us your score predictions. Whoever is closest might just win a prize.

Four days until kick off.

Podcast Episode 4: Season Preview Edition

This week we had special guest Darrell from Rowdy Report to join us on a big community podcast special for the season preview edition.

This is a crazy two hour podcast. Enjoy:

1min: roster talk. Depth chart breakdown. We go position by position.

40th min: Player Interview Review and we talk mess about Mike Taylor of Ticket 760 a little.

50th min: Fearless Predictions!!

Hour+6 min: Northeastern State vs Bacone College breakdown and preview of Northeastern State.

Hour +16 min: Gameday talk, looking at Mysa Downtown Blog

Hour+25 min: Facial Hair talk with Jared. We rank the best facial/head hair styles on the squad.

Hour +32 min: Why Tx-San Antonio instead of UTSA.

Hour +43 min: Wrap up. Shout out to our twitter followers and other important info.








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NSU vs. Bacone College Recap

Before we get into things, check out the image above. Worth a million words. A.) Are Bacone's colors really hot pink or does someone suck at photoshop? B.) I'm glad Bacone has some beautiful cheerleaders for us to look forward to. C.) Bro in the gray shirt has got to be the least excited football fan ever.

Now that's out of my system, let's take a look at UTSA inaugural opponent Northeastern State's Zero Week win against homecoming opponent Bacone College. On the strength of 17 returning starters and 19 seniors, NSU steam-rolled Bacone 43-0 with 451 total yards of offense. The Bacone Warriors were only able to muster 70 yards of offense. The Warriors only moved the chains once against NSU's starters. I hate analyzing games like this. Obviously Bacone is really, really, really bad. But how good is Northeastern? The Riverhawks were unable to score in the first quarter, then proceeded to drop 21 in the second quarter. It wasn't long before it was garbage time, as NSU played 70 different players. Three different quarterbacks threw touchdown passes for NSU, including a couple of touchdowns from 4 star OkSt transfer and current second string QB Johnny Deaton. NSU played so many players that it's tough to get a good feel for their team from the numbers they put up last night. Of note: NSU was only 7 of 17 on 3rd down conversions.

So the question is-- how will Northeastern State fair against a bigger, stronger, and faster opponent? And how will the small school perform in front of a crowd of over 50,000?

Oddities


2011 opponent Minot State lost their zero week game 27-0

The Express News published several great articles on the Roadrunners today. Normally I would link to these things, but I encourage you all to go out a purchase the paper today. UTSA is the cover story of their 2011 college football preview.

Just six days until kick off. Five days until Roadrunners on the Riverwalk. Giddy as a school girl.

UTSA in Dave Campbell's Texas Football Magazine

I often have moments where I take a step back and it hits me. UTSA has a Division I football team. I had one of those ethereal moments this weekend when I picked up my annual copy of Dave Campbell's Texas Football Magazine. Dave & Co. seem fairly high on the Roadrunners. They received some good marks in the ratings section, and their recruiting prospects and commits were highly touted throughout the high school section of the magazine. I'm not going to scan the magazine or copy and paste every word because I sincerely want you all to buy a magazine. At 376 content-rich pages, the magazine is an absolute steal for $10-- bathroom reading material for a month.

Top 5 Impact Players

1. QB Eric Soza, So.
2. RB Chris Johnson, Fr.
3. RB David Glasco II, Fr.
4. LB Steven Kurfehs, So.
5. S Mark Waters, Jr

Pretty good list here, but I don't know if I could justify Glasco at #3, even though I'm a fan of his. I'd personally bump Kurfehs and Waters up a spot then add Kam Jones to the list.

UTSA's Offense

Offensive Line - C

Running Backs - B

Receivers - B

Quarterbacks - B

Perfect. I'd maybe add a + to the RBs and subtract the OL to a C-, purely due to a lack of depth.

UTSA's Defense

Defensive Line - B-

Linebackers - B

Secondary - B

Special Teams - C-

Pretty spot on as well. This publication ran prior to Ashaad Mabry's transfer, thus I feel the DL should be a B or A-. Otherwise great stuff.

For reference, Texas State ratings:

OL - B-

RB - B

WR - B+

QB - B+

DL - C+

LB - A-

Secondary - B-

Special Teams - C

Photo courtesy of Mysa.com

The information in the main write-up is a tad outdated. It states that UTSA only has two players with FBS experience (Waters and Mike Sanchez) but of course that is no longer the case after Lekenwic Haynes and Patrick Hoog joined the squad. The article's pensmith brings up a few great points on UTSA:

• The Alamodome is the fourth-largest collegiate stadium in Texas, lagging behind only Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial, Kyle Field, and Rice Stadium.
• UTSA has 46 players on the roster from within a 100 mile radius of San Antonio. The actual number is certainly higher than at the time this article was composed, but it's still a great observation of the terrific job UTSA is doing in landing local talent and establishing recruiting pipelines.
• Coker listed TE and WRs as the strengths on offense, while touting Cole Hubble, Kam Jones, Brandon Armstrong, and Earon Holmes.

Some quotes from Coker:

• "It's tremendously exciting here because it's all so fresh. The program will follow whatever stamp you put on it, and we can decide the culture here right away. Whatever culture you establish is what you have. We can set the tone immediately for what we want this program to be. And what we want is to build it the right way, for the long haul."
• "We think he's [Soza] is going to be a great contributor. He's a very smart player who knows the offense. It's his job to lose. He executes, he's a leader-- he's just what you want a quaterback to be internally, plus he has skills to do the job."
• "We thought this was going to be a tough sell, but we have a lot of things that sell themselves. There's great high school football here, there's no other Division I team in the city, there's no professional team here, we've got a great facility in the Alamodome, it's a great city and we've got 30,000 students who voted overwhelmingly to fund and support this program."

A look at some of UTSA's 2011 opponents, as Dave Campbell sees them:

Sam Houston State

2010 Overall/Southland record (6-5/4-3)

Offensive Starters Returning - 11

Defensive Starters Returning - 9

Predicted to finish fourth in the Southland Conference. Roadrunners' keys to victory? Stop the run on defense, nail the big play on offense in spite of heavy blitzes.

Northeastern State

2010 Overall/LSC record (6-5/6-4)

- Won only two games in 2009. Won LSC North Division Title last year with its first winning season in TEN years.

- Trey McVay (887 yds, 12 TDs) was the LSC North Division receiver of the year.

- NSU boasts two all-conference offensive linement- gaurd Colton Ables and tackle Chris Cherry.

- Kenny Davis will lead the Riverhawks at QB in his senior year. Passed for 2,068 yards and 20 TDs last season.

- Bright side for UTSA? NSU allowed 31 points and ~400 yards per game. NSU did not face any FBS opponents last year.

- A trip to NSU's athletics site informed me that NSU's first game for 2011 will be broadcasted locally on Cox. They will face another 2011 UTSA adversary-- Bacone College. How nice of the two teams to provide UTSA with travel-free scouting! 

McMurray

2010 Overall/ASC Record - (6-4/4-4)

- McMurray landed two players on the Top 5 ASC Players pre-season list: QB Jake Mullin and Safety Will Morris. Mullin passed for nearly 3,000 yards last year with 35 touchdowns in only eight games. Morris was an all-american last year and earned ASC Defensive POY after recording 58 tackles and five interceptions.

-McMurray returns nine starters on both offense and defense. This is McMurry's last season in Division III before moving up to Division II.

Oddities:

If you haven't done so already, I highly suggest this beautiful article on UTSA football from Texas Monthly's Jason Cohen. I think it's the best piece of writing I've seen on UTSA's infantile program. Here are a few quotes from Cohen from an interview he did with Texas Monthly after his piece ran; I agree with Cohen's views on the future of UTSA hoops.

What challenges did you find in catching an institution like UTSA in transition? How do you get across its underperformance in an area like sports without making it seem like you’re putting the college down?

I would say it’s less underperformance than irrelevance—which probably doesn’t sound any nicer, but it’s just the reality of being such a young and small-sport school in a state where the measuring stick is UT and A&M (even TCU is hot stuff now). I’ve followed or covered schools like Portland State, Montana, Gonzaga, and Xavier, so I see UTSA in that same “mid-major” light. The basketball team will probably never reach the heights Gonzaga and Xavier have, but the university has still been a March Madness player, since they’ve hosted Final Fours and A.D. Lynn Hickey is on the men’s selection committee. It’s possible the basketball team will benefit more from being in the WAC than football will—or at least, it will seem more impressive if they win a couple of tournament games than it will for football to win a Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl.

Other than wins, what are the factors that help create a football tradition, in your opinion?

It’s probably all wins, isn’t it? I mean, even the teams that now seem sad-sack, when they originally established the traditions that they cling to now, it was accompanied by winning. UTSA only started sports in 1981, and they have their own hand sign (as, it seems, does every Texas school) but it’s kind of like a little indie rock band, it’s a secret. And then the basketball team makes it to March Madness a few times, and the whisper gets a little louder. And now with football, everyone in the second biggest city in the state will come to learn it—if it’s winning football. 

Given the attention on profitability in higher ed, if college football doesn’t turn a profit, how does it justify itself?

Are either of them really supposed to be profitable? Are collegiate newspapers or theater productions supposed to be profitable? My understanding is most college football programs aren’t, and even many of the ones that supposedly subsidize all the other sports don’t do that as well as its adherents might claim, because they are still subsidized by student fees (as UTSA’s football team is with a fee increase the student body voted for). But I’m not convinced that means the money they get (and revenue they generate, even if it doesn’t hit the black) would otherwise go to other aspects of a university. Or that sports isn’t an equally legitimate part of what a state university should be. 

Do you have tickets to UTSA’s first game?

I don’t have a ticket but I have a hotel reservation for Friday night, and I will probably choose to be in the stands rather than the press box. I imagine UTSA’s best memories on the field are still another season or two away, when they have a better team and better competition. But for a pure college football game day experience, the first-ever game ought to match the atmosphere of a bowl or big-time rivalry game. And if the game itself gets boring, there will still be time to get in the car and make the Texas–Rice kickoff. 

So there you go. A fairly huge post to make up for a slow week over here at Coker Chronicles. 12 days until kick off.