Surprising Hire at SMU

[Wolfpack]

Lee Sphar was announced today as the new head coach of the Southern Methodist University Mustangs. The choice was a surprising one, as not only is Coach Sphar going to be one of the youngest coaches in the NCAA at only 31 years of age, but he has never held a coaching job before, and in fact, hasn't even played the game since his freshman year of college at Ole Miss when a knee injury forced him out. He graduated from Mississippi in 1998 and joined the army where he spent the next six years, which apparently provided the impetus for the hiring. In the press conference, Athletic Director Jim Copeland mentioned this, "This is a team with a history, and it's the recent history that we're looking to change. We need to get back to a disciplined style of play. We aren't looking for miracles here, but steady improvement." Coach Sphar was as surprised as the alumni at the hiring, "I didn't even put in an application, from what I understand, it was one of the alumni who mentioned my name to Jim (Copeland) and he did a background check on me. Out of the blue I get a call asking me if I would be interested in the position. Considering the job I was sitting in a couple of weeks ago, it wasn't hard to make that decision." SMU looks like a midlevel C-USA team again this season, Tulsa, UTEP, Houston, Southern Miss, and Memphis are all solid teams, while the rest of the conference aside from perennial doormat Rice can all be dangerous. Coach Sphar says he would like to establish the run first, "There's nothing so demoralizing to a defense as getting the ball stuffed down their throat over and over, and not being able to stop it." an unsurprising philosophy from a former halfback. "I'm still in the process of evaluating the team though, and I know I'll have to be flexible until I can get a few recruiting classes in here though, so who knows, we may come out throwing it all over the field," he said with a smile. "Give me a season to figure some things out, and we'll really get started on the path back to the glory days of SMU football." I used Icy’s nice little random college assigner to pick my school for this dynasty. I’m going to control everything except academics, which will be delegated, because I like the idea of it, but I can’t seem to keep from having half my starters on the suspended list, so I’ll let the AI handle that. This will be my first dynasty with anyone aside from Ole Miss, so it should be more of a challenge. I’m going to go get this started and start evaluating my team. I’ll have that up in a little bit.

[Wolfpack]

It’s really not a good sign when you look your team over and realize that the second best player on your team is the 2.5 punter. Ouch. I figured this was going to be a rough assignment, but I had no idea it was going to be this bad. Well, here’s how the offensive starters and key backups look: (Numbers are in the 1-100 range obviously) QB: Mike Ivy – Jr. – 2.5/3.0 – 5’11” 180 lbs. - Not great, but he’ll be all right for now. He’s a straight dropback passer with great discipline (85) and decent arm strength, accuracy, and touch (All in the 60s). Matt Willey – Fr. – 1.5/3.0 – 6’2” 200 lbs. – This is the only other QB on the roster with any real potential, so he’ll be redshirted this season. The big reason he’ll be redshirted is that he’s got a much weaker arm than Ivy (40) and no durability (26). He does have good numbers in touch and accuracy, so we’ll hope that the other two numbers improve big time in the next couple of seasons. Neill Bennett – So. – 1.0/1.5 – 6’0” 176 lbs – If Ivy goes down this year, it’s going to get ugly. Bennett has an arm strength of 44, and is the only QB of the four left on the roster whose arm strength is over 26. Passing touch and accuracy are slightly below average. HB: Keith Williams – Sr. – 3.5/3.5 – 5’8” 188 lbs. – The lone bright spot on the offense. Williams is a speedy, aggressive straight ahead runner. His weak spots are huge though. He doesn’t have any moves, if he has to turn, it may take about a quarter or so to happen. He’s also prone to getting nicked up, and doesn’t have the endurance to be a real workhorse back. Basically a guy smaller than Brian Westbrook who wants to run like John Riggins, not a good combination. Jamin McCallum – So. – 1.5/1.5 – 5’9” 174 lbs. – Like the QB spot, it’s pretty grim after the starter. McCallum is an all around average back. Nothing really stands out except for the fact that he seriously needs to hit the weight room. FB: Travis Fritts – (So.) – 1.5/2.5 – 6’1” 225 lbs. – Pretty solid guy at FB. Decent hands coming out of the backfield, loves to block, and never needs to come off the field. He won’t make anyone miss running the ball, but can occasionally get some yards. WR/TE: Steve Whitley – (Jr.) – 2.0/2.5 – 6’0” 194 lbs. – He can run great routes when his head is in the game, which is a good thing, because he tends to drop some easy passes, and doesn’t have the speed to run by anyone. Mike Fields – Sr. – 2.0/2.0 – 5’11” 205 lbs. – Fields is the burner of the corps, in addition to running the most consistent routes. His hands are even worse than Whitley, but he’s also one of the hardest workers on the team. Randy Harper – Sr. – 1.5/1.5 – 6’6” 207 lbs. – A former basketball player, he joined the football team last season. He’s got decent speed and great instincts. Despite the mismatches he’ll get against most nicklebacks, he doesn’t have the hands to be even a middle of the road WR. Kevin Franklin – Fr. – 1.5/3.0 – 6’6” 225 lbs. – As a freshman, he’s the best TE on the team. Franklin is a solid all around player, good blocker, good route runner. He’ll need to work on his hands, but should turn into a top notch TE in the future. OT: Koy Griese – Sr. – 2.0/2.0 – 6’3” 315 lbs. – An aggressive run blocker, but that’s about all that can be said for him. He gets winded very easily, and needs to work on his endurance. Michael Gainer – Fr. – 1.0/2.5 – 6’0” 279 lbs. – Since the remaining 6 tackles on the team are all 1.0 guys, we’re going to start Gainer since he’s the freshman with the most potential. He’s got good instincts, but his blocking is definitely subpar at the moment. We’ll have to hope he improves quickly. OG: Clay Sievers – Sr. - 2.5/2.5 – 6’7” 293 lbs. – The best blocker on the line, Sievers has a great work ethic, and pretty nice feet for a guy his size. He’ll be the guy we run behind most of the year. Odessa Clark – (So.) – 1.5/2.5 – 6’1” 297 lbs. – Despite the girls name, he could be the strongest guy on the line. He’s playing at about a dozen pounds over his ideal weight, and it’s hurting his endurance. He has the discipline, agility, and blocking skills to be a good one in the future, so he’ll get plenty of chances to fulfill his potential. C: Charles Staggers – Jr. – 1.5/2.5 – 6’0” 275 lbs. – I’m kind of leery about his name, it doesn’t seem like a very good sign for my starting center. He’s nothing special, but should be an adequate blocker, and still has some room to grow. James Irvin – (Fr.) – 1.0/3.5 – 6’7” 277 lbs. – If Staggers can’t do the job, Irvin will see a lot of time. He’s got the highest potential of any player on the offense. Needs to work on his discipline, but should be a very good center in the future. The offense looks rough. I have a few solid starters, but even the ones I have are seriously flawed. I don’t know if Williams will be able to handle the kind of load I was hoping to drop on him. He’ll get the chance, but I don’t see him holding up. The worst part is that aside from my backup C and QB, I have very few guys with potential that I can count on next year. I’m going to need to really get some good recruiting classes in here, but it doesn’t seem too likely considering the kind of season I’m staring in the face right now. Next, on to the defense, and if you thought the offense looked bad, just wait…

[Wolfpack]

Whew. Well, I hope the offense goes better than I hope, because this defense is going to be weak, and by weak, I mean pitiful. Here goes: DE: Don Peets – Sr. – 3.0/3.0 – 6’6” 287 lbs. – Don won’t break any sack records, but he’s a very solid run defender. His big drawback is his lack of discipline, I hope that lack won’t cost us too much, as weak as most of the defense is, we can’t afford to give up more yards on penalties. Will Harmon – So. – 2.0/3.5 – 6’0” 252 lbs. – Will should be our pass rusher on the defense. He’s not a terribly bright guy, but has the acceleration and instincts to get to the QB if he can avoid being overwhelmed by bigger OTs. DT: Matt Jervey – (So.) – 1.0/2.5 – 6’7” 276 lbs. – Young guy with a bit of potential, he’s got no moves, poor footwork, and very little strength, but he’s the best we’ve got at the position. He is good at the point of attack, so hopefully he can hold up a bit. LaMarcus Hart – Sr. – 1.0/1.0 – 6’1” 287 lbs – Hart gets the second string spot by virtue of his being a senior and the heaviest guy at the spot. There are no players with any potential at the position, so he’ll keep the spot for now. This will be a major area for recruiting in the offseason. ILB: Marc Thomas – (Fr.) – 1.0/2.5 – 5’11” 231 lbs. – Marc will be our starter by virtue of his potential. He doesn’t have much speed, but tackles well, and is good in a zone. He’s also got the work ethic to improve. Hopefully being a freshman, he’ll be able to stabilize the spot for a few years. Neal Conners – So. – 1.0/2.0 – 5’9” 227 lbs. – Conners will be the second ILB due to him being the only other one with any potential at all. According to our reports, he might become a fair blitzer in the future, so we’ll hold out hope for that development. OLB: Melvin Atkinson – Sr. – 2.0/2.0 – 6’1” 242 lbs. – Atkinson will be the veteran leadership for the LB corps. He’s poor in coverage, but is a solid tackler and has pretty good speed. Paul Budd – (Fr.) – 1.5/2.0 – 5’10” 211 lbs. – Budd will possibly be the single slowest OLB in football history, but surprisingly, he’s a great cover LB. I suppose he can stay right in someone’s hip pocket for the tenth of a second that he can keep up with them. Melvin gets the starting job for the same reason most of my defense does, because he’s the only player with potential at the position. CB: Jamie Hoag – Sr. – 2.0/2.0 – 5’9” 178 lbs. – We move from the slowest LB I’ve ever seen to the slowest CB I’ve ever seen. Jamie is the best corner on the team unfortunately, so he’ll be the #1. Classic hard worker with no real talent, he’s got a 99 work ethic, but is poor at most every other stat aside from his good instincts. Jim Piller – So. – 1.0/2.0 – 5’9” 174 lbs. – Jim once again is the last player at the position with any potential, so we’ll give him a shot at the second CB spot. A very disciplined player, with a poor work ethic. He’s a decent tackler, but needs to work on his instincts. S: Gary Salaam – (Jr.) – 1.5/2.5 – 5’9” 167 lbs. – Salaam will be our starting FS. He’ll be a solid player in the future. Not a fast player, but he has good instincts and intelligence. He needs to hope he plays well, because behind him is one of the highest rated young players on the team. Tre Jacoby – Fr. – 1.0/3.5 – 5’10” 166 lbs – Tre is the best looking young player on the defense, and looks to become a very good cover FS. He’s got the hands to bring in some picks, and the speed to cover a WR. It’ll be a tough decision on whether to redshirt him this season. R.J. Stingley – (So.) – 1.5/3.0 – 5’9” 171 lbs. – Stingley will begin as our starter at SS because of his good discipline and aggressiveness. But, like Salaam, his status remains in doubt as we actually have a decent young player behind him. Neil Gary – So. – 1.0/2.5 – 6’0” 162 lbs. – Gary is one of the harder workers on the team. He’s got the size, strength, and tackling ability to be a good defender against the run. He’s not going to be a great coverage guy, but depending on how the season goes, we may need the help against the run more. K/P: Melvin Allred – Fr. – 1.0/1.0 – 5’10” 197 lbs. – Well, Melvin won’t ever be a good kicker, but he’s the best option we’ve got, so the job is his for now. Curtis Idonije – Jr. – 2.5/2.5 – 6’3” 197 lbs. – Solid punter, who should get a ton of work this year. This defense is slow, and has very little potential aside from a spot or two. Considering some of the offenses we’ll be going up against in our conference, this is going to be a long year. I think the defense is going to have to get the majority of the work in the offseason. The offense will be hurting, but this defense is just too bad to try and improve the team without working here first.

[Wolfpack]

Budget: Well, we’re cash strapped. I’d love to be able to get the highest rated service because I can’t afford mistakes in recruitment, but I can’t afford it. I go with National Prep scouts for the Great Plains region. Luckily the Great Plains looks to be strong in DL and LBs, which I’ll desperately need. The West is strong in DBs and offense, so I’ll make sure to put plenty of points over there too, at the expense of the other regions. I should be able to get a solid all around class from those two regions….or I hope so anyway. The only position I can afford to cut money on is QB, as hopefully Matt Willey will be able to step in next year. After setting the budget, we’ll have $210,000 left. We’ll probably need to use some of that to look for new coaches next season too. Expectations: Well, the expectations are right up my alley, “Try to win a few games and not completely embarrass us.” I’d like to think I can manage to win a couple this year, and while we might get embarrassed occasionally, I’ll try to keep some of the games within reason. Setting up the philosophies: We’re looking at a smashmouth offense. I don’t have the personnel to run it, but then again, I don’t have the personnel to run any other offense either, and this is what I like, so smashmouth it is. Defensively, the assistants recommend a 4-3. This is a tough decision. The middle of our defense is going to be weak regardless, but the ILBs actually have a bit of potential, where my backup DTs have none, so I was thinking of a 3-4. After much deliberation, I decide to go with the 3-4. I expect to face more passing offenses in the conference, so I’ll go with my first instincts with the added benefit of getting more of my players with potential on the field. Scheduling: We’re looking for games in the areas we’re trying to recruit in, without getting in too far over our heads. Well, pretty much any game will be in over our heads, but we’ll try to keep at least within sight of the surface. We’re going to have a rough spot at the beginning of the season with 3 of 4 on the road against Southern Miss, Houston, and Memphis. Colorado State and Arkansas State both accept our invitation for a home & home series, so our final schedule looks like this: Week: Opponent: 1 Open 2 North Texas (Home & Home) 3 Open 4 At Southern Miss 5 At Houston 6 Marshall 7 At Memphis 8 Rice 9 Tulsa 10 At UTEP 11 Open 12 Tulane 13 Colorado State (Home & Home) 14 Open 15 TCU Redshirts: This could have some tough choices. After much deliberation, we put a lot of what potential we have on the sidelines for the season. This season will probably go nowhere, so I want to keep as many of the young guys around as long as possible. Our final redshirt list: QB Willey – 1.5/3.0 HB Young – 1.0/2.5 WR R.Harris – 1.0/3.0 WR P.Harris – 1.0/2.5 OT B.Harris – 1.0/2.5 (Man, there are a ton of Harris’ on this team) OG M.Mruczkowski – 1.0/3.0 OG A.Thompson – 1.0/3.0 DE P.Garrett – 1.5/3.0 FS T.Jacoby – 1.0/3.5 (Decided to go ahead and redshirt him, Salaam’s job is safe for now) And that’s pretty much all the potential on my team. Hopefully they can develop quickly. Lord knows I’ll need them, my job may be on the line pretty quick here. And now, on to the season…

[Wolfpack]

Week one: No game for us this week, as we continue to prepare for our season opener in week 2. There were a couple of interesting games this week though. #22 Kansas State got a scare from a good West Virginia team, before pulling it out in the end 42-38. #23 Notre Dame fell to #24 Michigan State despite a furious 4th quarter comeback 38-35. As for C-USA games, there were some big wins and some tough losses: Houston 6 - #15 Virginia Tech 45 Memphis 24 – Texas A&M 42 UAB 27 – Stanford 24 (Nice win for the Blazers) Southern Miss 41 – Ole Miss 28 (This one hurts…see what the Rebs get for not having me coach them?) Tulsa 24 – Central Michigan 36 Marshall 35 – Hawaii 30 UTEP 31 – Arkansas State 31 (Hope the Indians just had a great game, UTEP is better than me.)

[Wolfpack]

The first game of the season for the Mustangs has finally arrived. North Texas comes into town at 0-1, and looking to pound the ball on me with HB Jim Colclough who averaged 5.3 YPC in their first game. And I’ll be looking to return the favor with Williams. Their defense looks relatively weak, so hopefully we’ll be able to get the season off to a good start. We’ve got a pretty good crowd of almost 20,000 in the stadium today despite the 92 degree heat. First Quarter: We get the ball first at our own 26, and Williams gets off to a good start with a gain of five., then catches a pass for seven more. Nice start there. We drive down the field pretty easily with the running game, getting down to the NT 19 yard line. Williams carries three times, and his backup Brown also picks up three carries. On first down at the 19, SMU runs a little play action and backup QB Steve Mazurek hits Steve Whitley on a short curl. The defender falls down on the turn, and Whitley is able to trot into the endzone. Great start to the year, 7-0 SMU! The first NT drive is looking good, despite great play from the SMU safeties. The Green marches down to the SMU 24, where the drive stalls. On 4th and 2, the Green goes for the 42 yard FG, which hooks wide right. Nice defensive start for the undermanned Mustangs. A quick drive down to the NT 13 is ended when TE Fields fumbles the ball away. Well, you play freshmen, you’ll have to put up with some mistakes. That will end the first quarter with SMU holding a 7-0 lead. Second Quarter: North Texas just cruises right down the field on the legs of Colclough. From the SMU 14 backup QB Hochstein lofts a fade route into the corner for an easy TD to tie the game 7-7. After an exchange of punts, we get the ball back on our own 40. The drive looks like it’s going to be in trouble as a playaction on first down gets crushed for a 10 yard sack. An incompletion on 2nd leaves us with a 3rd and 20. Ivy dropped back and got protection for a change. Speedster WR Fields streaked past his man and Ivy launched a perfect rainbow into his hands, and for a wonder, he held on and outran the CB and S 70 yards into the endzone. Huge play on 3rd and long for the 14-7 lead. The offense is playing well so far, it looks like NT came out selling out to stop the run, and the passing game is working well. Now if we can just keep it up. With just over a minute remaining in the half, NT manages to drive deep into SMU territory, including a 31 yard pickup on 3rd and 30. We just can’t stop the big plays, our lack of speed in the secondary is showing. NT settles for a 42 yard FG attempt, which they’re able to hit this time to make the score at the half 14-10 SMU. Third Quarter: It looks like the second half is going to go down the tubes real quick as on the Green’s first play from scrimmage, Colclough takes the draw play up the middle, hits the hole, and sprints 38 yards. It looks like he might take it all the way until he gets blindsided by CB Jaime Hoag who knocks the ball loose, and DE Don Peets hustling down the field recovers the ball and returns it to the NT 31. Looks like maybe Hoag isn’t quite as slow as he looked. Unfortunately, we aren’t able to get any points out of the drive, but at least we killed their drive. After yet another exchange of punts, we get it to the NT 42 yard line and face a 4th and 2. Figuring we won’t have many games where we’re in this position, we decide to go for it. We’re not very good, and we need to score again, I can’t count on the defense to keep coming up with big plays. Play action suckers the CBs up and the quick out route is complete for a gain of 8. Huge play there...whew, I just knew that was going to backfire on me. The drive ends up getting down to the NT 15 before it stalls, so we take our 3 and are damn happy we were able to get it. 17-10 SMU. A couple more punts ends the quarter, so we’ll go to the 4th still up a TD. Fourth Quarter: Early in the fourth, we have a key injury as WR Whitley gets poked in the eye on an obvious pass interference that wasn’t called. We’re hoping he’ll return, but it’s not a sure thing this late in the game. NT starts a drive with about five minutes left in the game and grinds it down to our 22 with just over two minutes left before the defensive ends finally put some pressure on the QB. He throws up a prayer into double coverage and the player of the game so far, CB Hoag comes up with a huge pick! He’s not able to get a return, but that play gives up the ball on our own 9 yard line. A couple of first downs and we can salt this game away. Unfortunately, we can’t move the ball, and have to punt the ball away. Wow, Idonije picks a great time to have the punt of his life…61 yarder down to the NT 25. Nice. So we just have to hold them out of the endzone for the next :42. They quickly move the ball up to midfield. The TE makes a catch, but a big hit by FS Salaam knocks the ball out. DE Peets picks up his second fumble of the day, but this time he’s got a convoy, all the way down the sidelines for the TD! That’ll finish this one off, wow…apparently my much maligned defense isn’t quite as bad as I’d feared. They came up with huge play after huge play. The Green is able to get one final play off after the kick, but it falls incomplete, and SMU picks up their first win of the season 24-10. And the fans go wild… Well, the run defense got shredded by Colclough (21 carries for 172 yards), but came up big in big spots. For our offense, it wasn't bad. If Ivy can play like this regularly, we'll have a pretty good solid QB for the season. He only completed 50%, but didn't make any big mistakes. (13-26 193 yards 1 TD). We ended up throwing it more than I planned, but Williams still got 107 yards on 23 carries. Maybe he will be able to carry the load this year after all. I ended up running the ball a total of 40 times compared to 30 throws, I can live with that ratio. WR Fields showed his speed, and much better hands than it appeared in our initial scouting. He caught five for 124 yards with only one drop. Player of the game though will be split between CB Hoag (4 tackles, 1 INT, 1forced fumble, 4 passes defended) and DE Peets (4 tackles, 1 sack, 1 hurry, 1 forced fumble, 2 fumble recoveries, 1 TD) In other C-USA action, it was a rough week aside from UAB and Southern Miss: East Carolina 6 - #16 Clemson 52 Houston 13 - #21 Michigan State 49 Memphis 17 - Boise State 24 Southern Miss 20 - San Jose State 10 Tulane 17 - Fla. Atlantic 10 UAB 35 - Buffalo 13 Central Florida 24 - Western Michigan 10 Marshall 23 - Kentucky 34 Tulsa 14 - Ohio 17 UTEP 23 - BYU 24 Rice 13 - Hawaii 19 The game of the week without a doubt though, was #5 LSU hosting unranked Virginia Tech. The game went into 3 overtimes before LSU pulled it out by converting their 2 point conversion after Va. Tech failed on their attempt. There weren't any upsets, but West Virginia again played tough against a top 25 team, dropping this one 27-24 against #7 Nebraska. Now we get an extra week to savor this win before we get our first conference game against a tough Southern Miss squad.

[Wolfpack]

Week three brings us some bad news. Apparently DE Peets celebrated his being named co-player of the game last week by neglecting to study, and has been suspended for the next three weeks, along with our #2 CB Piller. He’s not a huge loss, since he was no more talented than CBs 3-6, but Peets better get his rear in gear, we can’t afford for him to be out long. In C-USA action, Southern Miss is starting to look like they could be a possible BCS buster, and it’s making our week 4 game look like it could get ugly. It also looks like all the top 25 teams picked C-USA to pick on this year: UAB 3 - #3 Florida State 45 East Carolina 23 – Iowa 45 Southern Miss 42 - #16 Michigan State 32 Marshall 7 - #7 Purdue 41 Tulane 7 - #9 Wisconsin 72 Houston 9 - #24 Iowa State 65 Memphis 28 – Arizona 27 Central Florida 24 – South Carolina 20 Rice 10 – Washington State 41 UTEP 38 – Middle Tenn. State 38 Tulsa 31 – New Mexico State 7

[Wolfpack]

Week 4 arrives, and SMU travels to Hattiesburg for a big game in C-USA. Southern Miss is sitting at 3-0 and coming off a huge upset of a top 20 Michigan State squad. The Golden Eagles are favored by 11 points. It’s going to take a huge effort from the Mustangs to take this one, but a win would be a huge statement early in the season. First Quarter: We’re able to drive easily down to the Southern Miss 38 on three carries for 24 yards for Williams. Once there however, the drive stalls. On fourth down, the punt team trots out on the field, but this is a game where we’re going to have to go for it all if we want a chance to win. Punter Idonije takes the snap and tosses up a beautiful 13 yard pass to backup HB Kim Brown. That’ll get some emotion on our side I hope. Unfortunately that emotion is quickly lost when WR Fields drops two straight wide open passes. That hurts, and we’ll have to settle for a 40 yard FG attempt. But it’s blocked! Oh, what a comedown after that big 4th down play. After an exchange of punts, Southern Miss drives down to our 21 and faced with a 4th and 2, goes for the FG, but it flies wide right. We takes over and Ivy hits TE Marlion Maryland, who has a wide open lane, but takes a big hit and fumbles the ball. It’s recovered by Matt Dominguez of the Eagles who takes it 36 yards and into the endzone. Man, against this team, we can’t afford to be turning the ball over. That one’s going to hurt. 7-0 Southern Miss at the end of the first Quarter. Second Quarter: We quickly go 3 and out, punt the ball, and two plays later, a big 43 yard pass puts the Eagles up 14-0. This is getting out of hand way too quick. All the momentum is on the other sideline, and we have to have to get some points on the board quick. Instead, the handoff to the FB results in another fumble deep in our own territory. We manage to jump on it, but at this rate, this game will be over quick. The drive, unsurprisingly after that play, stalls quickly and again we’re forced to punt. We haven’t been able to get any kind of offense since our first drive. The half ends with two more missed FGs for Southern Miss, their kicker is having an awful day, and a missed FG for us. So the score remains 14-0 Southern Miss at the half. Third Quarter: Finally, a break goes out way as on the first running play after the kick, Eagle HB St. Clair is smacked and fumbles the ball away at the Southern Miss 38. Now let’s do something with this. Instead, we go backward 3 yards and punt it away. We just can’t get anything going. Drops are killing us, and Ivy is only 3 for 17 so far. The remainder of the third quarter sees no more scoring, so we’re still in the game despite only having 121 total net yards so far. The score remains 14-0 Southern Miss. Fourth Quarter: Wow, we get a huge play on the first play of the quarter when our leader of the LB corps senior LB Atkinson catches a tipped pass for a nice pick. Unfortunately, he makes the mistake of bring it out of the endzone, and gets tackled on the two. On our first play, Williams gets stacked up in the backfield and can’t get it out of the endzone. Just what we needed, get a big play, then not only do we give it right back, we give it back to them with an extra two points. To make it worse, they get a nice return to our 41, and on the first play Eagle HB Troy Kotar sprints right through a gaping hole in the middle for a 41 yard TD run. Well, this one got out of hand real quick. It went from 14-0 to 23-0 in less than a minute. The game sees one more score, a short 4 yard pass for the Eagles to increase the lead to 30-0 which is where it ends. All in all, we had our chances, but the complete lack of offense (219 total net yards on the day), killed any hopes we had to make this a game. The defense ended up on the field for almost 40 minutes and was just exhausted. Drops killed drive after drive, and there were 10 recorded for the WRs on the day, which is a big reason why Ivy ended up 9-29 with just 83 yards. We’ll have to really work on things this week to get ready for the game against Houston. In other C-USA action: Marshall 44 - UCF 11 Tulane 28 - Memphis 21 UAB 58 - Houston 19 Tulsa 20 - UTEP 7 There were a couple of big games in the top 25 this week: #6 NC State 33 - #19 BC 21 Georgia Tech 36 - #20 Clemson 20 #18 VT 38 - #4 Miami 34 #4 Wisconsin 32 - #6 Purdue 13 #21 Kentucky 33 - #16 Georgia 22 #23 Notre Dame 44 - #3 Michigan 20

[Wolfpack]

Week 5 sees us at 1-1 and looking forward to a game against the 0-4 Houston Cougars. We’ve got some players banged up, but nobody will be sitting out. We shouldn’t have anywhere near the offensive problems we had last week against Southern Miss as Houston comes in with the NCAAs 118th ranked defense giving up 580.3 ypg. Our pass defense will need to come up big to stop a pretty good Houston passing attack. First Quarter: Our first drive goes well, as we march down to the Houston 5 yard line before the drive stalls. We’ll call on the kicker to try and get on the board early and break our scoreless streak. Gene Baker gets it up and through, and we’re finally back on the board with a 3-0 lead. Baker promptly makes me remember that he’s a bad kicker by shanking the kickoff straight out of bounds. Ugh, we can’t put anything together right now. And, of course, just one play later, a streaking WR gathers in an easy 60 yard TD pass. 7-3 Houston, but on the plus side, at least we get the ball right back. After getting the kick, Williams is able to break to the outside on a nice 14 yard gain. Then first and second down are stuffed, and we’re facing a third and 11. We drop Ivy back on third and he spots a defender out of position. The ball is zipped into WR Whitley’s hands and he races 72 yards for the big TD. That’s the way to answer right back. Good job guys. 10-7 good guys now. And back come the Cougars. We can do nothing to stop the pass, even knowing it’s coming. Houston drives straight down the field, never even sniffing a third down, and score the TD to regain the lead 14-10. There’s still 3 minutes left in the first quarter, and this is looking like a wild shootout. We drive down the field before stalling at the Houston 38. We send out the punt teams, but then the quarter ends. Second Quarter: After considering the options, we decide to go for it on 4th and 8 from the Houston 38. Ivy drops back, and has a WR wide open down the sidelines…he throws it his way…but the receiver fell down! Ah, that was a sure 6 there. That turned out to be a bad decision, as Houston only needs three plays to score their third TD once again just abusing my secondary. I hope we can come back and that 4th down doesn’t mean the difference. The score is now 21-10 Houston. We again drive the ball into Houston territory, but once again, the completed pass is followed by a fumble. One way or another, these receivers have got to learn to hold onto the ball, they are absolutely killing us. We do manage to hold them out of the endzone this time, as they can only get to the 22 yard line and take the FG. It’s now 24-10 with about six minutes to go in the half. We need to get some more points here before the Cougars run away and hide here. Our drive gets a nice boost on a swing pass to Williams that he takes straight past the LBs for a 48 yard pickup down to the Houston 10 yard line. We aren’t able to get the TD, but we do get a FG to break that 17-0 run. It’s not 24-13 with 2 minutes left in the half. Houston manages to get to my 40, but can get no further, and we’ll go into the half down 11. Third Quarter: Big mistake on the kickoff as the Houston returner brings it out from the back of the endzone and gets tripped up at the five yard line. Houston manages one first down, but are held and forced to punt from their own 18. After our offense goes 3 and out, we punt and pin Houston at their own 15. That lasts for one play, as they quickly get the ball out near the 30 yard line. And on the next play, once again, the defense is caught out of position as the pass goes for 71 yards and yat another passing TD, Houston’s 4th of the day, and that might be the one that puts this one out of reach. Houston is now up 31-13 with 8 minutes left in the third. And if that one didn’t do it, the next Houston possession results in a 53 yard TD pass, number five on the day, to continue the blowout. The score is now 38-13, which is where the quarter ends. Fourth Quarter: No scoring in this quarter, a Houston has pity on us and starts running the ball. So the final score will be 38-13, which is truly pitiful considering what we were facing today, I’m very disappointed in the effort shown by our team. This was a bad, bad loss for us. Houston should be one of the worst defensive teams we see all year, and all we could manage was 13 points. That’s just pitiful, and after a good start on our first two drives, we could get nothing done. We could only average a little over 3 yards a carry on the ground against a bad defensive team. The defense was, in a word, awful. I knew Houston was going to throw, we gameplanned for Houston throwing all over the place, we playcalled for Houston throwing it, and they still smoked us constantly. Here are the stats for Houston’s QB, 32 for 47 for 469 yards with 5 TDs and no INTs. We held their running game to 58 yards…whoopty freakin doo. We could have had no down linemen and held their run game in check. Maybe we should have just played 11 DBs, it couldn’t have been much worse. The team had better play better next week against Marshall, or there will be some serious changes made. In other C-USA action: Memphis 33 – UCF 30 Southern Miss 27 – UTEP 10 UAB 13 – Rice 10 East Carolina 25 – Marshall 19 Tulsa 31 – Tulane 7 In top 25 action: #17 Miami 24 - #3 Florida State 17 #5 NC State 46 - #19 BC 24 The new BCS top 5: Wisconsin 5-0 Maryland 5-0 NC State 5-0 Auburn 5-0 Oklahoma 4-0 There are currently 12 undefeated teams, including C-USAs own Southern Miss. There are also still 15 teams looking for their first win, so at least there are 15 other teams out there worse than mine.

[Wolfpack]

We move on to week six for our second home game against Marshall. We’re coming in with our 1-2 record while Marshall has a 2-3 mark. We don’t get any good news on the academic front as DE Peets and CB Piller both remain suspended for grades. This won’t help out our now 113th ranked defense that’s already giving up 512. yards per game now. Our offense is almost as equally as bad, ranking 101st in the nation and averaging only 324 yards. This should be another tough game for us…well, honestly, every game is going to be tough for us. We have got to get the offense moving this game, the poor offensive showing we’ve gotten the past couple of weeks just won’t cut it, and this will be the last chance for some of these starters to prove they deserve to play. 1st Quarter: We’re able to stop the first Marshall drive before they get to midfield, then get ourselves down the field pretty easily, helped along by a 58 yard completion to WR Fields. It’s nice to be able to move the ball down the field, but again, we can’t push it into the endzone, and have to settle for the FG. Well, it’s just one more thing for the offense to work on. We’re able to hold again on the Herd’s second drive when LB Atkinson gets a gift of some good pressure on third and long and picks off a badly thrown pass at our 12. We can only get a couple of first downs before being forced to punt, and the quarter ends with Marshall driving at our 29 yard line. 2nd Quarter: We’re able to hold up yet again, this time at our 29, and the long FG attempt falls short. Now, let’s take this and do something with it dangit. After a nice start on a 19 yard run, we’re one again stopped on the Herd 49 and have to punt yet again. This time we can’t stop them as three quick pass plays take it downfield and into our endzone. 7-3 Herd. We’re then forced into a three and out yet again. After a 33 yard punt from our 22, Marshall returns it 30 yards. First and 10 from our 25, what a horrible time for bad punt coverage. It hurts too, as four plays later, Marshall punches it in for a 14-3 lead. If I can’t get an actual drive here at some point, my defense is just going to give out. Finally, a little forward progress, at least until we get into the red zone, where three consecutive losses drops us back to attempting a long FG which sails wide left. Well, at least we moved it. I think they heard me talking about starting to pull people. With just a minute left, my defense again comes through for the opposing offense. Marshall easily drives downfield, using all their timeouts. On third and 7 from my 40, they gain 9, but the play is called back on a holding call. Now it’s third and 17, and this time they gain 24, but again, we get lucky and it’s called back on another hold. So we have a third and 27. Shouldn’t be a problem right? Wrong, they pick up 28 on the play with 13 seconds left. If I had any depth or talent on defense, I’d be putting new players in, but it would only get worse as it is. So Marshall picks up an easy FG to end the half at 17-3 Marshall. 3rd Quarter: We take the opening kickoff of the second half and finally get the run game going, driving down inside the red zone again before penalties and bad plays once again leave us with no choice but to try a long FG. This time we’re able to hit it to close the gap to 17-6 Marshall. After exchanging punts, Marshall gets the ball, and facing a third and long once more, hits an easy 49 yard TD pass. Our DBs just can’t cover anyone. When the opposing teams 26 speed backup TE is getting 49 yard TD receptions on you, when you’re playing the pass, well, things aren’t going so good. 24-6 Marshall. I can’t even recap the rest, I’ll just mention the final score, which was 51-6. Another truly pitiful day for the defense, but I can’t put all the blame on them as once again, our opponents held the ball for about twice as long as we did. We were 4-16 on third down in the game, averaged under 2.5 yards a carry, and gained 197 total yards, most of which came on our opening drives of each half. Once again, we gave up over 400 yards passing. I knew this defense wasn’t going to be good, but I didn’t think it was going ot be this bad. Opponents are completing over 60% of their passes against us. Something is going to have to change here if we want to win even one more game this year. Other C-USA games: Memphis 34 – UAB 23 #24 Southern Miss 48 – Houston 8 (Finally they’re getting a bit of respect.) UTEP 17 – Rice 13 UCF 17 – Tulane 14 East Carolina 39 – Tulsa 27 Two top 25 games this week: #2 Maryland 47 - #11 Virginia Tech 31 #1 Wisconsin 51 - #19 Iowa 17 The top 5 in the BCS do a little rearranging: Wisconsin 6-0 Maryland 6-0 Auburn 6-0 Oklahoma 5-0 NC State 6-0 Down to 10 undefeated teams now, and there are also 10 teams still looking for their first win.

[Wolfpack]

This week it’ll be our third road game in four weeks when we take our 1-3 record to 3-3 Memphis. We’re going to be in trouble this week as Memphis will bring their 43rd ranked passing offense into this game. Doesn’t sound impressive, but when your team is giving up 400+ yards to teams ranked below 80th in passing, it doesn’t bode well for us. We’re making a change at QB this week, trying to find some kind of spark to get our offense moving. Sophomore Neill Bennett will take the reins from Mike Ivy, who was only able to muster 600 yards and 2 TDs so far in our four games. Keith Williams will get another start at HB, mainly because we don’t have any viable options at the position. Our only injury is to junior ILB Keith Johnson. He’s hobbled, but since he’s not starting, it shouldn’t hurt us too much. 1st Quarter: We kick off to Memphis, or rather, we kicked off, and it went in the general direction of someone on their team. Unfortunately, that someone was over on the sidelines getting a drink. So the Tigers will get to start on their 40. On first down we catch a break, as the Tigers leading receiver and most dangerous threat, TE Robert Nece goes down after one of his linemen rolls up on his leg before he can catch the short pass. It was an ugly injury, and it really seemed to really affect Memphis as they quickly ran two more plays for no yards and punted it away. We’re looking to establish the run this game not only to try and use some clock for a change, but to take some pressure off the new starter at QB. Two runs get us a first down out to the 24 yard line. Then Williams gets another handoff and takes it off the RG, breaks a tackle from the LB and is off to the races 76 yards to paydirt! Again, a nice start, but then again, we’ve made a habit of getting off to fast starts, then getting blown out late, so we’ll see what happens this time. On the next Memphis drive, we stop them again, but take a big loss in the secondary (Like we can afford that) when SS Stingley went down with an injury. After an exchange of punts, we get even more bad news when FS Salaam goes down. It doesn’t look like either one of our safeties are going to return, which certainly won’t help the pass defense. Memphis takes advantage of this and drives down to our four yard line before coming up short on 3rd down. They settle for a short FG to cut our lead to 7-3. 2nd Quarter: After a quick 3 and out, Memphis fumbles the ball on a FB run, and we’re able to jump on it right at midfield. Finally getting some breaks to go our way, but it’s still early, and things have a habit of going bad. Of course, we’re not able to do a thing with the turnover, but do manage to pin Memphis on their own six with the punt. The injuries just won’t stop, CB Chuck Pearson just went down, and it doesn’t look like he’ll return either. How my defense is managing to hold up so far I have no idea, seeing as how I’ve now lost ¾ of the worst pass defense in the nation. Maybe that should tell me something about the starters. The half ends still 7-3. Considering the injuries, the defense is playing incredibly. QB Bennett is not playing very well, but I’m going to give him a full game to see if he can manage to turn it around. 3rd Quarter: We get the ball and manage one first down before punting, but then get one of the biggest breaks of the game when on the first Tiger play, the WR fumbles the ball and it’s recovered by DE Harmon at the Memphis 30 yard line. If we can just get a couple of first downs and get a FG out of this, I’ll be happy. We do manage a couple of first downs and get it to the Memphis 6, then Bennett hits FB Fritts who fumbles at the Tiger 3, but one of our linemen falls on it, all the bounces are going my way so far today for a change. No sooner said than changed, as Fritts fumbles again, this time on a run from the one. This time the Tigers get it, and will start from the 1 yard line, but after passing it out to their 30, they’re shut down again. After a couple of punts, Memphis again gets the ball and scores in two plays, a 22 yard pass, and a 33 yard run. Not scoring on either of those Memphis turnovers is really hurting now. It’s now 10-7 Memphis, and it looks like we might be seeing another second half collapse by my team. Memphis kicks off and it’s returned to the 29 yard line. On the first play from scrimmage Williams takes it straight up the middle, jukes a defender and runs straight up the field 71 yards for a TD!! What an answer to that Memphis score, and Williams now has TD runs of 76 and 71. It’s a great day for him already. That makes the score 14-10 SMU at the end of the third quarter. 4th Quarter: Another kick out of bounds. Ugh, I have got to try and recruit a kicker this offseason, this free field position is killing me. A quick 11 yard run puts them at my 49 yard line. But we get yet another turnover when the lone remaining starter in the defensive backfield CB Hoag picks off the Memphis deep pass at my 18. I’ll have a good chance so long as I keep getting the turnovers. Williams is able to pick up 23 yards, but Bennett still isn’t hitting his passes, so the drive stalls again. After the punt goes out at the Tiger 17, the defense stuffs a run and bats a pass down to bring up 3rd and 10. And of course, the Tigers WR puts a double move on my guy and streaks down the field for an 83 yard TD. The defense has played so well all game, but the big play kills us, just like it has in all our losses. It’s now 17-14 Memphis with about 11:00 left in the game. We’ve still got time, but the offense has been lacking aside from the two Williams runs. The offense can’t do anything, but the defense can, and does. On two straight plays with about eight minutes left, Memphis fumbles the ball after big hits from the LBs. They recover the first one, but can’t fall on the second. We’ll be set up in good field position at our 40 yard line. But yet again we cannot move the ball. I’m considering switching back to Ivy at QB, but decide to stick with Bennett. It goes back and forth for a bit, then we get one last chance from near midfield with just over a minute left. An incompletion and a sack brings up third and long, but Bennett hits his biggest pass of the game, with a 36 yard play to get it down to the Memphis 25 with seconds left. We call timeout and get the FG unit out on the field. This will be a 43 yard attempt. The kick is up…it’s long enough…it’s wide right! Wait a minute, there’s a flag on the field…it’s an illegal substitution on Memphis! A five yard penalty and another shot to tie. Now lining up for the 38 yard attempt. It’s up…and this one is good! Talk about a lucky break there, two shots at a last second FG to tie. think this really is my day. OT: We get the ball first in OT, and immediately have a bit of weirdness. Bennett gets sacked back at the 36 yard line, but the line judge throws a flag for a pass attempt past the line of scrimmage. Not sure how he managed that, unless he’s got reeeeeaaaaallly long arms, but it doesn’t make a difference so, oh well. It’s bad enough as it is. Our second down pass is incomplete, but a defensive holding penalty gives us an automatic first down. We are able to drive down to the 22 but can’t get any further, so Baker comes out and kicks the 40 yard FG to put us up 20-17. Memphis takes the ball and immediately hits a corner route down to the 5 yard line. Ooh…this one is going to hurt. To get to OT and have them pull it out. First down, one yard run. Second down, three yard hook. Third down from the one and the defense stuffs the HB for no gain. Here comes the FG unit…no, they send the offense back out. They’re going to go for the win right here. The HB takes the handoff and is stuffed in the backfield! SMU wins! It took every break in the book, and then some to manage to pull this one out, but we did it. That’s a huge conference win for us. We aren’t going to win the conference, but at least now we know we won’t get shut out either. Bennett looked pretty bad, going 17 of 36 for 135 yards and a pick. We might give him another shot, but I’m not sure yet. The player of the game is obviously Williams, who ended just short of 200 yards, with 199 on 24 attempts. In other C-USA action: #16 Southern Miss 24 – East Carolina 14 UCF 27 – UAB 6 UTEP 38 – Marshall 20 Tulane 30 – Houston 27 Tulsa 34 – Rice 23 Some big upsets this week in the top 25: #9 Florida State 38 - #2 Maryland 27 #11 Michigan State 34 - #1 Wisconsin 31 Texas A&M 30 - #7 Iowa State 16 Arkansas 19 - #18 Kentucky 17 Ole Miss 41 - #6 LSU 20 The new BCS rankings look like this: Auburn 7-0 NC State 7-0 Wisconsin 6-1 Oklahoma 6-0 Maryland 6-1 Southern Miss is up to #13 We’re down to six undefeated teams and seven winless teams.

[Wolfpack]

I’m not going to say we’re looking forward to our week 8 game against winless Rice because last time I said something like that, Houston came out and stomped us flat. Besides, Rice comes in with the 44th ranked defense in the nation, so we probably won’t score a point. We’ll have two players banged up today, FS Salaam and CB Pearson are both still feeling the effects of their injuries from last week, but will play. We’ve also decided to stick with Bennett at QB. He’s doesn’t have Ivy’s talent, but we did win his start, and like the Bears and Kyle Orton, I’d rather have a bad performance with a win than a 300 yard game and a loss. 1st Quarter: We get off to a nice start, with back to back sacks by DEs Piller and Harmon on second and third down. The offense starts off well too, with Williams picking up 23 yards on his first three carries, then Bennett hits the FB on the dump off and some great blocking gets it all the way down to the Rice 14 yard line. We get stopped there, and then Baker trots out and misses the easy 31 yard FG. Quite the comedown from last week’s game tying and winning FGs. Again, we get the first break of the game, when CB Pearson manages to pick off a pass, despite his injuries. So we get the ball back at the Rice 22 yard line. Three straight runs later, and Williams punches it in from eight yards out and we get on the board first again. 7-0 SMU. After we stuff Rice again, our next drive starts out great. Williams catches a 21 yard screen, runs right for 7 more, then catches another screen for 6. But on the play, our whole offense so far goes down. It doesn’t look like Williams will be back. Great, that’s going to hurt. We stall and punt, they can’t move it and punt it back. We’ve still got to keep the run game working, despite the injury to Williams. Kim Brown will fill in, bringing his sparkling 1.3 ypc average on the season into the game. He takes the ball right for seven…nice start. Off right guard for 21, off tackle left for 22, wow, he looks good today, all the way down to the Rice 19 as the first quarter comes to an end. 2nd Quarter: Our drive stalls at the 15, but Baker comes in and hits the 33 yarder to put us up 10-0. We’re off to a really nice start, getting the running game going has been the key so far. The next Rice drive ends when we get our 4th sack of the game so far. The D-Line is really putting good pressure on the QB today. The punt is returned to the Rice 30, and we’re set up again with great field position. Brown again just crushes the Rice D with runs of 5, 12, and 13 yards before FB Magee pushes the pile into the endzone for the TD and a 17-0 lead. Wow, we’re making this look easy today, maybe that OT win turned our season around. Rice finally gets their running game going and pushes the ball down to our 16, but the defense comes up with their fifth sack of the half to stop Rice short of the endzone and force them into a long FG. We’re able to drive down to the Rice 27 with just 4 seconds left, but Baker misses the long FG, so we’ll go into the half up 17-3. 3rd Quarter: We pick up some good runs, but incompletions kill the drive. Idonije shanks the punt, and sets Rice up in good field position. It looks like they finally saw something to exploit in the defense, because they pick up bunches of yards on every play straight down the field and into the endzone. To cut our lead to 17-10. That’s not good, they’re right back in the game, and all of a sudden, I can’t stop the run game. Rice stops us, and we have to punt again. I have got to find something to do to stop this run game, they just shove it straight down my throat again. Twelve straight runs push it into the endzone to tie it up at 17. Something has to change and change quick, this one has completely turned around. We catch a break when our next drive stalls, but Rice fumbles the punt, and we recover it on their 12 yard line. Brown takes three runs to get it to the one, then we cross them up with a playaction and Bennett hits TE Maryland for the short score. Whew, back up 24-17, maybe we can regain the momentum now. 4th Quarter: Rice takes their next drive and once again, runs straight down the field. We do manage to stop them short of the endzone after we switch to a 5-2 defense, but not before they get into FG range to cut our lead to 24-20. We get the ball back and on first down, Bennett hits Fields on the short hook, he steps through an arm tackle and sprints downfield. They’re not going to catch him…gone! A 73 yard hookup to extend the lead to 31- 20 with ten minutes left. The 5-2 again works to perfection and we quickly shut Rice down on their next drive. We get great field position, starting at the Rice 45 after the punt and we take advantage with a ten yard run by Brown, then a 35 yard streak to TE Franklin. FB Fritts punches it in, and should have put this away as we extend our lead to 38-20 with six and a half left in the game. The rest of the game goes back and forth, with nobody able to put any more points on the board, so SMU will pick up their 3rd win of the season and 2nd win in the conference. Kevin Brown is the player of the game, as he came in for the injured Williams and racked up 166 yards on 23 carries. The defense again played well, aside from the quarter and a half when we couldn’t stop the run. Rice HB Guess had 141 yards on 27 carries, but the Rice QB Rayburn was 10 of 19 for only 68 yards and a pick. In other C-USA action: Memphis 30 – UTEP 27 UCF 27 – Tulsa 17 East Carolina 22 – Houston 17 Tulane 25 – Navy 22 In top 25 action: #2 NC State 28 - #18 VT 27 Penn State 37 - #8 Michigan State 34 Texas 40 - #11 Iowa State 7 #24 Texas A&M 27 - #4 Oklahoma 13 Georgia 31 - #1 Auburn 24 (Second straight week for the #1 to fall) The new top 5 in the BCS: Wisconsin 7-1 NC State 8-0 Maryland 7-1 Ohio State 6-0 Auburn 7-1 We’re down to four undefeated teams left; NC State, Ohio State, Washington, and Southern Miss. There are still seven winless teams; UConn, Illinois, Baylor, Rice, South Carolina, Florida Atlantic, and Florida International.

[Wolfpack]

Week nine brings 4-4 Tulsa into Dallas as we try to get our record over .500 for the first time in a long, long time. Tulsa is favored by a TD, with good reason, we want to run the ball, and they come in ranked 31st in the nation against the run. Our offense is ranked 95th, while the defense has “improved” to 108th. Tulsa has the 81st ranked offense and 36th overall defense, so it looks like we’re in for another tough one. We don’t have any major injuries this week, just the same nagging injuries we had last week. We do get some good news on the academic front though, as CB Piller finally got himself eligible again, which should strengthen the defensive backfield. DE Peets remains suspended though, but the linemen have been playing well, so we should be okay. 1st Quarter: We get off to a horrible start, as Tulsa takes the opening kickoff straight down the field through the air, culminating in a 13 yard pass for the TD. We then give up a sack and Bennett fumbles the ball and Tulsa gets the ball at our 13 yard line. They quickly put up another TD through the air, and in the first 3 minutes of the game, we’re already down 14-0. Williams is able to run the ball, but we can’t sustain anything. We punt it back and forth for a bit until at the end of the quarter, Tulsa gets down into FG range and extends their lead to 17-0. This is looking pretty ugly, the offense isn’t doing a thing here. 2nd Quarter: Nothing much happens. Tulsa is able to complete passes, but we’re keeping everything short and in front of us, so they can’t move it far. Williams is breaking off a few big runs, but we’re not able to get the short yards when we need them. We’ll go into halftime still down 17-0. 3rd Quarter: The situation stays the same for most of the third, until with about six minutes left, CB Hoag steps in front of a Hurricane pass and gives us the ball deep in Tulsa territory. We’re able to get a FG to close the difference to two TDs, 17-3 Tulsa. Tulsa responds immediately with a FG of their own, but on our next drive, Williams is able to turn the corner on the Tulsa defense and sprints 69 yards for a TD! We’ve managed to make it a game as it’s now a 10 point lead with one quarter left to go. 4th Quarter: Early in the fourth, we have two chances inside the Tulsa 10 yard line, but Bennett throws up picks both times on third down. Tulsa converts the second pick into a FG to go back up 13. Bennett comes out and Ivy comes back in to try to get something going, but our offense never threatens again, and we go down 23-10. The defense played pretty well today, after the opening drive. They managed to keep from giving up the long plays, and we had our chances to win. Once again though, the offense, (aside from Williams who had 152 yards on 30 carries) could not do anything. Unlike our last two games, this time, Williams couldn’t manage to pick up the slack. Bennett’s two late picks probably cost him the starting job, he’s been pretty shaky, and we can’t afford to turn the ball over, especially not twice inside the opponents ten. In other C-USA games: Memphis 29 – Marshall 21 #13 Southern Miss 27 – UAB 24 UCF 30 – East Carolina 24 Tulane 23 – UTEP 21 Navy 34 – Rice 8 In top 25 action: #2 NC State 34 - #3 Maryland 24 Syracuse 25 - #10 Pittsburgh Iowa 56 - #17 Michigan State 54 #9 Nebraska 30 - #22 Iowa State 10 (Third straight loss for Iowa State, that should push them out of the top 25) Mississippi State 36 - #8 LSU 23 #6 Notre Dame 34 - #18 Purdue 8 The new top 5 in the BCS looks like this: Wisconsin 8-1 NC State 9-0 Ohio State 7-0 Auburn 7-1 Nebraska 7-1 Still four undefeated teams left. There are six winless teams now, as Florida International finally got in the win column.

[Wolfpack]

Due to the fact that I'm going to be out of town for a day or two, I'm going to sim the rest of this season so I can do some recruiting before I leave. This season isn't looking too good, and I'd like to get my own coaches and a class of my own in here. So, here's a short recap of the season...

[Wolfpack]

UTEP takes up down in week ten 27-13. Southern Miss remains undefeated and moves up to #6 in the rankings. Florida State takes out NC State, while Maryland falls again, this time to Clemson. The new BCS top 5: Wisconsin 9-1 Ohio State 8-0 Nebraska 8-1 Washington 9-0 NC State 9-1 C-USA's own Southern Miss is now up to #6 in the rankings, maybe they can get a good bowl game.

[Wolfpack]

Off week for SMU in week 10. Southern Miss runs it's streak to 10 with a win over Marshall. No big upsets in the top 25, here's the top 5 in the BCS: Wisconsin 9-1 Ohio State 9-0 Washington 9-0 Southern Miss 10-0 NC State 9-1

[Wolfpack]

Tulane takes us down in week twelve 29-13. Southern Miss wins again to move to 11-0. Some movement in the BCS top 5: Wisconsin 10-1 Ohio State 10-0 Florida State 9-1 Washington 10-0 Southern Miss 11-0

[Wolfpack]

Well, scheduling backfire as that weak Colorado State team we put on our schedule at the beginning of the season comes in now ranked in the top 25. Oh yeah, they lay a 41-6 beatdown on us. That's going to leave a mark. No big games this week.

[Wolfpack]

No game this week. Still three undefeated teams, and at least two will stay that way until their bowl as Ohio State and Washington don't have championship games. Southern Miss will have to deal with that.

[Wolfpack]

Last game of the season against rival TCU who's 3-8 on the year. Played them close, but couldn't pull it out, going down 24-17 to end the season 3-8. We get a couple of all conference players: OT Koy Griese makes 2nd team with 16 pancakes and no sacks allowed. LB Melvin Atkinson makes 2nd team with his 75 tackles, 1 sack, and 2 picks DE Gene Piller makes 3rd team with 24 tackles and 9 sacks DT LaMarcus Hart makes the 3rd team with 11 tackles, 4 sacks, and one pick. Southern Miss plays in the C-USA championship game against Tulsa, and wins 25-7. Florida State beats Miami for the ACC title 27-16 Kansas State takes out Texas A&M for the Big 12 title 36-20 Auburn beats Tennessee for the SEC title 21-14 Northern Illinois beats Miami (OH) for the MAC title 43-40

[Wolfpack]

Southern Miss will get a Fiesta Bowl invite to play Kansas State. 28-25 Southern Miss. Great season for the Eagles, 13-0, and the only undefeated school in the nation. Ohio State will face Wisconsin for the championship in the Rose Bowl. Wisconsin pulls it out 34-31 to win the title. FSU faces West Virginia in the Orange Bowl. West Virginia wins 34-31. Auburn gets Washington in the Sugar Bowl. Auburn takes this one 34-10. Now, on to the postseason...

[Wolfpack]

Ouch...rough evaluation, maybe I should have been patient and played out the rest of the year. Team performance - F Talent - F Recruiting - F Board Expectations - D Prestige - C Overall - F All that adds up to a $150,000 drop in the budget...that's going to make things more difficult next year.

[Wolfpack]

All three of my coaches opt out of their contracts, which is fine, since I was planning to fire the lot anyway. We'll have to lowball some guys and hope they don't get other offers: OC - We get very lucky here with Corey Holmes. He wanted $500,000, but we get him for $425,000. Lowest ratings are average for develop QB and HB, and good for WR and OL. He'll be a huge upgrade for us. He likes a balanced offense, and we should be able to oblige him since we don't have the talent to run anything well here. DC - Another huge upgrade here, we get Terrill Houston for $475,000 down from his requested $575,000. He's green across the board except for motivation, which is only average. He prefers the 3-4, which is what we ran last year, so we're good there. ST - For only $50,000 we get an average coach here. This one isn't an upgrade, but it's not a downgrade either, so we're good here. Now we move on to the transfers, of which, none have any interest. Since we have next to no budget, we can't afford to take chances on guys who don't want to come, so we'll skip this phase. We get to the recruiting stage, and lo and behold, an e-mail from a guy who's dad wants to come here. His father played here, and he wants to attend. Best part? He's a CB, he'll definitely get recruited. He's a two star, so he's better than most anything we've already got. Here's what we're looking at: 3 stars - QB Junior Otto - He's a Wyoming player who loves our program. Threw for almost 3000 yards with 24 TDs and 7 INTs last year, and also rushed for over 1000 yards. QB Charles Cherry - Player from Hawaii who has some interest in us. He threw for 2800 yards with 28 TDs and 8 INTs. He's no scrambler, but I'm not running the option here, so we don't mind that. HB Tony Workman - He doesn't have a ton of interest in us, but he's a Texas guy with nice speed, so we take a shot at him. He ran for 1230 yards in HS with 16 TDs, and also made 80 ackles with 3 sacks. We'll throw a scholarship his way and see if we can entice him. K Demetrius Washington - Kicker out of Florida. We had very little interest from kickers, so we decide to take a shot at Washington. 2 stars - QB Pisa Saturday - A big kid (6'4" 207 lbs.) who looks to have good accuracy. He'll have to work on the interceptions, he had 17 TDs but 16 INTs last season. HB Charles Johnson - He's not going to break many long runs with his 4.72 speed, but he should be a powerful inside guy. He ran for 1200 yards with a 4.5 average in HS. WR Steve Dudley - A speedy WR with nice size (6'4" 190). He had 49 catches for 987 yards with 9 TDs last year. OT Art Sidney - Not a big guy, but fairly athletic. He's really going to have to work hard on his grades if we get him. OT Charles Calhoun - Calhoun is a huge kid, who still has room to grow. He should be a punishing run blocker in time. DE Chris Hicks - He's an average pass rusher, who could become a good run defender in time. He's not tall, but should be able to bulk up and be a pretty strong guy. CB Art Norris - This is the CB who sent us the e-mail. Not a speedy guy, but he should turn into a great zone defender. CB Priest Conner - He's got better potential as a man defender than he does in zone. Has a nice work ethic. CB Nate Jackson - This is our speed recruit. He's a tall lanky guy with a long stride, he should be able to develop good instincts, although he doesn't like contact. 1 stars - OG Marcellus Dogins - Smaller guy who may develop as a decent pass blocker. OG Tyoka Young - Huge guard witth good feet. He's agressive, but his blocking skills need a lot of work.

[Wolfpack]

Week 2: We drop HB Workman from our list, as he didn't seem too interested. In his place, I really take a wild chance at Mike Smith, a 5 star HB with 4.26 speed. I know there's next to no chance he'll decide to come here, but he didn't hang up when we called, so we'll offer him a scholarship and tons of playing time to see if we can entice him. The rest of the recruits seem to be pretty solid, so we'll continue bringing them in for visits and trying to get them to commit. K Washington's interest increased, so we offered him a scholarship and hope he'll come to fix our kicking game. Week 3: No commitments, but no losses either. It's giving us an outside shot at HB Mike Smith. Hey, what a boost to the program that would be, we'll continue to try to get him in here. Week 4: Well, we knew it was probably a lost cause. Mike Smith decided to commit to Oklahoma. Well, that'll give us some money to spend elsewhere. It would have been nice though. We add a 4 star G to our recruiting drive since we noticed he had good interest in us. He would be a nice addition to the team since we're not going to have much on the line this year. We also add 2 star HB Joe Marino to our recruiting drive. He's got good size, and likes the school. Week 5: No action in the recruiting area, and no changes in interest. We'll just have to get some more visits in and hope for the best. Week 6: Once again, no action. We really need to get some people in here, I keep getting positive messages that they'll sign soon, but they aren't doing it yet. Same procedure as last week. Week 7: Finally get our first recruit, OT Charles Calhoun decides to sign here. Hopefully he can turn into the big punishing blocker he should be. We lose HB Charles Johnson to Houston, but have some other HB options, so we'll manage there. Week 8: We pick up another OT committment this week, this time from Art Sydney, we'll have to hope he can make the grades. We lose out on K Washington, DE Hicks, and HB Marino. Have to see what we can do with the money we freed up. It's getting late in the game, and things aren't looking too good. Week 9: We finally pick up a QB and HB. QB Charles Cherry, the 3 star from Hawaii decided to committ to us this week. The HB is Peppi Weir, he's a small back from Michigan. Not particularly fast, but he's a strong runner for his size. With Cherry's committment, Jim Otto decides not to pursue coming here any longer, so that'll free up more money and a scholarship. We add OLB Bobby Mitchell a 3 star recruit, who shows good interest in us. Week 10: Well, the Bobby Mitchell experiment didn't last long, as he decided to commit to Buffalo this week. We get no commits, and things are really looking grim so far. We look for some lower rated guys we can get in here quick. We need warm bodies at least. Week 11: We have got to get a big week here, and we finally have a pretty good one. WR Steve Dudley - ** CB Priest Conner - ** CB Nate Jackson - ** WR Rick Rachal - ** DT Ben Green - ** QB Pisa Saturday - * Not a very good recruiting class, with only 10 players, but it's still an upgrade on the talent we have.

[Wolfpack]

Moving on to season two, we got some nice walk-ons apparently, because we actually have some guys on the roster with real talent now. It’s all unrealized talent, but it is there. We’re taking a huge hit in funding this season, so our recruiting service will have to be lowered to the worst service. We also have to lower our medical and academic levels, I foresee a lot of people going down this year and getting suspended. Our team expectations are the same as last year, don’t get embarrassed and win some games. We started off on that pretty well last year, but this time we’re going to stick it out to make sure. The coaching staff projects us as a balanced offense and a 5-2 defense. Considering that we’ve got a good stable of D-linemen, I can agree with that. Since we set up the home at homes last year, our opponents will remain the same this year. We’ll have some players to redshirt this season: QB Cherry QB Saturday HB Cappelletti HB Weir WR Rachal WR Dudley OT Anderson OT Sidney OG McAlister DT Green CB Jackson All are freshman, and the future is looking up if the boosters will give me the time to get this program turned around.