Football, Football, Everywhere
By John Gilbert
The start of the National Football League season dominated the sports news over the weekend, and some thoroughly entertaining games deserved the spotlight. By chance, I had to catch a flight from Minneapolis to Los Angeles for an assignment to attend the introduction of the new Ram turbodiesel pickup, and the stunning new Jeep Cherokee for my alter-ego job as automotive journalist (Newcarpicks.com), so I only got to see the first half of the Vikings game at Detroit.
I had picked against our two regional favorites — the Vikings and the Green Bay Packers at San Francisco. The Packers, because I thought they’d be good, but San Francisco is one of the premier teams in the NFL. Sure enough, it was a shootout, with Chris Kaepernick coming out on top of Aaron Rodgers this time, just as he did when the 49ers beat the Packers at the end of last season. The Vikings, because I remain unconvinced that Christian Ponder has gained enough polish by not playing through the exhibition season, and because I think Detroit and Matt Stafford are for real, particularly by adding Reggie Bush to the rushing game.
The first half was amazing, as the Vikings took a 14-13 lead and were indeed fortunate to be ahead. Adrian Peterson raced 76 yards for a touchdown on the first play of the new season, but Ponder struggled so much after that the Lions were able to focus on Peterson and hold him to only 20 more yards on 17 more carries in the game. The Lions used up their usual allotment of bad luck and bad breaks in the first half, scoring three touchdowns before getting credit for one. A couple of weird calls there, too.
By rule, if a player puts the ball over the goal line it’s a touchdown, for breaking the plane of the goal line. Also, any ball-carrier who has possession when he goes down is credited with possession if the ball is jarred loose by the rule that “the ground can’t cause a fumble.” The new rule in the NFL also says that a receiver must complete the act of receiving by keeping possession when the ball hits the ground. So Stafford hits big Calvin Johnson with a pass, and as Johnson is being hauled down at the goal line, he reaches the ball over the goal line to be sure it’s a touchdown. As he lands, the ball is jarred loose, and after review, the officials overturned the call of a touchdown and ruled the pass incomplete. The Lions had to settle for a field goal and trailed 14-6. One thought: The trendy move to reach the ball over the goal line might be better served if the ball-carrier thrusts the ball over the goal line, breaking the plane, then pulls it back. There’s no need to “down” the ball anymore, I don’t think.
At any rate, the Lions intercepted passes and ran them back for touchdowns, and made several more big plays, only to have them nullified by penalties. Then they tried a goal-line plunge, and the Detroit back appeared to get right onto the goal line before being hurled back. It was not called a touchdown, until further review, as they say. Then, to the surprise of anyone who has seen a Vikings-Lions game in the last two decades, the call was reversed, and the Lions were granted the touchdown that made it 14-13.
As I boarded the plane, I thought to myself that if the breaks evened out, the Lions were in position to take the game over in the second half, and when I got to L.A., I learned they had indeed.
DUCKS, AND EAGLES, FLY
For the last three years, my favorite college football team to watch — after UMD, of course — were the Oregon Ducks. Coach Chip Kelly’s incredible hurry-up offense, with no huddles and immediate snap after snap, was geared to prevent defenses from every getting set or having any chance of anticipating what might be coming next. I firmly believe that if the Ducks played Alabama in the last two Bowl Championship Series games, they would have one at least one of the two. At least.
This year, the landscape changes. Chip Kelly is now coaching the Philadelphia Eagles, and the Ducks are left with a new coach and a superb lineup. A big problem is they play out West, and news seems to travel slowly to the big media centers in the East, including ESPN, which does a great service by bringing us a lot of football every Saturday, but does the sport a huge disservice by having a contract to broadcast and promote the Southeast Conference and the Atlantic Coast Conference. They claim that nobody can touch the top SEC teams, and the sheep that vote for the ratings follow along as if on cue.
My feeling is that nobody, not Alabama, nor any other college team, could contain Oregon’s rapid-fire attack for an entire game, but mostly I found few others who agreed, mainly because everybody had watched Alabama’s pro-style offense and pro-style defense and assumed the Crimson Tide was as good as ESPN kept claiming.
With considerable interest, I watched Oregon play at Virginia last Saturday afternoon. But I missed the first couple minutes of the game, and by the time I tuned in, the Ducks were scoring an impressive touchdown to take a 14-0 lead. They went on to rock Virginia, in front of astonished East Coast viewers and ESPN broadcasters, 59-10. Even without coach Chip Kelly, the Ducks were awesome. Quarterback Marcus Mariota, a sophomore Heisman Trophy candidate, handed the ball off on the familiar quick-strike offense, and every once in a while he’d keep the ball himself, fire passes to an array of skilled receivers, or run himself for a couple of touchdowns. De’Anthony Thomas, Oregon’s prize running back, scored three touchdowns as well.
This Saturday, No. 2 ranked Oregon (behind Alabama, naturally) plays Tennessee, another huge game for the Ducks, to say nothing of the Volunteers. The big game of the week, of course, is the rematch of the upset of last year when Alabama plays at Texas A & M. If you can, watch both those games, and watch A & M’s Johnny Manziel closely, but also watch Marcus Mariota closely. Then next week we can compare them.
With the impressions of Saturday’s college games still swirling in my mind, and the information overload from Sunday’s NFL slate, I watched the first half of Monday night’s Philadelphia Eagles game at Washington. The defending division champ Redskins were favored, with the return of Robert Griffin III from knee surgery after last season, but my interest was focused on the Eagles, where Chip Kelly has moved his hurry-up offense into an NFL where everybody hopes he fails.
Every NFL team plays virtually the same offensive system and the same defensive system. Nobody has changed anything in the NFL for two decades or more. Chip Kelly has promised to do that, and quarterback Michael Vick must think he’s in heaven. Kelly has gotten the Redskins to buy into his plan, where every move of practice, every lifestyle move leading up to games and through games, is done in rapid-fire fashion. Critics said it would never work in the pros. I disagreed, but from a distance.
Jon Gruden was the color commentator on the broadcast, and he was in awe of what the Eagles did. I read once where the actual timed average of an NFL game shows 6 seconds of action, followed by 30 seconds of huddle, then 6 more seconds of action. Perfect for instant replays and all those commercials. Vick and the Eagles averaged a play every 5 seconds.
The all-time record for running plays in an NFL game is something like 93. The Eagles ran 30 plays in the first quarter, and had 53 by halftime. First game problems with getting the system sharpened saw some mistakes, and some missed passes by Vick that prevented the Eagles from blowing the Redskins off their home field. Washington, in fact, scored first after Vick botched a lateral pass on first and goal at the Washington 4, which ultimately became a 75-yard fumble recovery touchdown by Ryan Kerrigan. The Eagles never broke stride. After a field goal, Vick threw a 25-yard touchdown bullet to DeSean Jackson, one of seven passes Jackson caught for 104 yards, then the Eagles got a safety when their defense swarmed the Redskins, for a 12-7 first-quarter lead.
The remarkable thing about the game was that the big Redskins crowd was stunned into silence. They watched in amazement as the Eagles ran no-huddle snap after snap, leaving no time for replays or commercials, and they obviously were comfortable playing at a tempo that was too quick for the wearying Redskins to cope with, let alone gather their thoughts.
In the second quarter, Vick fired a 28-yard touchdown pass to Brent Celek, then he faked a handoff and ran one in himself. At halftime, Philadelphia led 26-7, and it should have been much worse; the Eagles had 21 first downs to 2 for the Redskins. Vick sent LeSean McCoy slashing through holes in the Redskins line, and part of the 184 yards McCoy collected on 31 rushes was a 34-yard touchdown run to make it 33-7 late in the third quarter. Vick gained 54 more yards on his own runs, while clicking on 15 of 25 passes for 180 more.
To their credit, the Redskins came back to score the last three touchdowns in the game to close it to the 33-27 final with a minute left. Griffin wound up with 30-49 passes for a whopping 329 yards, but 169 of the yards came in the fourth quarter, long after the Eagles had put the game away. And Griffin was intercepted twice, for the first time in his career.
But the game was never in doubt. Nor was the feeling that NFL fans all across the country had just witnessed a potential changing of the standard style in how to play football. This is not to say that the Eagles will romp undefeated through the season. Undoubtedly, some team will find a way to outscore them, but there is no question that while San Francisco and Seattle both play a somewhat similar style, and a few other teams may try it now, no other team is conditioned and primed physically and mentally to play the game at the incredible tempo of the Eagles.
NEW-IDENTITY BULLDOGS, SAME RESULT
It was evident from the start of Minnesota-Duluth’s opening football game that this year’s Bulldogs will establish their own identity. They will have to, because even though a lot of the names in the lineup are familiar, we all became comfortable identifying the last four highly successful UMD teams by the names of coach Bob Nielson and quarterback Chase Vogler.
Obviously, UMD’s great teams of the past four seasons, including the NCAA Division II championship outfit of 2010, were directed by Nielson’s fine hand, and by the dynamic and creative play-calling of Vogler. Whether those two got too much credit or not, both are gone now, Vogler to graduation after a record-setting four years, and Nielson to Western Illinois for the challenge of Division I.
We all knew that, but when the Bulldogs opened the season against a definite challenge from Sioux Falls last Saturday night, somehow we still expected a resemblance to those Bulldogs past. There was a resemblance from the outcome, a 32-7 victory for UMD, and there was the start of a new era in Bulldog football, with coach Todd Wiese stepping up from offensive coordinator to head coach, despite looking young enough to still be in the lineup. And Drew Bauer stepping into the signal-calling role as a freshman quarterback, and while he wasn’t the swashbuckling Vogler already, he ran the club with poise, passing and sending his quick-strike running backs through the Cougar line to build a 19-0 first half lead.
UMD’s freshman quarterback Drew Bauer swept left end for a 15-yard touchdown and a 19-0 lead over Sioux Falls.
The first half scoring concluded when Bauer carried himself, swinging around left end and running the last 15 yards for a touchdown that boosted the Bulldogs from a shaky 13-0 lead to 19-0 control. When Bauer came out in the third quarter for treatment of leg cramps on the warm September night, sophomore Eric Kline came in and promptly fired a touchdown pass to Zach Zweifel after a Sioux Falls touchdown had lessened the UMD lead to 25-7.
Zweifel is one of those returnees who played so well last season. So is Austin Sikorski, who ran for two touchdowns. And so are defensive stalwarts like defensive end Chris Vandervest, linebacker Colby Ring, and cornerback Kenny Chowa. When the offense got too much credit last season, the defense didn’t seem to mind being overlooked, but they seem certain not to be overlooked this season. Vandervest was a force throughout the game, while Ring has one sack, and jarred a fumble loose and recovered it, while Chowa snatched an interception, as the Bulldogs generally prevented Sioux Falls from ever getting into the game with a dominant first half and a solid game throughout. Vandervest had five unassisted tackles, one for a sack, in the first half alone, when UMD had 15 first downs to 5 for the Cougars. For the game, Vandervest had 8 unassisted tackles, while sophomore linebacker Nate Zibolski had 5 unassisted and 1 assistd tackle.
“Vandervest is a senior now, and he played like a senior tonight,” said Wiese, on the Malosky Stadium turf after the game. “Our defense was consistent all night, both our defensive front and our secondary. Our secondary played as good as we’ve seen, and we forced them out of any game plan they had.”
Former Eagan star Drew Brees (9) took command of the UMD offense.
As for the offense, Wiese was more than satisfied with Bauer. “Drew did a good job and was extremely composed at the line of scrimmage,” Wiese said. “I’m proud of the way the guys came out, both at the start of the game, and in the second half. We expect a lot out of our guys.”
Along with the 19-0 halftime score, UMD had established its rushing superiority by halftime, gaining 157 yards on 30 rushing attempts, while stifling Sioux Falls with 5 yards on 18 tries. Fumbles, interceptions and penalties aided UMD aggressive defense in keeping the Cougars — who were 9-2 last season — off balance. Still, freshman Luke Papilion overcame five sacks and constant harrassment to make the Cougar passing game a threat.
There were some odd plays, and calls, as the officials looked like they might be suffering more from first-game rustiness than the players. On UMD’s first drive, Bauer appeared to complete a pass to a diving receiver up the left sideline, and while photos indicated it was a catch, the officials ruled it incomplete. However, Sioux Falls was called for pass interference on the play, so all that was hurt was UMD’s statistical advantage. A couple plays later, Sikorski barged 19 yards up the middle and it was 7-0 anyway.
The Cougars attempted to keep pace, but Papilion fumbled after being sacked and UMD recovered. An interception and another fumble recovery stopped the next two Sioux Falls possessions, too, in the 10-0 first quarter.
A dizzying sequence in the third quarter also kept the big crowd of 5,217 guessing. UMD came up with another key interception near the goal line, but it was nullified by a pass interference call. Sioux Falls promptly scored a touchdown, but it was disallowed because of an illegal block. Next, UMD was called for a pass interference in the end zone, and finally Sioux Falls was able to come up with its touchdown.
None of that affected the final outcome, because the Bulldog defense helped UMD to a whopping edge in rushing yards, 275-11, and in rushing first downs, 18-2. Papilion’s passing gave the Cougars a 133-106 edge, but UMD sacked him five times and compiled a 381-144 margin in total yards. Sikorski slashed through for 104 yards on 24 carries, and Logan Lauters added 80 more yards on 15 carries, while Bauer chipped in 58 yards during 10 carries — some of them intentional.
It seemed as though the post-game wind-down lasted longer than usual, and maybe it did, as the coaching staff and players savored the long-awaited answer to the questions of how the new staff and a new quarterback would succeed when the new season started. But if it was to be savored, even the celebration was measured.
“We’ll enjoy this one for 24 hours — that’s a team rule,” said Wiese. “Then we start thinking about next week.”
The Bulldogs are on the road this weekend, returning home the following Saturday. By then, the new identity should be more firmly in place, and the only thing remaining from the old identity is winning.
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About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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