Sunday, September 26, 2010

Better...

As expected, the Zips football squad lost to Indiana yesterday. Also as expected, the margin of victory was less than three touchdowns. Not as expected, we very well could have won that game. The final score was 35-20, but had Jeremy LaFrance not dropped a pass in the endzone on a 4th and 1 play, the game would have been 35-27 with 6 minutes left. 'Twas not to be. Dropped passes are killing the passing game this year.

The defense looked more like I had predicted before the season began. The veteran D-Line and linebacking corps held Indiana to just 84 rushing yards, but the secondary gave up 342 yards and four touchdowns through the air.

Patrick Nicely looked a little better, throwing over 50% (15-27) for 175 yards and 2 touchdowns. I'm glad Ianello stuck with Nicely. I still think he'll be great for the next two years if he can figure out how to be a pocket passer.

Check out the receiving stats:

Gary Pride: 4 REC, 54 YDS
Jalil Carter: 3 REC, 34 YDS
Jeremy LaFrance: 2 REC, 46 YDS, 2 TD
Rhyne Ladrach: 2 REC, 13 YDS
Alex Allen: 1 REC, 19 YDS
Antoine Russell: 1 REC, 7 YDS
Austin Bailey: 1 REC, 3 YDS
Nate Burney: 1 REC, -1 YD

Teams are figuring out that shutting down Jeremy LaFrance shuts down the passing game, so it's nice to see Gary Pride and Jalil Carter stepping up (just a little bit). Just imagine if LaFrance had made that catch with 6 minutes left in the game...3 REC, 80 YDS, 3 TD...ah, what could have been. But wait, there's more!

Rushing:
Alex Allen: 13 CAR, 80 YDS
Nate Burney: 9 CAR, 62 YDS
Gary Pride: 3 CAR, 16 YDS
Patrick Nicely: 5 CAR, 2 YDS

I can finally stop talking about the golden days with Dennis Kennedy! We may actually have a running game here, folks! We'll see what happens when MAC play begins next week, but averaging 6 yards a carry against a Big Ten team (albeit a pretty bad Big Ten team) is a good sign.

Zack Campbell had another great day punting (3 punts, 109 yards) and The Ever Dependable Igor (the stats are right here in front of my face, but I'm still having trouble believing this) made both of his field goal attempts, from 45 and 29 yards.

You can't hear them, but here are Ianello's post-game thoughts:


The Zips return home next Saturday to begin conference play against Northern Illinois. I'll preview that game on Friday.

In overshadowed Zips news, the volleyball team annihilated Miami (Ohio) yesterday, winning 3-0 (25-19, 25-16, 25-12). This win makes nine straight, and the 10-4 record is the first time Akron volleyball has started this well since 2002.

No comments:

Post a Comment