TrojanFan2
09-27-2004, 09:34 AM
A View from the Stands – Troy 7 Vs South Carolina 17
I thought we would win this one. South Carolina had some advantages, like a noisy home crowd, a great defense, and a receiver named Troy, but we have played in noisy places before, we have a great offensive weapon named Betterson, and we have a fast defensive secondary. Once again our defense played with heart and kept the game close. Unfortunately our offense didn’t meet the challenge.
Two things really impressed me in this game. One was the size of their offensive line and the speed of their receivers, especially Troy Williamson. They were big and they were fast. They were able to protect the quarterback and he was able to find a receiver. The other was the bad calls by the referees. They were just plain bad. They called a bad game on both sides of the ball but I was only concerned with the bad calls against us. There were three in particular that really hurt us. One was a roughing the kicker call. I admit that we ran into the punter, but it was not roughing the kicker. He was trying to avoid the kicker and hit his leg. It should have been running into the kicker. The next one was when Olmstead kicked the ball to the SC 2 yard line and the receiver caught the ball, took a step and was hit. He lost the ball and it feel to the ground in the end zone. He picked it up again and was tackled. Now that is a safety by the rules but somehow the ref, who was standing right there, said it was a touchback. The last big hurt came in the fourth quarter when Leak threw a pass to Samples on fourth and four. Leak was hurried by a line backer but he still got the pass off. However, just before Samples touched the ball he was hit by the defender. That’s interference by the rules but the ref said it was just an incomplete pass. These penalties came at critical times and stopped us. South Carolina was too good of a team to recover from the loss of opportunity these penalties caused.
All that said we still lost the game because we didn’t generate enough offense. We didn’t use Betterson much and I don’t know why. We have one of the best running backs in the nation and we didn’t use him. So what if SC was ready for him. Pound them and pound them until their defense stacks the line and then run the play action pass. I don’t understand why we didn’t at least try to do that. I’m also ready to join the crowd that says put DT McDowell in as the quarterback. He is better. Leak doesn’t tuck the ball away when he runs, he isn’t very accurate, and he doesn’t seem to play with the intensity that I last saw when Brock Nutter was the QB. DT is quicker, doesn’t dance around in the pocket, and has a strong accurate arm. After the game I was walking out with a South Carolina fan that was congratulating our team effort and wanted to know where Troy was and how big it was. I told him we were from Troy, AL and that the campus was only about 6,000 students. He said that was unbelievable and that if we had a good quarterback we might have won the game. It seems that everyone sees the flaws in the offense except Mark Fleetwood.
I thought we would win this one. South Carolina had some advantages, like a noisy home crowd, a great defense, and a receiver named Troy, but we have played in noisy places before, we have a great offensive weapon named Betterson, and we have a fast defensive secondary. Once again our defense played with heart and kept the game close. Unfortunately our offense didn’t meet the challenge.
Two things really impressed me in this game. One was the size of their offensive line and the speed of their receivers, especially Troy Williamson. They were big and they were fast. They were able to protect the quarterback and he was able to find a receiver. The other was the bad calls by the referees. They were just plain bad. They called a bad game on both sides of the ball but I was only concerned with the bad calls against us. There were three in particular that really hurt us. One was a roughing the kicker call. I admit that we ran into the punter, but it was not roughing the kicker. He was trying to avoid the kicker and hit his leg. It should have been running into the kicker. The next one was when Olmstead kicked the ball to the SC 2 yard line and the receiver caught the ball, took a step and was hit. He lost the ball and it feel to the ground in the end zone. He picked it up again and was tackled. Now that is a safety by the rules but somehow the ref, who was standing right there, said it was a touchback. The last big hurt came in the fourth quarter when Leak threw a pass to Samples on fourth and four. Leak was hurried by a line backer but he still got the pass off. However, just before Samples touched the ball he was hit by the defender. That’s interference by the rules but the ref said it was just an incomplete pass. These penalties came at critical times and stopped us. South Carolina was too good of a team to recover from the loss of opportunity these penalties caused.
All that said we still lost the game because we didn’t generate enough offense. We didn’t use Betterson much and I don’t know why. We have one of the best running backs in the nation and we didn’t use him. So what if SC was ready for him. Pound them and pound them until their defense stacks the line and then run the play action pass. I don’t understand why we didn’t at least try to do that. I’m also ready to join the crowd that says put DT McDowell in as the quarterback. He is better. Leak doesn’t tuck the ball away when he runs, he isn’t very accurate, and he doesn’t seem to play with the intensity that I last saw when Brock Nutter was the QB. DT is quicker, doesn’t dance around in the pocket, and has a strong accurate arm. After the game I was walking out with a South Carolina fan that was congratulating our team effort and wanted to know where Troy was and how big it was. I told him we were from Troy, AL and that the campus was only about 6,000 students. He said that was unbelievable and that if we had a good quarterback we might have won the game. It seems that everyone sees the flaws in the offense except Mark Fleetwood.