FB: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[Ralph Turner]

I will assume that the selection of the 15 laterals play was unanimous! 

In reality, the play should have never happened because Millsaps could have, and should have, easily run out the clock after recovering the onside kick with only 1:37 left in the game. BUT, they left Trinity with 2 seconds on the clock and the rest is history.

Still sticks in your craw, doesn't it!   

[frank_ezelle]

Actually it doesn't and never did very much.  If it had I wouldn't have given all of my photos to Trinity with the stipulation that they provide copies to all the players.  Don't know if they honored that request, but that was my condition for providing the photos.

It's an element of the play that was never brought up at the time.  There was one story where the Trinity coach was quoted as saying that he was surprised to get the ball back after failing to cover the onside kick.  I think most coaches would have easily run out 1:37 on four plays to end the game and win a berth to the NCAA Championship, but Coach DuBose sometimes had clock management problems at the end of games.

For example, after the third down play in this last Millsaps series, Millsaps let the clock run down but call timeout in order to avoid a 5 yard penalty.  Having that extra second or two run off the clock was far more important than saving a penalty--keeping in mind that when the ball was turned over Trinity had 2 seconds instead of the game being over.  Also, all they had to do on the last play was send one man long, have Joseph throw deep and out of bounds, and the clock would have run out with the ball in the air.  Instead, Millsaps tried to run for the first down on 4th and 3 and were quickly stopped.

By the way, I suspect our DePauw readers were surprised a couple of years ago when Millsaps failed on the 2-point conversion and then decided to kick deep with 2 minutes to go in the game.  DePauw easily ran out the clock and won the SCAC crown.  Coach DuBose was great in many, many ways, but clock management at the end of the game was a weakness.

And before anyone says this is sour grapes, just ask yourself this question:  If you got the ball with 1:37 to go in the game, do you think you or your team could have figured out a way to run out the clock?  I believe the overwhelming number of you would have found a way to run 1:37 off the clock in 4 plays instead of 1:35.

[Ron Boerger]

Joseph wasn't the QB on your last series - it was the other guy (Burt Pereria?).

Even so, all that had to be done on fourth down was just run backwards for about 10-20 yards and time would have run out.  Instead, he did this slow fade, which gave the TU defender just enough time to sack him with that 0:02 remaining.  

[TxFight]

was perusing Austin College's blog and noticed they've released a tentative schedule.  Two ASC road trips (Texas Lutheran and East Texas Baptist) with a home date with SAGU of the NAIA before hitting conference play.

[Pat Coleman]

It's an element of the play that was never brought up at the time. 

For what it's worth, this isn't true. I remember this being discussed.

[Pat Coleman]

There is one thing at the end of the game that did surprise me and it's easy to say I would do it different in hindsight.  Millsaps got the ball on the Trinity onside kick, there was about 2:07 on the clock, and Trinity was out of timeouts.  Millsaps put Burt Pereira in at quarterback and I thought they were going to go to an all out pass protection and just let Burt stay in the pocket and scramble to run time off the clock.  Instead they ran 4 fairly conventional running plays which allowed Trinity to get the ball back with 2 seconds on the clock.  I have to say that I had a really bad feeling when Trinity got their hands on the ball one last time, and give them credit for taking advantage of the opportunity.

In fact, you discussed it.

[frank_ezelle]

It doesn't surprise me that it was mentioned or that it was mentioned by me, but for those interested in reading though all the posts during the weeks following the game, I think they will find that it was a very minor part of the discussion for a very obvious reason.

For Millsaps fans, it would be hard to point out this failure to run out the clock without coming across as saying the coaching staff cost the team a trip to the NCAA Playoffs and an outright SCAC Championship.  I'm sure it took me quite a while to come up with the wording of my comment.  Notice that I didn't mention anything about the coaches calling timeout which saved a 5 yard penalty and kept at least one extra second on the clock--I'm sure that was kept out of my post intentionally. 

Also, this was the season when Millsaps lost the opening game by pulling all the starters in the 4th quarter of the MC game and never putting them back in.  Any comments of "we should have won by running out the clock" were going to sound weak after earlier in the season saying "we would have won if DuBose had kept the starters in the game".

From the Trinity side of the discussion, they sure weren't going to say that they were lucky to even get the ball back when Millsaps could have run out the clock.  That would be both a criticism of the Millsaps coaches, and it would take something away from the remarkable ending.  There was one story posted immediately after the game where Coach Mohr said he was surprised to get the ball back after failing to recover the kickoff.  After that one story, I never saw where he mentioned it again.  Nor should he have mentioned it again. 

All that being said, it wouldn't surprise me if the Millsaps players gained more in the way of a valuable life experience by losing that game instead of winning it.  I guess we may never know if that's true or not.

[33Belly]

Congratulations to Trey Haverty of Millsaps for getting the safeties job at TCU.  With a well networked staff like Millsaps, it will be hard to keep coaches.

[Ron Boerger]

Here's an article in the Trinity student paper regarding the university's interest in Alamo Stadium.  Some excerpts of interest:

"instead [of] pursuing a full-fledged partnership with the school district like SSE, Trinity's interests lie more in leasing or renting the stadium for home football games, according to Dennis Ahlburg, president of the university."

All they need to do is rattle around in a stadium that seats 20K+ ... but Ahlburg does say "[t]he stadium is way too big for college games. We have talked with the school district, and [AD] Bob King had seen some ways to make the stadium smaller for small crowds and larger for large crowds so they were interested in that."

Further:

Trinity's own football field will need renovating at some point, according to King.  King feels that if the stadium's renovations are a good fit, Trinity should move the football games over to Alamo Stadium and keep the university's football field as a practice field. In this way, renovations to Trinity's football field would not be immediately necessary.

"Unfortunately, it's dominated by economics. If we had a major donor come forward to renovate the football field and put their name on it, which is available," Ahlburg said. "But in this kind of environment, with so much economic uncertainty, we don't have $15 million, and if we did, there would be a lot of people suggesting things to spend it on."

So, basically, no EM Stevens stadium upgrades in the forseeable future, it would appear.    

[Bill McCabe]

Years ago Trinity did play at Alamo Stadium, to small crowds.  I wonder what SAISD is going to do with the renovation of the stadium.  The Spurs spokesman talked like they are really going to change the seating.

[Shoreman]

Any Details?

[theoldesttiger]

http://sewaneetigers.com/news/2011/2/11/FB_0211110500.aspx

Robert Black steps down as Head Coach at Sewanee.....

[onthemountain]

Coach Black is an outstanding individual and very happy that he will be staying with Sewanee in another capacity.  I am proud that my son had the opportunity to play for Coach and appreciate the many things Coach Black taught him both about football and life.

[Warren Thompson]

Years ago Trinity did play at Alamo Stadium, to small crowds.

Even in 1954 when they were undefeated, untied ... and uninvited  (the hoped-for Sun Bowl phone call never came).

[Tacttm1]

Congratulations to Trey Haverty of Millsaps for getting the safeties job at TCU.  With a well networked staff like Millsaps, it will be hard to keep coaches


Gee, we only had him for a year before he headed back.  Too bad most schools can't pay folks enough to get a few more seasons out of them, but that is the way of the world.

Best wishes to him for continued success.