FB: Southern Athletic Association

[Cedricb313]

Not the "intent". 

[Ron Boerger]

Trinity gets a couple of brief mentions on this week's ATN Podcast - as an opponent to #10 Hardin-Simmons who are playing their first game of the season.  Plenty of other good general D3 infp as always.

It looks like it will be wet off and on today and tomorrow and Trinity has grass, so good luck to everyone involved.   Looks like they have reduced the estimated rainfall which would be good.

[D3Navy]

My first game seen live at Trinity in over 30 years and it was great!  Awesome crowd, beautiful evening and really good football by both sides.  HS has a serious running game, but TU big plays and the ability to force turnovers (although not always capitalize) kept them in it.  Looking forward to seeing many more games in San Antonio!

[BerryViking92]

I think Berry's relative youth showed more this weekend.  Special teams gaffes, etc.  Sometimes you gotta win ugly.  Going to have to execute better the next two weeks to keep winning.  Hats off to Lagrange, who seem to have found a talented quarterback.

Hats also off to Trinity for the aggressive scheduling and for really pushing a highly ranked team. Birmingham Southern's win over Huntington also quite impressive, as was Centre's beat down of Maryville. 

[Ron Boerger]

Was Hendrix QB Thompson injured against TLU, or just pulled after an ineffective first half (by his standards)?   Not sure why you'd stick with Doerr who was 6-16 for 20 yards, 16 of which came on one play.   

Happy to see Trinity do well against HSU, with whom they had some epic battles back in the day before UMHB sucked much of the oxygen out of D3 football in the state.   I think Coach Urban has them on track to compete in the SAA.

[BerryCollegeFan]

I think Berry's relative youth showed more this weekend.  Special teams gaffes, etc.  Sometimes you gotta win ugly.  Going to have to execute better the next two weeks to keep winning.  Hats off to Lagrange, who seem to have found a talented quarterback.

LaGrange's QB is definitely a player.  He made some excellent throws and was able to get outside the pocket when Berry collapsed the protection.  He made a few good runs on RPO as well.

Berry's youth is coming along, but still young.  Little brother #83 should have had a TD but couldn't hold onto the ball.  Hand strength wasn't there when the defender was tugging at the ball.  He'll learn...

Gotta give the coaches the fault for the converted fake punt.  After Berry didn't rush middle several times, there was no reason not to try for that inside shuffle pass.  LaGrange executed it perfectly.

I noticed another HB went down with a leg injury.  Hope they all get back soon.  That's a tough position, they need to know all the routes and the blocking schemes.  It'll be hard for another player to pick it up quickly if needed.

Again glad for the win. 

[BerryCollegeFan]

Hats also off to Trinity for the aggressive scheduling and for really pushing a highly ranked team. Birmingham Southern's win over Huntington also quite impressive, as was Centre's beat down of Maryville.

That was a good showing from Trinity. 

Agree on the nice wins for BSC and Centre.  Millsaps won as well.  I thought Hendrix might do better. 

And truthfully Sewanee didn't play extremely bad either,  I think they wore down with little depth.

[jknezek]

And truthfully Sewanee didn't play extremely bad either,  I think they wore down with little depth.

While the end result was not that different from usual, I did think Sewanee looked better this year. The QB has a good arm, he needs a bit more touch on his passes. He was high a bunch of times, but even when he wasn't, the ball seemed to arrive with a lot more pace than necessary or more than his guys were ready for. He did make a few nice plays where he was absolutely sunk, 2 defenders hanging off him, and he hung in the pocket and got either short shuffle passes or dumps off for decent gains when it should have been a sack, so I like how he kept his eyes downfield and didn't panic.

The lines really seem to be the weakness. Especially as the game wore on, W&L got more pressure defensively and opened more holes or sealed off corners offensively. Some of that looked like good halftime adjustments by the Generals, some of it looked like a worn out Sewanee team.

Regardless though, the Tigers seem to be moving the right direction. We will see if they can become more competitive over the next couple years.

[Ron Boerger]

Trinity gets another shout-out in this week's ATN podcast, with nice sentiments from both Pat and Keith on wanting to see the program return to at least some of the success it once had.   Thanks, guys.   

I think the SAA is a fine conference and a good place for what the Texas Tigers are trying to become. 

[awadelewis]

Regardless though, the Tigers seem to be moving the right direction. We will see if they can become more competitive over the next couple years.

You can see a big difference on the conditioning side from this Sewanee team vs. the past few years.   The comment was made on the live stream of our "Coffee with the Coach" event earlier today that only 4 kids passed the conditioning test that Coach Rundle put the team through last year.    This year only four failed the same test at the start of the season.  We also have improved a bit in the DB positions over last year... didn't see any of that letting W&L beat you on their passing (yes... passing  ) that we experienced in the past two games with W&L.

Darras is doing better at the QB position than what we had last year with him sharing time with Hearn.  I do think he wants to hold onto the ball too long at times and, like you say, needs to work on his touch.

[jknezek]

Regardless though, the Tigers seem to be moving the right direction. We will see if they can become more competitive over the next couple years.

You can see a big difference on the conditioning side from this Sewanee team vs. the past few years.   The comment was made on the live stream of our "Coffee with the Coach" event earlier today that only 4 kids passed the conditioning test that Coach Rundle put the team through last year.    This year only four failed the same test at the start of the season.  We also have improved a bit in the DB positions over last year... didn't see any of that letting W&L beat you on their passing (yes... passing  ) that we experienced in the past two games with W&L.

Darras is doing better at the QB position than what we had last year with him sharing time with Hearn.  I do think he wants to hold onto the ball too long at times and, like you say, needs to work on his touch.

Well... we did go 2-3 passing for 99 yards including a 62 yard td. We don't do it often, but we do catch people napping. Poor Montgomery Owen was 1 yard from being the first 100 yard W&L receiver since... W&L played Sewanee in 2016 and Witt Hawkins went over 100 yards. So close.

[Ron Boerger]

TLU02SA answered my question re Hendrix QB Thompson on the ASC board:  he was injured.   More info at https://www.thecabin.net/sports/20180910/hendrix-loses-thompson-game-against-tlu

[Ron Boerger]

SAA conference play gets underway this week:

Berry @ Rhodes   2:00 PM   
Austin @ Sewanee 2:00 PM   
Millsaps @ Trinity (Tex.)  2:00 PM   
Centre @ Hendrix 3:00 PM   

Berry - Rhodes should be an interesting match of undefeated teams; the Lynx have been impressive and last week's 43-19 road win over a RHIT squad that went 8-2 last year was an eye opener.  Berry in a tight one but could go either way.

Austin has struggled to field a competitive team for years and after an 0-2 start faces a Sewanee (1-1) team in the third of a four game homestand.   I'll go with the Mountain Men on this one.

Millsaps and Trinity - Majors (2-0) always turn it up a notch for Trinity (1-1) dating back to the days when they took turns at the top of the SCAC.   Despite being dominated on the stat chart, Tigers stayed close to (now) #8 Hardin-Simmons before yielding a back-breaking TD late in the fourth quarter.  Has been raining for days in San Antonio and projected to do so the rest of the week - and the grass was probably torn up some last week by HSU's ground game.   Pick 'em. 

Centre and Hendrix face off in a very early matchup that could have a lot to say about the eventual SAA champion.  Colonels have looked good against two teams that have yet to win a game, while Hendrix unexpectedly lost at home to a good TLU side last week.   The injury to Miles Thompson looms large in this one.   Take Hendrix if Thompson can play, otherwise Centre.

[BerryViking92]

It seems the experts don't like our chances at Rhodes tomorrow.  Come on Vikings, prove them wrong.

[Ron Boerger]

Trinity loses a defensive struggle to Millsaps on the last play of the game, 10-7.   Looked like the game would likely go into OT as neither team could move the ball in the 4th (or third, really) but the Tigers fumbled inside their own 30 with less than three minutes to go and the Majors were able to get the ball inside the 10 before kicking the game winning 25-yard FG as time expired. 

I wasn't able to watch the game (grading papers, yay) but imagine the field conditions were pretty sloppy after a week's worth of rain in San Antonio.   Neither team managed 250 yards of offense (Millsaps, 242 to Trinity's 203).