Cowboys buck last year's trend
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That was the prevailing sentiment for Hardin-Simmons on Saturday night after the Cowboys rallied from a 21-0 deficit to defeat UW-La Crosse 24-23.
It’s a win Hardin-Simmons has to hope sets a better tone for 2008. Last season the Cowboys gave up 662 yards at home to La Crosse, losing 47-21. Hardin-Simmons went on to finish 6-4, allowing 520.9 yards per game, dead last among the 231 Division III teams ranked statistically by the NCAA.
So the Cowboys overhauled the defense. They hired not just one, but two former Division III head coaches to serve as co-coordinators on that side of the ball, Jay Niemann (Simpson) and Steve Barrows (Anderson). The personnel remained almost entirely the same but the scheme changed. And with it, was hoped, the attitude would change as well.
The attitude? That will have to be judged by someone else. But the numbers don’t lie. The Cowboys gave up a far more reasonable 303 yards of total offense and created four turnovers in allowing 21 points (the Eagles’ final two came on a safety).
And the momentum is on Hardin-Simmons’ side heading into this week’s game against Linfield, thanks to a goal-line stand with 3:49 remaining as UW-La Crosse was going for it on fourth-and-goal from the 2. Eric Donoval, who had rushed for 162 yards on 20 carries to that point, was wrapped up a yard short of the end zone. Shelton Rainey and Ricky Poe were credited with the stop, but everyone kept pointing toward cornerback Richard Carlisle as the man to talk to.
“It wasn’t me by myself, it was a couple of us on defense, me and our defensive end, defensive tackle. I can’t take all the credit for that,” said Carlisle, who was credited with four tackles and a pass broken up on the night. It was a team effort, but so was the entire comeback.
In fact, the comeback plays into a scenario that longtime head coach Jimmie Keeling reminds his players of every day in practice. “He has a little routine that he goes through,” said quarterback Justin Feaster, “and he tells us, ‘if we’re up 21 or down 21 always play hard. If you’re down seven or 14, you play hard.’ We got down by 21 in the third quarter and we did nothing less than play hard. We showed a lot of character and went through a lot of adversity.”
Hardin-Simmons had two chances to get on the board first in the first quarter. The Cowboys went on a 13-play drive that consumed more than seven minutes before Matt Fields’ 25-yard field goal was blocked. HSU got the ball back shortly thereafter on an interception by Antonio McKnight and Fields was wide right on a 36-yard attempt.
“We had a few things happen to us early, where it didn’t have to be the way it was,” Keeling said. “It could’ve been different if we hadn’t made some of the mistakes we did.”
That’s when the Donoval show began, and it didn’t end until the fourth-quarter stand. But if one play could set the tone for a season, that might have been the one.
“It feels good to get the monkey off our back,” Carlisle said. “We’ve got a new defense, got new defensive coaches, we’re a whole new defense this year.“
“That goal-line stand was probably the biggest play of the game,” said Michael Tracy, who contributed a fourth-quarter interception to the highlight reel. “We just kept playing hard just like Coach Keeling always tells us.”
Niemann, who said the defense may change some more because the defensive line is banged up, said the base defense is different in 2008, but that was just part of the changes: “We changed some things schematically compared to what they had done a year ago and we kind of just wanted to get a fresh start with the whole group, as of last spring when we began spring practice. ... I think it all started back in March, to be honest with you.”
It’s clear Keeling’s 150th career win will be a memorable one. His players beat him to the postgame huddle and surprised him by awarding him the game ball. “We’re trying hard to be one of the better teams in D-III football,” Keeling said. “We’ve gotta beat people like this in order to do it, and do it next week too.”
What will be the Tigers’ tale?
It was interesting to get an up-close look at East Texas Baptist this past weekend and wonder how that team will stack up with the rest of the American Southwest Conference. The Tigers were fast and athletic and can certainly give some teams fits. What’s up in the air is how good this St. John’s team was they faced on Saturday (a 29-15 loss). St. John’s used three quarterbacks in an attempt to find their future starter.
The Tigers never generated much of a ground game. One of the three scoring drives was kept alive by a St. John’s roughing the punter penalty. Tight end Nick Peoples is going to be a load for anyone to bring down. But while there is talent there, I don’t think we’ll know whether ETBU is for real until the game at Hardin-Simmons on Oct. 11.
Picking up the SLIAC
The two former independents that joined the SLIAC as football-only members this year, Huntingdon and LaGrange, went 2-0 the opening week. The other six went 0-6 and lost by an average of 22 points.
Notes
Last year Hardin-Simmons played rotating quarterbacks through the first two games and ended up losing them both. This week they played five running backs in their season opener before perhaps settling on Josh Stephens. “Stephens made a great play and he stepped up in the third quarter and established himself as a No. 1 or No. 2 guy,” Feaster said. “It gave our offense a lot of momentum and our offensive line picked up.” Hats off to LaGrange for picking up its first-ever win in dramatic fashion, scoring twice in the fourth quarter to knock off Birmingham-Southern 34-31. Drew Carter led the Panthers on a 10-play, 73-yard drive that was capped off with a touchdown pass to Devin Billings and a two-point conversion with 23 seconds left. Mississippi College needs its young receiving corps to grow up a little faster after the Choctaws were routed 42-6 by Millsaps in Saturday's Backyard Brawl. Adam Shaffer had to throw 53 passes just to get the 208 passing yards Mississippi College ended up with. His counterpart, Millsaps' Juan Joseph, was 21-for-30 for 266 yards. It could be a long season for Principia, ranked No. 239 in our preseason ranking for Kickoff 2008. The Panthers started camp with 30 players and lost to No. 234 Lewis and Clark 43-7 at home on Saturday. But better that than a short season. With such a low number of players, one wonder if Principia will make it to its Nov. 1 road trip to Huntingdon.