San Antonio MacArthur vs San Antonoio Marshall

[Gridiron Gopher]

MacArthur 19
Marshall 14

Week zero games. Man they can look great and then they can look like they just learned how to play the game (I'm talking about the coaches and refs..........just kidding :) ).

Both teams played hard and both make their share of mistakes. Mac's defense pretty much controled the game tonight keeping Marshall in check until the 4th quarter. On offense Mac was able to move the ball at will but was also able to cause the little yellow flag to come out too. Way to many times!!!!! Add in the fact that the stud RB (no names here) loves to lose 8 yds per carry and then gain 25 on another you can see why we have to love week 0 games.
Overall Mac played a very good game defensively. Offensively Mac was inside Marshall's 30 five other times only to get nothing due to negative runs (one for -14 and another for -12) and penalties shows that there is a lot of work left.
Marshall's last TD came against the 2nd team for Mac as time ran out on a 65 yd catch and run play.
Not sure if Mac is that much better or if Marshall was not as good as thought of?
Good win for Mac! Something to improve on.

[Reaganrattler07]

Lol, I was gonna stay up for this to see how it actually went but since I came down with that cold I just went to bed...I heard it was a pretty ugly game though.

[Gridiron Gopher]

Defensively no. Very solid game for Mac. On offense yes. Craig will look like a hero in the paper but it doesn't say anything about the 3 drives he killed with 10+ negative runs. He's a great athlete but just doesn't won't to run between the tackles unless we're inside the 5yd line. If he would do that and take the 3 and 4yd gains this offense would be awesome.

[Reaganrattler07]

Defensively no. Very solid game for Mac. On offense yes. Craig will look like a hero in the paper but it doesn't say anything about the 3 drives he killed with 10+ negative runs. He's a great athlete but just doesn't won't to run between the tackles unless we're inside the 5yd line. If he would do that and take the 3 and 4yd gains this offense would be awesome.

Did you all kick a lot of field goals or were you just missing extra points like crazy?

[robino2001]

Did you all kick a lot of field goals or were you just missing extra points like crazy?

1st EP was wide left, 2nd TD - went for 2 and was sacked (I believe)....3rd td, converted the EP.

I think I'll be seeing a few of the Marshall games this year (though I'd rather be at Rocket Stadium)..... I saw nothing in them at impressed me at all. Escamilla is supposed to be more mature and ready to lead a team this year, but he showed me very little, nothing different from last year. From what I understand, he's not the smartest on his feet (on or off the field), and it shows with many passes ill-advised passes, or more often than not, dropping back and letting it rip as far downfield as he could, only to outthrow his wideouts by 10-15 yards. The coaching reminded me of Judson coaching, circa 95-01....dive left, dive right, draw play until you score or punt. It's about all they showed in the first half, and went into the locker room down 12-0. The staff let Escamilla open it up a little in the second half due to being behind - which opened up the running game a little more naturally. Living in north austin/centex now, I don't know much of 28-5 this year other than what I've read, but I know Marshall would be maybe 7th in 26-5.... I guess that could translate to sneaking in the playoffs in 28-5.

Mac on the other hand - pretty decent team. Better than I expected. I don't know any of the names for Mac, but their QB had a fantastic arm. Not necessarily powerful, but accurate. He hit 4 or 5 wideouts over the top in stride burning the Marshall dbs. Conversely, the wideouts appeared to be slow because the Marshall db's were able to track them down relatively easily - they seemed to lack breakaway speed.

The RB for Mac was impressive, but it was like he's afraid to get hit. Is he a junior by chance? The first poster was very correct on the negative runs. Growing up watching Judson football - if you run outside and can't beat the D to the corner, you take them on and try to run through them. This kid for Mac would stop, reverse field, and go backwards to avoid contact. You can't have an RB anymore afraid to initiate contact. This didn't kill Mac so much last night, but it will in 26-5 when they count.

So a 19-14 final score shoulda been more like 33-7. In the short field, the Marshall D was often able to make a stand, but with room to burn the secondary, Mac was able to drive pretty easily all night. I was surprised the game went into the half only at 12-0.... Mac coulda had 4 or 5 scores by that point.

[Mac Is Back]

Was this your 501st post, Gopher?