GAME REPORT: Hawaii 38, SMU 31
Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2001 7:36 pmMistakes, Warriors keep SMU winless, 38-31
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The SMU football team and its fans had every reason to expect the Ponies to register their first victory of the year Saturday when the Mustangs hosted Hawaii at Ford Stadium. Kickoff was at 11 a.m. -- which translated to 6 a.m. for the Warriors, who had been in town less than 48 hours. In addition, the Warriors were without quarterback Timmy Chang, who led the nation in total offense prior to this weekend but missed the game with a wrist injury, and his replacement, Tim Rolovich, was playing with an injured finger on his throwing hand. On the other side of the ball, the Mustangs were rested after a week off and had played their best game of the season two weeks ago in a tough loss to heavily-favored North Carolina State, a game in which the Mustangs had unleashed its running game behind a suddenly potent offensive line.
But for the fourth time in four games, the Mustangs (0-4 overall, 0-2 against Western Athletic Conference opponents) found a way to fall short, dropping a 38-31 heartbreaker to the Warriors (2-2, 1-2) in overtime.
The game could be described like a Clint Eastwood movie - good, bad and ugly.
"Absolutely," SMU head coach said after the game when asked if it was the ugliest game the Ponies had played this year. "The mistakes we made .... if just keeps on happening, it just keeps going."
In the early stages of the game, it appeared the Ponies might stampede their travel-weary guests. Senior Jacob Crowley drilled a 37-yard field goal with 8:55 remaining in the first quarter to give SMU a 3-0 lead. Seven minutes later, SMU quarterback David Page -- starting ahead of Kelan Luker -- capped off a six-play, 60-yard drive when he scrambled to avoid the rush, stepped up into the pocket and found wide receiver Chris Cunningham in the left side of the end zone with a 21-yard touchdown pass.
Twice in the second period, Hawaii drove into scoring range, and twice UH placekicker Justin Ayat shanked field goals, missing badly from 53 yards and then from 37. But with 1:33 left in the half, Ayat connected from 21 yards out to put the Warriors on the board. But the teams swapped a pair of turnovers, and when SMU got the ball back, Page needed just two plays to help the Ponies capitalize, firing a quick pass to Cunningham, who slipped a couple of tackles and raced 35 yards for his second touchdown of the game.
In the second half, the Warriors came out and marched the length of the field on a scoring drive that culminated with a a 2-yard touchdown run by running back Thero Mitchell to make the score 17-10, SMU. Kris Briggs muffed the ensuing kickoff, and when he picked it up, he got smothered at the SMU 7. But the Mustangs needed just three plays. After a short run by Briggs and an incomplete pass, Page then fired a pass deep over the middle to wide receiver Johnnie Freeman, who outran the UH defense en route to a 90-yard touchdown, the longest score in the history of Ford Stadium and the second-longest in SMU history.
Again Hawaii sliced through the SMU defense, and just over a minute after Freeman's score Rolovich spotted a blown coverage in the SMU secondary and floated a 45-yard pass to a wide-open Uso Tafiti, who walked into the end zone to pull Hawaii back to within a touchdown, 24-17.
Hawaii snuffed out SMU's next drive, and rushed punter Adam Walterscheid, who already had had one punt blocked in the first half. They got to him again, and the blocked punt floated right into the waiting arms of Keith Bhonapha, who ran untouched for a 38-yard touchdown, tying the score and leaving the Mustangs and their fans in stunned silence.
"The mistakes we made on special teams can't happen. I can't fathom a punter dropping a ball when it's snapped right to him," Cavan said of Walterscheid's first blocked punt. "If it's high or low, that's understandable. But when it goes right to him -- we do that every day in practice. But I don't know what to do about it when it goes right to him like that. We're just going to keep coaching."
With the score tied, 24-24, the momentum clearly had swung toward the Warriors, who again got the ball and marched through the SMU defense on a drive that ended with Mitchell's second touchdown, this time on an 8-yard run.
"Sometimes it seems like luck is on the other side when you see something like that," Page said of Bhonapha's bizarre score, "but Jonas ran right into the wedge and took it for a touchdown. When you're losing, it may look like luck is against you. But we got some breaks our way, too."
The Mustangs didn't fold up. Rutledge fielded the ensuing kickoff at the SMU 8, ran into the wedge of blockers and would-be tacklers and somehow emerged from the other side, racing 92 yards for the touchdown. Crowley's extra point tied the score at 31.
The Warriors tried to avoid overtime, but in the waning second of regulation, Ayat missed his fourth field goal in five tries, sending the game into extra time.
In overtime, Hawaii got the ball first. On first down, an apparent short run by Rolovich was wiped out by a tripping call, a 15-yard penalty that pushed UH out of field goal range. But two plays later, Rolovich hit wideout Ashlie Lelie at the SMU 4. After losing two yards on a Mitchell run, Rolovich hit Tafiti with his second touchdown of the game.
When SMU got the ball back, Page threw to Billy Ford at the Hawaii 5-yard line. From there, SMU abandoned the run, throwing four times into the end zone, the last of which was just out of the reach of freshman wide receiver Jay Taylor, who was inserted into the game for the first time on the final play.
Page said he had no problem going to a freshman target who hadn't played all day for such a crucial play.
"Jay's a great football player," Page said. "He's a big guy and he has great jumping ability. We do that in practice all the time, where we throw high balls to him. I need to give him a better ball, and he makes that catch."
For the fourth time in four games, the Ponies were beaten in a game in which they made more mistakes than did their opponent. (SMU turned the ball over six times, to two for the Warriors.)
"If we knew the answer, we wouldn't be making these mistakes," said Rutledge, who also had a 53-yard interception return to go long with his touchdown on the kickoff return. "I don't think we're a bad team. We're a good football team that's made mistakes. But we're a good football team. We showed that last week (two weeks ago, against North Carolina State), and we showed that today. If we eliminate the mistakes, we're a good football team. We did the things we needed to do to win, but we also made enough mistakes to lose. It's been that way all season.
"Now you've got everybody looking for answers. This is tough to swallow. I don't think there are any answers, except to eliminate mistakes."
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The SMU football team and its fans had every reason to expect the Ponies to register their first victory of the year Saturday when the Mustangs hosted Hawaii at Ford Stadium. Kickoff was at 11 a.m. -- which translated to 6 a.m. for the Warriors, who had been in town less than 48 hours. In addition, the Warriors were without quarterback Timmy Chang, who led the nation in total offense prior to this weekend but missed the game with a wrist injury, and his replacement, Tim Rolovich, was playing with an injured finger on his throwing hand. On the other side of the ball, the Mustangs were rested after a week off and had played their best game of the season two weeks ago in a tough loss to heavily-favored North Carolina State, a game in which the Mustangs had unleashed its running game behind a suddenly potent offensive line.
But for the fourth time in four games, the Mustangs (0-4 overall, 0-2 against Western Athletic Conference opponents) found a way to fall short, dropping a 38-31 heartbreaker to the Warriors (2-2, 1-2) in overtime.
The game could be described like a Clint Eastwood movie - good, bad and ugly.
"Absolutely," SMU head coach said after the game when asked if it was the ugliest game the Ponies had played this year. "The mistakes we made .... if just keeps on happening, it just keeps going."
In the early stages of the game, it appeared the Ponies might stampede their travel-weary guests. Senior Jacob Crowley drilled a 37-yard field goal with 8:55 remaining in the first quarter to give SMU a 3-0 lead. Seven minutes later, SMU quarterback David Page -- starting ahead of Kelan Luker -- capped off a six-play, 60-yard drive when he scrambled to avoid the rush, stepped up into the pocket and found wide receiver Chris Cunningham in the left side of the end zone with a 21-yard touchdown pass.
Twice in the second period, Hawaii drove into scoring range, and twice UH placekicker Justin Ayat shanked field goals, missing badly from 53 yards and then from 37. But with 1:33 left in the half, Ayat connected from 21 yards out to put the Warriors on the board. But the teams swapped a pair of turnovers, and when SMU got the ball back, Page needed just two plays to help the Ponies capitalize, firing a quick pass to Cunningham, who slipped a couple of tackles and raced 35 yards for his second touchdown of the game.
In the second half, the Warriors came out and marched the length of the field on a scoring drive that culminated with a a 2-yard touchdown run by running back Thero Mitchell to make the score 17-10, SMU. Kris Briggs muffed the ensuing kickoff, and when he picked it up, he got smothered at the SMU 7. But the Mustangs needed just three plays. After a short run by Briggs and an incomplete pass, Page then fired a pass deep over the middle to wide receiver Johnnie Freeman, who outran the UH defense en route to a 90-yard touchdown, the longest score in the history of Ford Stadium and the second-longest in SMU history.
Again Hawaii sliced through the SMU defense, and just over a minute after Freeman's score Rolovich spotted a blown coverage in the SMU secondary and floated a 45-yard pass to a wide-open Uso Tafiti, who walked into the end zone to pull Hawaii back to within a touchdown, 24-17.
Hawaii snuffed out SMU's next drive, and rushed punter Adam Walterscheid, who already had had one punt blocked in the first half. They got to him again, and the blocked punt floated right into the waiting arms of Keith Bhonapha, who ran untouched for a 38-yard touchdown, tying the score and leaving the Mustangs and their fans in stunned silence.
"The mistakes we made on special teams can't happen. I can't fathom a punter dropping a ball when it's snapped right to him," Cavan said of Walterscheid's first blocked punt. "If it's high or low, that's understandable. But when it goes right to him -- we do that every day in practice. But I don't know what to do about it when it goes right to him like that. We're just going to keep coaching."
With the score tied, 24-24, the momentum clearly had swung toward the Warriors, who again got the ball and marched through the SMU defense on a drive that ended with Mitchell's second touchdown, this time on an 8-yard run.
"Sometimes it seems like luck is on the other side when you see something like that," Page said of Bhonapha's bizarre score, "but Jonas ran right into the wedge and took it for a touchdown. When you're losing, it may look like luck is against you. But we got some breaks our way, too."
The Mustangs didn't fold up. Rutledge fielded the ensuing kickoff at the SMU 8, ran into the wedge of blockers and would-be tacklers and somehow emerged from the other side, racing 92 yards for the touchdown. Crowley's extra point tied the score at 31.
The Warriors tried to avoid overtime, but in the waning second of regulation, Ayat missed his fourth field goal in five tries, sending the game into extra time.
In overtime, Hawaii got the ball first. On first down, an apparent short run by Rolovich was wiped out by a tripping call, a 15-yard penalty that pushed UH out of field goal range. But two plays later, Rolovich hit wideout Ashlie Lelie at the SMU 4. After losing two yards on a Mitchell run, Rolovich hit Tafiti with his second touchdown of the game.
When SMU got the ball back, Page threw to Billy Ford at the Hawaii 5-yard line. From there, SMU abandoned the run, throwing four times into the end zone, the last of which was just out of the reach of freshman wide receiver Jay Taylor, who was inserted into the game for the first time on the final play.
Page said he had no problem going to a freshman target who hadn't played all day for such a crucial play.
"Jay's a great football player," Page said. "He's a big guy and he has great jumping ability. We do that in practice all the time, where we throw high balls to him. I need to give him a better ball, and he makes that catch."
For the fourth time in four games, the Ponies were beaten in a game in which they made more mistakes than did their opponent. (SMU turned the ball over six times, to two for the Warriors.)
"If we knew the answer, we wouldn't be making these mistakes," said Rutledge, who also had a 53-yard interception return to go long with his touchdown on the kickoff return. "I don't think we're a bad team. We're a good football team that's made mistakes. But we're a good football team. We showed that last week (two weeks ago, against North Carolina State), and we showed that today. If we eliminate the mistakes, we're a good football team. We did the things we needed to do to win, but we also made enough mistakes to lose. It's been that way all season.
"Now you've got everybody looking for answers. This is tough to swallow. I don't think there are any answers, except to eliminate mistakes."