Daily Campus

[50's PONY]

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This story was printed from smudailycampus.com.
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Trent Redden
Battle in Houston
The Red Zone


By Trent Redden
Junior finance and public policy major
October 08, 2004


The Mustangs continue WAC play on the road in Houston against the Rice Owls who are still winded from the barnburner they had last weekend in San Jose. In the highest scoring regulation game in NCAA history the Owls (2-2) lost 70-63 to the Spartans. SMU (1-4) comes off a decent performance at nationally ranked Boise St. as the Mustangs took an early lead and generally held their own in a 38-20 loss. The winner will move to 2-1 in conference and in the race for a top tier league finish.



Key Match-Up

Rice’s Triple Option vs. SMU’s Rush Defense

Rice’s offense has four options: run left, run right, run middle and option pass. SMU remembers the passing part as Rice threw for the second most yards in Coach Ken Hatfield’s 26-year head coaching career, but that is not what the Owls want to do. Rice wants to keep the ball on the ground and every once in a while take advantage of a defense cheating nine men to the run. Last week, Rice ran for 570 yards on 85 carries which is 6.7 yards per carry in the losing effort to the Spartans.

On the year the Owls have only thrown for 202 yards between Greg Henderson and Joel Armstrong. The duo do have 554 yards on the ground which is just a little less then running back combo of Ed Bailey and Marcus Rucker who have combined for 599 yards. Rice loves the option to the left side behind a line led by LT Scott Mayhew and LG Greg Wilson who astounded Coach Hatfield with their performance last week. “Those two guys played 111 snaps last week,” Hatfield says, “The pros snap it about 54 times, so that was like two games.”

The key to stopping the option will probably center around the speedy linebacker crew of the Mustangs. The Rice lineman will throw low cut blocks on the defensive line to allow the option to get out wide. This means the SMU linebackers must flow to the ball and make plays, something Coach Bennett saw Don Stansbury and Rico Harris do last weekend. “Don Stansbury has been very pleasing out there,” Bennett stated, “and Rico stepped up and made some really good things happen in a very physical game.” The two juniors combined for 14 tackles against the Broncos and they are joined by freshman Wilton McCray at the starting linebacker spots.

If Stansbury, Harris and McCray can just limit the option attack and force Rice into third and long situations the Mustangs will be in a position to bring the Mayor’c Cup to Dallas.



X-Factors

Rice’s Terry Holley

The Senior Rover is a key to Rice’s 4-2-5 alignment as one play he may be stuffing the run, the next dropping in pass coverage, and the next coming [deleted] a blitz. Holly is third on the team in tackles and first on the team in interceptions with two on the year. The three year letterman from Oklahoma City is also a fixture in the opponent’s backfield as he is second on the Owls in tackles for loss and also has two and a half sacks to his name.

The Mustangs must account for Holly at all times and it starts with the quarterbacks. In passing situations they must read Holly’s blitz or drop into a zone and on running plays the Mustangs must put a block on him or he will blow-up a play. If the Mustangs fail to locate Holly he will make the type of momentum changing plays that the Mustangs have been trying to eliminate.



SMU’s Ryan Kennedy

The second leading receiver on the SMU team is the sophomore giant from Beeville, TX. Kennedy came up with a huge touchdown against the Broncos that caught the eye of Coach Bennett. “Ryan got hit by their safety at the five and would not be deterred from the end zone,” Coach Bennett proudly boasted. The 6-5, 260-pounder had been known for his run-blocking but this season has allowed him to show off his soft hands. Kennedy’s caught ten passes and is slowly becoming something of a security blanket for the quarterbacks.

If Kennedy continues to drag people into the end zone and opens up holes for the running backs the Mustangs will be tough to beat.



Inside the Owls

Downright Wacky

Pardon the Owls for wanting a bye this week, they basically played two games last weekend. Upon seeing the tape of the Owls 70-63 loss to the Spartans an amused Coach Bennett laughed that it was “the wackiest game I’ve ever seen.” How crazy? Lets start with the fact the 133 points is the most ever in a Division I regulation contest, and just one point off the amount scored by Arkansas and Kentucky in seven overtimes for the any game record. Rice found a way to blow an early 27-point lead and a 14-point lead with under eight minutes to go. Rice ran for the aforementioned 570 yards while San Jose St.’s Dale Rodgers, who was the third string quarterback when the game started, threw for 359 yards and five touchdowns on only ten completions.

The wackiness finally ended with the Spartans scoring two touchdowns in 23 seconds including an interception return for a touchdown by safety Brian Nunez. Coach Hatfield commented that “I was looking at our offense and I was wondering when all of them were going to pass out.” Rice hopes to recover with some home cooking this weekend, the only home game they have in a streak of five of six on the road. If the Rice offense rolls up 500 plus yards on the Mustangs don’t expect them to leave the stadium with a loss again.



Inside the Mustangs

Turning the Tide

The SMU Mustangs last week did something, despite the loss to the Broncos, that they haven’t done all season, they won the turnover battle. For the first time all year the Mustangs forced the other team to lose the football as Alvin Nnabuife and Charles Akinyemi both picked off Bronco passes. Nnabuiife’s takeaway started the game out with a bang as he returned his interception 53-yards for a touchdown to give the Mustangs an early lead. Jamey Harper also made two pass breakups including one that he let slip threw his hands after he made a great play in anticipating the pattern.

Bennett recently has been encouraging his defensive backs to do just what Harper did and use their instincts and knowledge from game film to jump routes. With the SMU linebackers blitzing more often opposing receivers have been checking out of the called play to their blitz read pattern. The Mustang coaching staff breaks most of these plays down as well and the hope is the secondary starts doing a better job of anticipating the receivers check down.

Although Rice doesn’t throw the ball often the defensive backs must support the run while still watching the deep pass over the top. Last season the Owls went deep for three touchdowns after catching the Mustangs leaning towards the run. Watch for the Mustang secondary to be big run supporters all day Saturday as corners and safeties are four of the five top tacklers on the squad.



Invading the Nest

The Mustangs, who lead the overall series with the Owls 44-36-1, make the trip down to Houston for a 7 p.m. kick off Saturday night.





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[Lefty]

There's more to that story - the full story is linked up on the PonyFans.com homepage.

Pretty good breakdown by Trent Redden, but that paper needs an editor (sorry - I married an English teacher).

Like Trent says, Ryan Kennedy is going to get better and better and better. I see All-WAC in his future, if not a lot more.

[KnuckleStang]

I'd like to see lots of two-TE power sets in coming years with Kennedy and Chase. It wasn't a bad look for UVA last night, with Heath Miller on one side and, I think his name is Estes on the other.