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BAILEY'S TAKE
ON PIRATE SPORTS
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From the Anchor Desk
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
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By Brian Bailey |
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What a difference a kick
makes!
By
Brian Bailey
©2007 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.
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The old adage goes that it’s
better to be lucky then good. I thought the Pirates were a little bit of
both in the 37-35 win over Houston.
There is another thought that
good teams make their own luck. That may have been the case Saturday night.
Houston missed not one, but
two chip shots late in the game. In a game that featured a plethora of big
plays, two missed kicks stand out as the two biggest of the game.
That’s really unfortunate,
because the Pirates had several heroes in the win. They start with Chris
Johnson, who showed that he can run north and south with an attitude. C.J.
ran as hard as we’ve seen him run, going for 147 yards and two touchdowns.
Rob Kass also played big
against the Cougars. Kass was 6-12 for 110 yards and a touchdown. He brought
a spark to the Pirates' offense in the second half, and he certainly earned
a longer look as far as playing time goes this week.
Some would call it a
quarterback controversy. Pirate coach Skip Holtz calls it something quite
different.
“I call it quarterback depth,”
said Holtz at Monday’s weekly press gathering. “We’ve got two guys who move
the chains in different ways and I think we have to utilize both of them.
Patrick (Pinkney) did an awful lot of good things in the first half but we
still felt like we needed to make a change. Rob has waited patiently for his
chance over the last couple of weeks and when he got his chance he certainly
took advantage of it.”
So the Pirates conclude this
brutal month of September with a most respectable mark of 2-3.
Next up is Central Florida,
and the Golden Knights feature a whole new set of problems, led by Doak
Walker candidate Kevin Smith.
Smith ran 80 yards for a
touchdown in his first carry of the season in Raleigh against North Carolina
State. He ran for 217 yards and two touchdowns against the Wolfpack.
He followed that up with 149
yards and two touchdowns against No. 7 Texas. Just last week he went for 223
yards in a win over Louisiana-Lafayette.
Smith leads the nation in
yards per game and rushing touchdowns. He’s also third in the nation in
total rushing yards with 713 through four games.
“They’re getting the football
into a great player's hands,” said Holtz. “They are giving it to him up the
middle, on a sprint, on a toss sweep. He’s really good and he’ll make for a
tremendous challenge this week. They’ve got a tremendous offensive line.
They played a lot of young kids before, and they’re playing well now with
that experience.”
September is in the books, but
October’s first challenge may say even more about the Conference USA East
Division’s winner.
The Pirates can’t afford to
fall behind both Southern Miss and UCF. An East Carolina win vaults the
Pirates back into the race for the East Division title.
What a difference a kick does
make, for sure!
BB
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04/21/2008 07:08:04 PM |
