November 2010 Archives

IUP finally broke the streak. It finally gave Head Coach Lou Tepper his 100th career win. The defeated Lock Haven 63-31. Harvie Tuck and Terrell Washington stood out from the rest with Washington winning PSAC West Defensive Player of the Week with his performance. IUP seems well with IUP. The Crimson Hawks are 5-5 and will have on more week to avoid a second consecutive losing season.

Wait a minute.

Lock Haven scored how much?

Lock Haven scored 31 points?

Really?

No. They couldn't have. They did?

You mean to tell me that the Bald Eagles scored 31 points. They averaged 10 points per game into the IUP game. Oh, I know how, IUP's secondary that's how.

IUP did a lot of things right against Lock Haven. It gained 278 yards and forced LHU into four turnovers.

What it did wrong was allow a team that hasn't won a game since November of 2007, and is statistically the worst offense in the conference to score 31 points.

I must give Lock Haven credit, however. The Bald Eagles didn't even compete against IUP last season and showed marginal improvement this season. They played as hard as they could and never stopped playing until the clock read triple zeros. Lock Haven actually looked like a football this year as to usually looking like a bunch of guys who just so happen to have helmet and shoulder pads on. Lock Haven's only problem was that it was overmatched.

Usually a game that ends with a score of 63-31 it is more of indictment of how bad the losing team is, but in this case it is indictment of how much IUP has to work on. Although Lock Haven has improved, it should be good enough to score 31 points against anyone.

Even when IUP wins, it still finds way to lose. The Hawks should be happy about the win as they haven't had much to be happy about since they played Slippery Rock, but they should take a long look at themselves. Soul searching if you will because if Lock Haven scored 10 points, it would have been something of note, but it scored triple that amount.

The secondary was beat on numerous occasions where the Bald Eagles just caught them napping.

The last hope of IUP avoiding back-to-back losing season for the first time since that faithful 1982 season is next week when it hosts West Chester. I can almost promise West Chester is better than Lock Haven.

Needless to say, IUP has a lot of work to do.

All indications were that IUP to be dismantled by Cal U before its game last week. That didn't happen. As I watched the game, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. For one, Cal U's stadium is beautiful to look at. I

 just couldn't believe how good it looked, but I digress. Then, IUP was actually competetive. Not only were it competetive, it was soundly beating the Vulcans in literally every facet of the game. The Crimson Hawks were beating the Vulcans on offense, defense, special teams, turnovers, penalites and even coaching.

For the first time all season, IUP was outcoaching the opposition. IUP used an offesnive touchdown, a blcoked punt for a touchdown, a sack in the end zone for a safety to make Cal U seem disinterested and confused. The Hawks were up 15-0 midway through the third and it seemed as though we had a mammoth upset on our hands. Then something happened. The Crimson Hawks simply let up.

Against Edinboro, IUP got up 15-0. Instead of trying to score one more touchdown to put the game away, IUP chose to run the clock out and hope for the best. Since the running game was running on all possible cylinders, it worked.

The only problem with that plan against Cal U is that, the Vulcans are a much better team the Fighting Scots. Just as they were capable of doing, the Vulcans cameback and won in overtime 18-15. It wasn't as if IUP tried time after time to put them away and the Cal U defense just prevented that.

The Crimson Hawks stopped playing the Vulcans and started playing against the clock. Cal U was shocked that it gave IUP a win and it seemed it didn't want it, so Cal U said that they'll gladly take it back and they did.

I've said this a million times since this game: IUP had Cal U dead to rights.

They were done.

Finished.

They didn't even want to be there. The coaches at IUP, however, once again put their players in a position they couldn't.

That's not the fault of the players, that's the fault of the coaches.

The players didn't make the decision to let up, they continued to play hard.

That was the decision of the coaches.

I'm no genius, but even I knew that plan was not going to work and if you're going to lose to someone, you lose guns blazing, not at the mercy of the clock or the inevitable comeback. If IUP scored one more point touchdown or kicked one more field goal, it would have won the game. No doubt in my mind.

But the coaches and their impeccable wisdom seemed to think that a 15-point lead against one of the best teams in the nation with a quarter and a half to go is enough to win. But what do I know? .