Sunday, October 7, 2012

Missed Calls + Miscues =MIssed Win
Ferrum falls 38-31 to CNU

I had to go back and re watch this one before writing this article. It was one of those typical Ferrum vs. CNU games. Lots of hard hitting, with big plays. The Panthers played a solid game in most respects, but turnovers continued to plague the Panthers as they lost two fumbles that both resulted in CNU touchdowns.
Ferrum also gave up three passing touchdowns....not good considering that the quarterback, who is typically a running back for the Captains, and had never played that position in his college career, only threw 6 passes.

Ferrum fell behind early, and was down 14-0 before Scott Puschell hit a 22 yard field goal on the first play of the second quarter, making the score 14-3. CNU answered with a 40 yard field goal later in the quarter, making the score 17-3. Ferrum did not give up, and came back with touchdown runs from Tim Reynolds, and Tyler Brubaker, and Ferrum was able to force a 17-17 tie in the second quarter. Before the half however, CNU posted two more touchdowns, and took a 31- 17 lead into halftime.

In looking back at the first half, Ferrum fell behind, but came back This has been a trademark of this Panther team...they do not give up. Other things that stand out, was that Ferrum had better time of possession numbers in the first half. CNU is not the type of team that you can make mistakes against. Two fumbles in the half led to points for CNU.
While the third quarter was scoreless for both teams, Ferrum struggled to stop the Captains as they seemed to dominate time of possession in the second half. CNU scored their last touchdown at 10:50 left in the game. From this point, it seemed that Ferrum, down by three touchdowns, might throw in the towel. They did not...not even close. The Panthers were able to put two more scoring drives together, and draw within 7. leading to the final score of 38-31.

Some observations

Officials are not perfect, but there were some calls that left me scratching my head. I would not want their job, but there were 5 penalties against Ferrum, that I just did not understand. Not in any particular order,..

1 Late hit by Ferrum defense on CNU player out of bounds. After watching the replay, it was the CNU player that initiated the contact on the Ferrum defender. Even the CNU announcers said "Ferrum got a raw deal on that call"

2 On a touch back on a kickoff, Ferrum was flagged after the ball was handed back to the official. Do not know what that penalty was for.

3 A face mask call in the second half against Ferrum...I could not see the penalty...may have happened, but it seemed like the announcers on the Internet broadcast would have indicated who committed the infraction...they did not.

4 Touchdown called back on a Tim Reynolds run, late in the game.

5 Kickoff that was ruled to have gone out of bounds, but after watching the replay, IT DID NOT GO OUT OF BOUNDS!

In the end, Ferrum played a good game, but they were only moderately effective on defense. You cannot give up 448 yards of offense, and 38 points, and expect to win....not very often anyway.  Ferrum has to lastly figure a way to increase the takeaways, and decrease the giveaways.

A frustrating loss, but the team is very strong. Should be more wins in the future

Go Panthers!

10 comments:

  1. Allen I agree with your assessment of the officiating, But on the touchback unsportsmanlike penalty go back and watch it again after the player gives the ball to the official he can be seen giving the fans in the endzone stands the ol'one finger wave. I saw it live and said if Coach Harper saw that that young man is gonna get an earful. that was just stupid on that player.

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  2. Football games are played against opposite teams. Coaches do not coach there teams to beat officals.in this game it would seem that ferrum played the poorly officiated game and cnu. Maybe they will meet again on netural ground. I even think ferrum is the better team they are just over thinking the game instead of just playing some hard mean football. Stop playing soft and you can beat this team but it will not be given to you .tackling needs to be better plays need to be finished .stop arguing on the sidelines. You may get another chance at these guys again this year

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  3. Jeff,

    You are correct- I did not catch that. That is inexcusable, and definitly flies in the face of what Coach Harper is trying to build. That is a shame that this happened.

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  4. I certainly did find some of the ref calls questionable, but as far as these two schools meeting again, it is highly unlikely. The USA South usually ony gets one representative to the playoffs. It did send two one time, but that is really rare. For Ferrum to get to the playoffs now, CNU has to lose twice, and Ferrum must not lose again.

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  5. If terrible call on kickoff had not been made, CNU would have ball around 2 yd line with lots of time left for defense to get ball back. CNU would have been very conservative with play calling in this area which would lead to great field position giving Ferrum opportunity to tie game late. This was by far the worst call of the game!!!

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  6. Pains me to say this as a former player:
    -Every Ferrum player had hands on the hips and tired almost from the beginning of the game. This should not be the case the 5th game of the season
    - No sense of urgency on offense and defense
    - Offense and Defense both look sloppy getting set before each play
    - 9 minutes to go in the game and down by 14- offense taking sweet old time getting plays off- especially to call a routine run play
    - Defense once again gives up too many points in a big game. I can't help but think it's the defensive coordinator or scheme they are running- it's not working and don't measure it by the scrub teams success
    - If this is the best your defense has got in the big games- go back to the option and at least win the time of possession battle to keep the other team off the field
    - The one thing Ferrum has is speed- use it
    - 35k and school in the middle of nowhere- no easy solution i'm afraid

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  7. I just watched the film and the ball on the kickoff did not appear to go out of bounds. This "bad" call could potenitally be the difference in the game. CNU would have gotten ball at 2 yd line and play calling would have been conservative at best.(could not afford any mistake in this area of the field) This would potentially resulted in EXCELLENT field position for Ferrum. This was potentially a game changing call. USA South has to at least reprimand this official. Mistakes such as these cannot be tolerated by the league.

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  8. I agree that it appears that the ball stayed in on the kickoff, but I do not expecy any action on the part of the USA South. That may happen if this were a case where the offical misapplied a rule, or assessed a penalty incorrectly, but this was not the case. Unfortunalty, this was a judgement call, and in the ref's judgement, the ball touched the sideline. I doubt the conference will get involved.

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  9. All I read are excuses for a ferrum team that couldn't get the job done!!! It is one thing to lose but now you ferrum backers are making excuses for them? Its very sad to think that CNU did win and Ferrum Lost deal with it!!!

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  10. Ferrum did lose...and I picked them to lose so I was not shocked at the outcome. I am not sure what you are refering to as excuses...I think there were questions raised about certain calls. There were 2 that I feel were wrong, and there is always the tendancy to ask what if...Those calls were not why Ferrum lost, and you have to give CNU credit, but Ferrum is building a strong program. It will take some time, but Ferrum is headed in the right direction.

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