Rocky Tops Odds and Ends

A last few items to catch up on the Vols game.

First, Matt Johnson had 424 yards passing, which is a career high.  For that, he was awarded the MAC East offensive player of the week.

I give Coach Babers huge props for one call in the 2nd Q.  BG was 4th and 3 from its own 13.  Honestly, the way things were going, it didn't matter if BG punted, because the Vols had been returning punts deep in BG territory anyway.  This is a situation where the book is wrong.  The best chance BG had of preventing a score was to make a first down.  Whether intentionally or not, BG made it look like it was a ruse by running the clock down and then took advantage with a snap and an 18 yard run leading to a score.  Congrats to Coach Babers.  Thought the call was right on.

BG had a lot of penalties, just as they did last year early in the season.  Last time, Coach instituted "penalty parties" or something like that.  The biggest worry was that of the 12 penalties, 3 were for unsportsmanlike conduct and two were personal fouls after the play was over.  Those are 100% avoidable and just the result of poor discipline.  Bryan Baird was lucky he didn't get ejected.  Anyway, BG needs to clean this up, things are hard enough without 12 penalties for 128 yards.

One of those unsportsmanlikes was against Dino Babers.  He was upset/infuriated at the lack of an interference call in the UT end zone, and it was a pretty awful call.  Guy was all over our guy, who I think was Lewis.  Coach went nuts, which is odd because he usually appears pretty Mahalo cool no matter what happens.  He was pointing at his eyes.

This event also provided one of two moments of comic relief in the game.  While Coach was arguing with the ref the head official was making an announcement and had his mic open, allowing 64,000 people hear Dino get this direction:  Coach, you better shut your F***&&ing mouth.

The other was provided by Mike Minns, who lost his shoe and was running to the sideline waving his shoe.  I think he realized he wasn't going to make it, so he "played dead."  This is just hilarious.  The arms out to the side truly make it.



In case you are the sort of person who follows this, BG played the following true freshman yesterday (based on the player participation report, which is sometimes wrong):

Harrison Roberts
Nico Lautanen
Brandon Harris
Jamari Bozeman
Robert Jackson
Kyle Junior

Finally, I usually cringe when I listen to announcers from outside the MAC, but Tom Hart and Andrew Ware yesterday were really solid.  Often the announcers haven't read up on our team, cant't ID them when they make a tackle, etc.  This was not the problem Saturday.  They recognized the guys, knew the back stories...impressive effort.