Written by William Guillory
| Friday, 16 October 2009 15:10
|
UNO News
NEW ORLEANS - This weekend’s game against between the University of New Orleans Club Football team and Miami (OH) is about as big a football game as UNO has played to date.
If you don’t believe me, just ask head coach Andy Benoit.
“Without question, this is the biggest game we have played thus far,” he said.
Miami (OH) (3-1, 3-0) has already played three games against teams from the Midwest Club Football Conference—the conference which UNO (3-1, 1-0) is affiliated with—so a victory over UNO would give the Redhawks their fourth conference win of the season, clinching a division title in the South division of the conference.
But if UNO can defeat the Redhawks, UNO would have their second conference victory of the season and would be in a position to control their own destiny in the fight for the division with the Privateers’ final divisional game being played against Xavier (OH) in UNO’s first ever homecoming football game.
With that being said, here’s what you should look for in this crucial divisional bout on Saturday at 7 p.m. in Tad Gormley Stadium:
· In UNO’s first road game of the season, the Privateers experienced a loss that they rather not think about for a long time.
Matched up with Concordia College-- an NAIA team that, reportedly, suited up nearly 100 players-- the Privateers were outmuscled and out matched as they took a crushing 78-14 loss. Just about everything that could have went wrong did, but the most important Benoit said he wanted to see from his team after that loss was how they would react to it.
They reacted about as well as a team can react in those circumstances, with a 21-14 road victory over Southern Illinois of Edwardsville, which Benoit said shows how much character his team possesses.
“A lot of teams will come out their next game, after getting beat the way we did in Concordia, and be very flat,” Benoit said. “But our guys were determined. It was a road conference game and they played really well. You want to come out of a game like that and have all your guys become a stronger unit because of that and I think we did.”
· One positive the Privateers were able to take from their epic loss to Concordia was the fact that their biggest addition of the offseason, former Holy Cross quarterback Chris Brady, was able to pick up his first passing touchdowns as a Privateer.
Brady threw a 23-yard touchdown pass to Akeem Davis at the 7:33 mark in the second quarter and then a 15-yarder to Josh Giambelluca on the final play of the first half.
Brady came back the next week against SIU-Edwardsville and threw a 52-yard touchdown pass to Davis and also hooked up with tight end Chris Guidry for a 51-yard completion during that game.
With each passing week Brady has continued to get more and more comfortable in this Privateer offense. If he can make some more of these types of big plays in this weekend’s game, it will do wonders for the Privateers chance of pulling out this huge victory.
· One pleasant surprise for Benoit so far this year has been his ability to deploy a two-headed monster in the backfield with running backs Josh Preston and Robert Jones.
Preston provides the shiftiness and the quick burst out of the backfield to pick up chunks of yards rapidly and had his first 100-yard game with UNO with a 23-carry, 118-yard performance in last week’s victory over Southern Illinois.
Jones brings the big bruiser who can ice games away at the end with powerful runs that can break a defense’s will at the end of games. Jones had one of those types of runs at the end of the SIU game that particularly impressed Benoit.
“It was a third down and we were about eight yards short,” Benoit said. “We ran him up the middle and he moved the pile for about five yards and got us the first down. In the fourth quarter, he just has the ability to move piles and that’s something that is crucial when you are trying to put games away at the end.”
· Despite the fact that last week’s game ended with UNO only winning by a seven-point margin, Benoit said that he was the most impressed with his offense than he has been all season.
“I saw the offense actually take control of that game and after the way we lost in Concordia you would think guys would have low morale,” Benoit said. “But nobody had their head down, nobody stopped believing that we could win that game and we did end up winning. That was definitely a big confidence booster for us.”
