2012 Game Recap #3 - @ Northeast

The Miramar Patriots continued their 2012 season with a trip to Oakland Park to play the Northeast Hurricanes. After a defensive struggle, the Patriots lost by a score of 13-5.

There’s plenty to talk about, so let’s get right to it:

Northeast:

The Hurricanes came out with a simple game plan: Hold the Miramar offense under 10 points, and let Stacy Coley make a couple plays to win the game. In the end, this plan worked to flawless perfection.

Leading the charge was Coley. The 6’2” WR didn’t do much on offense, but he still found a way to impact the game. On offense, he had 1 catch for -4 yards. Northeast tried to get Coley involved often, throwing the ball his direction 6 times on the night. Coley’s athleticism and talent were apparent, even without much on the stat sheet for his primary position. But, that wasn’t the only position Coley played.

Coley, who is CLEARLY Northeast’s best player (and one of the best in the State) had a 65 yard punt return early in the game to energize his team. He nearly broke this play for a touchdown, further proving the point that Special Teams are a major issue for this year’s Miramar team. His biggest play, however, came on defense.

Playing Free Safety the entire night, Coley came up with an interception on a ball that went through a Miramar Receiver’s hands. After catching the interception on his own 5 yard line,  Coley went into offensive mode, and made a highlight reel 95 yard return for a touchdown, weaving his way through, around, and past the entire Miramar Offense. This play, Northeast’s second Interception returned for a touchdown, put the Hurricanes up 13-0 late in the 2^nd quarter. On this night, that lead would prove to be insurmountable for the Patriots.

Other than Coley, who basically won the game by himself, Northeast got good pressure on the Miramar running game from their defense. Constantly stacking 8 men in the box, even with Miramar in their traditional spread formations, the Hurricanes blitzed up the middle and dared the Patriots to beat them by throwing the ball. This was something that worked well for Northeast.

The other play that turned the tide was Zeffery Clark’s interception return for a touchdown. Sitting in the flat, Clark under cut an out route, and caught the ball that seemed as though it was thrown directly to him. 27 yards later, the Hurricanes had a 7-0 lead, and all the momentum they needed.

Apart from those 2 plays, and the constant stuffing the middle to prevent Miramar from running the ball, the Hurricanes didn’t do much of anything. Their offense ended the night with -17 yards of total offense. RBs Jamal Wallace and Timonte King had a couple decent runs in the 6-8 yard range, but that’s it.

In the end, it was not a team but a singular player who won this game. With his passion (heard SCREAMING at team mates on a number of occasions), football knowledge (it was he who called the defensive coverages, not the middle linebacker), and physical skills (which I’ve already noted), Stacy Coley dominated this game from beginning to end. That Northeast as a team won is only a side note.

This night, this game, and this victory belonged to one man.

Stacy Coley.

Miramar:

Let’s start with the good, before moving to the bad.

Jermaine Grace and the Darkside defense had another strong showing. They held Northeast to -17 yards of total offense, and limited Stacy Coley to 1 catch, and 1 run from the wildcat. All night long, the Hurricanes struggled to gain any traction on offense.

While Grace (8 tackles, 2 Tackles for Loss) had another strong game, the real stars were DTs Telvin Arnold and Ja’Quan Smith. Arnold (11 tackles,  3 TFL) provided constant pressure in the center of the defensive line. Smith chipped in with 6 tackles (1 TFL), and the two occupied the Northeast offensive line all night long.

With the line concerned with Arnold and Smith, the linebacking corps of Grace, Ryan Samuels (8 tackles, 2 TFL), and Sanka Harris (7 tackles, 2 TFL) were able to run free and find the ball, something they are obviously adept at doing.

The secondary stood up to the challenge of containing Coley. CB Tyrek Cole was primarily responsible for this task, as he shadowed Coley for most of the night. The Safties, Andre Godfrey and D’Kambui Graves, were good in both run support and deep coverage over the top of Coley.

When your defense pitches a shutout, holds the opposing team to -17 yards, and limits the touches of it’s All-American caliber player to 2 for the whole game, normally you expect to win.

That didn’t happen.

And now, for why that didn’t happen: the offense.

Northeast had a simple gameplan on defense: stack the middle, contain the lightning-squared running attack of Alex Lee and Cameron Rigby, and force Miramar to complete passes vertically. They accomplished the former, and with Miramar unable to do the latter, the Hurricanes looked like geniuses.

The running game, which had been the unquestioned strength of the Miramar offense, was subpar on this night. Alex Lee, who entered the game averaging 149.5 yards per game, was limited to 1 yard. He did lose 22 yards recovering a bad snap, which detracted from his total, but even still, he was not the electric player we had seen in the previous games.

Cameron Rigby found slightly more success. He finished with 67 yards on 11 carries, and had the biggest offensive play of the night: a 35 yard run shortly before halftime that put the Patriots at the Northeast 3 yard line. Inexplicably, the Patriots decided to throw the ball 3 times, and not run it, and were forced to settle for a 27 yard David Campbell FG.

Overall, Miramar could only muster 48 yards rushing on 32 carries. That number includes sacks and other losses, usually from recovering a bad snap. Whichever way you look at it, this level of production is not going to be good enough to win games.

While the running game had its struggles, the real issue facing the offense is the lack of a downfield passing game. QB Nick Jeanty’s numbers look fine on the surface (19/25, 167 yards), but upon further examination, they leave much to be desired.

There is an argument that there are issues beyond Jeanty’s control (more on this later), but there is no argument that his play can still improve. The first interception for a touchdown was just a bad read. Jeanty threw the ball to a defender who was in the flat playing cover 2 zone, and that was that. With the entire offense up the field, the Northeast defender had a clear path to the endzone, and a 7-0 lead. That throw was Jeanty’s fault. The other interception? Not so much.

Driving late in the 2^nd quarter, Jeanty looked to hit a receiver deep down the middle of the field on a post. The receiver (I forget which one) let the ball go through his hands, and the pass was intercepted by Stacy Coley at the 5 yard line. I’ve already detailed the rest of this play, so I don’t need to do that again. I will say that during this return, the offense did not hustle, did not chase Coley with any sense of urgency.  I know the pick wasn’t Jeanty’s fault, but somebody has to at least TRY to tackle Coley on that return.

Jeanty completed many passes (76%), but they were mainly underneath routes, and screens. You can’t run an effective passing offense with every throw being less than 15 yards from the line of scrimmage. Defenses are too good for that, even from a team like Northeast who, realistically, had no reason to be within 2 touchdowns of this Miramar team.

The offensive line could have been better. The bad snap was a scourge again, hindering the offense from getting or maintaining a rhythm.  The Tackles were repeatedly beaten in both running and passing situations, and the Patriots rotated 8 players up front. I know that having depth is key, but if we can’t find a consistent group of 5 linemen to rely on, this season may continue with problems and disappointment.

Now, to address a real hot button issue: play calling.

Many people have been talking about it, and I can’t ignore it anymore. The offensive play calling has been bad. In the Manatee game, we went away from the run, even though we were gaining huge chunks of yards on every play. Against Ely, I thought it was marginally better, but still not great. We basically just outmatched the Tigers physically.

In this game, it was abundantly clear that if we couldn’t run the ball up the middle our offense would struggle to do anything. Once that was taken away, there was no wrinkle, or adjustment, or constraint play to counteract what the defense was doing.  Here is an analogy that you will understand: it was like we were playing NCAA on Heisman Difficulty and only running 3 plays. Not gonna get very far with that.

Special teams didn’t help any either. Kicker David Campbell went 1/3 on Field Goals, making from 27 yards, and missing from 37 and 44. His leg is big enough for those kicks, but his technique is not consistent in game action.

Kick coverage was once again an issue. Coley had a 65 yard punt return that he almost took to the house, and another Northeast player had a 30 yard return on a kickoff. Both players were steps away from breaking loose for touchdowns. Following Rashard Robinson’s 96 yard kickoff return in the Ely game, and the 2 blocked punts at Manatee, and we have PLENTY of hard evidence that the systems we are running on special teams are greatly flawed. If they’re not changed, they will continue to cost us ballgames, plain and simple.

When you have only 1 of your 3 phases (Offense, Defense, Special Teams) that is positive, you can’t win games. We have tried this experiment twice so far this year.

I’m not sure how many more times we need to do this before realizing that we need some MAJOR changes to get back to competing to win games, let alone challenge for championships.

Where do we go from here?

In my opinion, this game is more troublesome than the Manatee game. This was a team that is not as talented as we are, save for 1 player. They had no business being on the same field as us, and we still found a way to lose, and look BAD losing. It’s time for real concern.

Issues to address:

1. Offensive gameplans and efficiency. I go to practice almost every day. I see what we’re working on and installing every week. I will say that I’ve seen no less than 8 different offensive concepts practiced EXTENSIVELY through the week, and not run even one time in the games. There are others, like the triple stacked WR look from the first play of the Manatee game, that have only been run once or twice TOTAL this season.
   
   We have become far too predictable on offense. If we’re going to only run our “staples”, the basic plays that our offense can rely on depending on the situation, then why are we practicing these other concepts so much? If we’re practicing them as much as we are (which is a substantial amount) why are we not running them in games? I have more questions, but you get the idea. The offense needs a lot of work, from the playcalling, to the passing game, to the revival of the running game, and the consistency of offensive line play. Lots to address here.
   
2. Quarterback-Center exchange. Bad shotgun snaps came back to haunt this team yet again. Something has to change.
   
3. Details. The Offense tried to “go on 2” a couple of times. Having little or no experience with that, the younger offensive linemen jumped early. The wide receiver from the 2^nd interception didn’t look the ball into his hands. Players jogged on that return, and on the 65 yard punt return, and didn’t wrap up when they made contact. Alone, the issues aren’t the bad. Put together, and the details made the difference. Gotta fix that.
   
4. Protect the ball. 7 turnovers in 3 games. Do I really need to say anything else?

In my game preview I said that Northeast would try to let Stacy Coley win the game singlehandedly. He came through for them in a way that Denard Robinson, Patrick Peterson, Jeffery Godfrey and others could not. I had never seen a Miramar team lose to 1 man.

Until Friday.

This season is at a crossroads. This team has to dedicate itself to playing a complete game each and every time out, or run the risk of being in this same position, questioning what went wrong, more times than they’d like.

Miramar Football. 1-2.

I still can’t believe it.

Those are my thoughts. What are yours?

Until Next Time,

Cameron J. Underwood
Miramar Sports