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If Bobby Knight coached the Wingate football team, he’d have thrown three chairs, two water coolers and one baggy red sweater by the end of the first quarter.
Bobby wasn’t around, but Saturday afternoon’s 53-6 fanny-spanking by Catawba at Shuford Stadium was still a game that Wingate coach Bob Brush would love to flush.
“I’m very disappointed with how we played,” said Brush, after the Bulldogs suffered a similar disaster to last year’s 54-13 mauling by the Tribe. “Some of what happened today was Catawba — they are a good football team — but a lot of it was us. We weren’t prepared to play. We made stupid mistakes, stupid penalties. We looked undisciplined and disorganized.”
Wingate (1-2) entered with high hopes after winning last week. It left thankful to reach the safety of the bus.
“I’m not going to say today was easy,” said Catawba All-American DeVonte Peterson. “But we were the team that stayed together and we were the team that prepared harder.
“They did score on us and our goal is always gonna be the goose(egg), but that’s OK. We’ll take it. It was an all-round good effort.”
Believe it or not the SAC opener for both teams wasn’t nearly as close as the score indicates. Catawba might have won 93-6 if Tribe coach David Bennett had not shown considerable mercy and granted playing time to everyone on his roster.
It was over shortly after player introductions. Running star Kevin McKenzie was resting a slight ankle sprain by the end of the first quarter. Quarterback Mitch Ellis was taking it easy on the bench before halftime. Sack masters Peterson and Radell Lockhart were discussing dinner plans by early in the third. (Yesterday for lunch, by the way, they feasted on Wingate quarterback Shannon Dawson).
Seventh-ranked Catawba (3-0 overall) rolled up 369 yards of offense without any individual having a huge day. Ellis tossed for a modest 120 yards before giving way to Scott Sensing, who in turn yielded to Bret Brown, who in turn made room for No. 4 QBTim Rigsbee.
Meanwhile, freshman Rickey Haywood led a pack of eight running backs with 64 yards on 14 carries.
Defensively, linebacker Todd McComb was in Brush’s hair all day. He had 2 1/2 sacks and 11 tackles. Fellow linebacker Jason Cross turned in an amazing play on which he both pummeled Bulldog Darren Cooper from the side and recovered the ensuing fumble. Dancing David Huey contributed back-to-back sacks and unrestrained enthusiasm.
Every Tribe defender got into the act. Wingate star Kenyatta Stackhouse, who had 111 rushing yards last Saturday, got all of 16 against the Tribe. His longest “dash” was for four yards.
The feeding frenzy started when Catawba scored on its second possession of the game. Ellis hit Nick Means on the sideline and Means cut inside past tacklers for a 49-yard scoring play at the 6:19 mark in the first quarter.
After Cross’ hustling recovery, Ellis made it 14-0 on a 9-yard keeper, after a fake to a diving back that froze a half-dozen Bulldogs. That made it two touchdowns in 64 seconds.
Then the rout began in earnest when McComb crushed Dawson, forcing a fumble, and 250-pound freshman Khannis Hubbard grabbed the loose ball as if it were a sandwich and barged into the end zone like a bull being turned loose at Poloma.
Matt Gross then kicked in with the first of his three field goals. Then came rapid-fire TD runs by Joe Hilliard and Tony Hawkins.
It was 38-0 at halftime, and the only remaining question was just how ugly Bennett would allow it to get.
To Brush’s credit, he was able to talk his team into returning from the locker room to compete for another 30 minutes. But he wasn’t able to convince them to play any better.
Wingate did get on the board against a combination of Catawba reserves early in the fourth quarter, but a 37-yard TD pass from Chris Jackson to Lucas Greene was negated by an awful snap on a punt attempt that flew out of the end zone to hand Catawba a safety and a breakdown in the secondary that allowed Sensing to hit Cedric Squirewell for a taking-candy-from-a-baby TD pass.
Gross, who earned praise from Bennett, boomed two more field goals — one of them from 49 yards — to close out the scoring.
Bennett was enthused about his team’s showing, because by everyone’s estimation it was not the best week of practice the Tribe has ever had.
“It was hot on Tuesday and Wednesday, plus the kids hadn’t had any rest,” Bennett explained. “They were on the bus 18 hours to and from Austin Peay last week. They couldn’t get much sleep, because everyone had papers to turn in or tests to study for. People forget sometimes that these aren’t pro athletes, they’re students first.
“Was I worried that slow practices would carry over to today’s game? Yes, I was. But when we got out here today it was nice and cool — football weather — and our guys responded in every phase of the game.”
Cross revealed that Wingate did its part to help snap the Tribe out of its practice funk.
“They talked junk all week,” Cross said. “One of the guy’s girlfriends went down there and reported back that they were all saying we were overrated and hadn’t played anyone yet.
“Well, it’s like I just commented to someone down on the field after the game: “Guess, we still haven’t played anybody.”
Ouch.
“Yeah, maybe we used what Wingate said for motivation,” admitted Bennett, with a sly grin and a roll of his eyes. “Maybe just a little bit. But the challenge for a championship team is to always be prepared to play — no matter who the opponent is. Now we’ve gotta get ready for PC (Presbyterian) next Saturday. They’re coming in here with a great quarterback (Todd Cunningham) and they’ll be tough.”
Expect this group of Indians to be prepared to play— next Saturday and every Saturday. Like Bennett said, when you’re chasing a championship, that’s what you do.
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