By Mike London
mlondon@salisburypost.com
Had Saturday’s Catawba-Newberry football game been two-hand touch it may have gone to overtime, but they were playing tackle, and Catawba lost to a SAC rival 40-21.
Sometimes Catawba defenders tackled air. Sometimes Catawba tackled the ball instead of the ballcarrier, trying in vain to create a turnover. Sometimes Catawba tackled various parts of Newberry back S.J. Worrell’s anatomy and helplessly bounced away like bullets flying off Superman’s chest.
“The problem we had was tackling,” Catawba senior lineman Melquan Fair said. “Every big play Newberry had should have been a tackle for loss or a 1-yard or a 2-yard gain. We had them. Then they broke away.”
Not many people outside of Newberry, S.C., had heard of S.J. Worrell before the Catawba game, but now he’s no doubt being booked for “Letterman” and “Saturday Night Live.”
Newberry coach Todd Knight said his team came to town believing it could throw, but uncertain whether it could run effectively on Catawba.
“The plan was to establish an air attack and hope that opened up the run a little bit,” he said. “But we were able to run the ball a lot more effectively and a lot earlier than we expected.”
Newberry had 163 ground yards in the first half, finished with 329 and controlled the football nearly 37 of the game’s 60 minutes.
Catawba (3-2, 0-2) has All-America and All-SAC types on defense so things like this weren’t supposed to happen, but they’ve happened two straight Saturdays at Shuford Stadium, where even the pessimists expected the Indians to go 9-1 and the optimists made hotel reservations for the Division II national-championship game the day after former UNC QB Cam Sexton signed up.
Sexton is good. It’s worth the price of admission to see him wing it when he’s got time to wing it. The air crackles when he cuts loose, the way it does when a pitcher whips 92 mph heat.
But he was sacked seven times by Newberry, and even John Unitas never threw accurately from his backside.
This sport is still mostly about those large guys who block and tackle. If you don’t block and tackle, you can’t beat Jesse Carson High, much less Carson-Newman.
To his credit, head coach Chip Hester hasn’t gone crazy, hasn’t panicked, hasn’t started punching water coolers.
Also to his credit, Hester tried to warn fans and media all along that this team wasn’t clicking yet, hadn’t meshed yet, wasn’t playing four quarters yet, despite the rankings and expectations. Now everyone’s convinced Hester knew what he was talking about.
Miserable, sloppy weather surely aided Mars Hill’s upset of Catawba on Sept. 26, but you couldn’t have ordered nicer weather off a menu for the Newberry game.
Homecoming. Sunshine. Big crowd. Enthusiasm.
Then a flat performance.
“There were an awful lot of things for us to overcome to win at Catawba,” Newberry’s Knight said. “We were on back-to-back road games, it was homecoming, and we were coming off a real tough loss (to Carson-Newman).”
Now Catawba finds itself in a situation where it has to overcome an awful lot. The Indians just dropped home games on back-to-back Saturdays for the first time since 1994 when they went 2-9 and now they face back-to-back SAC away games at Carson-Newman, which is always tough, and Tusculum, which is always a tough place to play. Catawba went 11-2 in 2007 and still lost at Tusculum.
To the players’ credit, they aren’t looking for excuses and no disappointed Indian pointed a finger Saturday at anyone other than himself.
“It’s not offense that’s got to pick it up or defense that’s got to pick it up, it’s everybody that’s got to pick it up,” junior defensive lineman Brandon Sutton said. “We got outplayed by Newberry, but you won’t see any heads down. We are not going to fold. I promise all the seniors that I will play this out to the last play of the last game.”
Sutton’s over-the-top enthusiasm and energy seem almost comical at times, but right now the Indians need extroverts such as Sutton to keep spirits high. When he vows he’s not going to quit, you tend to believe him.
There’s half a season left, even though even a share of the SAC championship is now a longsho”We’ll start with a clean slate Monday,” Fair said. “We’ll keep at it. No one’s giving up.”
One thing that wasn’t factored in to preseason predictions was the effect Catawba’s heavily hyped addition of Sexton would have on every team on the schedule.
The opposing QB is eager to outplay Sexton, , and defensive lines can’t wait to get after him. It’s safe to say Catawba’s not going to see an opponent all season who’s not jacked up.
Catawba hasn’t had many physical setbacks, but the knee injury center Zane Gibson suffered in the Livingstone game had to hurt the offense some. The junior was crowned Homecoming King on Saturday, which showed how much everyone thinks of him. Gibson is optimistic he’ll return Saturday.
“I’m close, but it wasn’t worth the risk (of long-term injury),” he said following the Newberry game. “It killed me to have to watch, but Daylon McAlexander is doing a great job at center.”
Catawba travels Saturday to play a Carson-Newman squad that nipped Newberry and crushed Mars Hill 55-28. On paper, the Indians are three-touchdown underdogs.
But there’s nothing wrong that blocking and tackling won’t fix. And it’s not a bad position to be in when there’s nothing left to lose.