Inside linebacker Zach Cunningham had a super game against Middle Tennessee
So proud of the team, Derek and the coaches. Awesome victory in Murfreesboro over Middle Tennessee. They were up 13-3 with six and a half left, and Johnny McCrary took off on a beautiful quarterback run for 29 yards for a seven to cut it to 13-10. We stop them, get the ball back, then Ralph Webb breaks off a 39 yard house call on third and one with 1:12 left, and our defense closes the deal.
Johnny played an intelligent game. It wasn’t as good as Ole Miss–I thought he played outstandingly against the Rebels–but he got it done when it counted. Johnny’s a highly intelligent guy intellectually, and has a through the roof football IQ. The decision to tuck it and run for the seven was not only an intelligent football play, it was also a highly athletic play. He’s just getting better and better. We’ve got ourselves a good quarterback who’s going to keep getting better and better and get us W’s in the conference this season. We got some good guys behind him, too, with sophomore Wade Freebeck, talented four-star freshman Kyle Shurmur, redshirt freshman Shawn Stankavage, who’s hurt right now, and the Deuce, 89 three-star Deuce Wallace, who’s coming in next year. The quarterback competition will be outstanding in the next couple of years, but for right now, Johnny is the man, and he’s getting the job done very well. Johnny was 18-of-31 for 177 yards, no TD’s and a pair of ints, but he was clutch when it counted. Proud of him.
Great to see Ralph get it going, too. Ralph ran for 155 on 25 carries, 6.2 yards per, and that clutch seven at the end of the game. Now that we’ve got Ralph going, Dallas Rivers healthy and playing better, and we should be getting freshman Josh Crawford back, hopefully for South Carolina, we should be getting in very good shape running the ball. I love what our line did on Saturday night. They gave Johnny good protection and opened up good holes for Ralph. They showed massive improvement last Saturday. Center Spencer Pulley, guards Jake Bernstein and Barrett Gouger and the other guys were excellent. We’ve kind of had to move guys around with stud Andrew Jelks, our left tackle, hurting his knee before the season and being lost for the year. Delando Crooks and Will Holden did well also. We’ve got good size with these guys and it looks like they’re really starting to figure it out. Knew they were good, and they’re starting to show it. Just gaining more confidence to go along with excellent size, power and physicality. O line Coach Kevin Lightner is doing an excellent job with our big fellas up front. We’ll get Andrew back next year, and that’ll be huge. We’ll lose Spencer, and he’ll have to be replaced, he’s an excellent center, but Coach Mason has brought in some good younger guys, so we should be really good on the line next year. With a healthy Jelks, who was a four-star out of high school in 2013, and had been playing like it in summer practice before he hurt his knee, and the other guys, we’ll be tough up front. We also lost C.J. Duncan on the perimeter before the season started and that was a blow to our wide receiving corps. C.J, will also be back next year. He’s a heckuva player like Andrew, and we will really welcome him back. He’s explosive. But right now, Trent Sherfield is playing excellent football for us. I’m impressed with Caleb Scott, and Kris Kentera made a clutch play on a ricochet of a pass that Sherfield couldn’t pull in on third down in the fourth quarter against MTSU, that kept the drive alive in which Johnny took it to the house later in that drive. Huge play by Kris. Those guys are really starting to play well. Ronald Monroe also had a reception and the coaches have been excited about Ronald’s big play potential at receiver before the season started. Ronald can help us offensively catching the ball and making explosive plays. Would love to see Darrius Sims get more involved with the offense. Darrius is a weapon. I know Coach Ludwig and the coaches are working on that. Darrius can win games for us. Coach Mason told me before the season that he’s got Devin Hester like qualities as a punt returner. I believe. Darrius can really help us as we progress. Would like to see tight ends Steven Scheu and Nathan Marcus get more involved, but I’m sure Coach Ludwig will take care of that coming up against South Carolina a week from Saturday. We’re off this week, so we’ll get some guys healed up and ready for the Gamecocks and fine tune our offense even more. The off week couldn’t have come at a better time. DeAndre Woods was playing so well at tight end/Hback for us, and was really starting to make his mark before he was lost for the season a couple of games ago. The good news is that DeAndre will be back next year and he’ll be a heckuva player for us. We only have nine seniors on this team, we’re the third youngest team in the country, so the future looks unlimited if we finish up this 2016 recruiting class well. Excited to see the offense keep progressing, and have a stellar game next Saturday vs. SC. The game will kickoff at 3 PM CT/ 4 PM ET on the SEC Network. If you are comfortable with this, it would be really nice to send whatever you feel like sending financially to the Red Cross to help the people of South Carolina after the devastating floods there last weekend. Anything would be great. I’m going to make a donation. Can’t wait for our game with them, but their safety is more important right now. Anything you can do, $10 or $20, I’m sure would be greatly appreciated by South Carolinians. I know our school has been sending help to the people in Columbia and other affected areas. That’s awesome. Proud of our university for doing that.
On defense, having Coach Mason take over the defense has been an answered prayer. He’s been amazing and has done an awesome job coaching his entire football team, while also coordinating the defense. Our defense is very good and will keep getting better under Coach Mason and his defensive coaches’ tutelage. Excited to see what our defense can accomplish as we matriculate to South Carolina, Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee among others. We’ll be tested against Houston after SC and Missouri in upcoming weeks (Mo. is at home and Houston is on the road). They’ve got an explosive offense. Missouri will be tough, too, but winnable. But we’ve proven we can shut down high powered offenses like Western Kentucky, Georgia and Ole Miss.. We showed Alabama how to defend the Dawgs and they took it and ran with it. I think our defensive game plan against Ole Miss was outstanding and we really had them confused, and Florida looked at our film and beat them 38-10 last Saturday night. We’re giving other SEC defensive coaches the blueprint for stopping other powerful offenses. Saturday night it was the Zach Cunningham show. Wow, Zach was all over the field. Zach finished the night with 13.5 tackles, 2.5 for loss and two pass breakups. He was superb. Torren McGaster played an excellent game as well. Starting to expect that every week from Torren. He’s playing first team All-SEC cornerback right now. He’s a great cover corner, a physical tackler and just a playmaker. He makes a lot of winning plays. He’s a player who wins games for you. Zach’s doing the same thing at inside linebacker. He’s been awesome. Nigel Bowden has been hurt and will be back at some point, but I don’t know how you take Zach out of the lineup. With Zach, Nigel and Darreon Herring at inside backer, and the other young guys backing them up, we’re in good shape there. Nigel is a heckuva player as well. He’ll be back soon and Darreon is just a leader out there. I think Darreon’s best ball is in front of him this season. Every player has become comfortable with the system now that Coach Mason has taken over. Outside backer Stephen Weatherly played a stellar game last Saturday night, too. Ready to see Caleb “Zu” Azubike start taking his game to another level. He’s certainly got it in him. Same for Jay Woods up front at d tackle. Jonathan Wynn has been making a solid impact up front. Same for Nifae Lealao. Nifae was a 95 four-star two years ago out of high school in Sacramento Cali. Adam Butler is a hoss up front. Excited to see what Adam can do the rest of this season. He’s got National Football League potential along with a lot of our guys on defense and some on offense. Love Oren Burks on the back end at safety. He’s a stud. Jahmel McIntiosh has come in at strong safety to take the place of the hurt Andrew Williamson and done a stellar job. When I went up to see the team this summer for fall camp, I was really impressed with Jahmel’s attitude, and he can really play safety. We’ll get Andrew back at some point, but I like having Oren and Jahmel on the back end right now. Tre Herndon is getting better and better at the other corner opposite Torren, and I love Emmanuel Smith in the mix at corner or nickel. He’s terrific.
So the bottom line is, we have a good football team, particularly on defense, and Johnny will keep getting better and better, the line’s improving weekly, and Ralph and Dallas and hopefully Josh are going to do well the rest of the season. The receivers are coming on. I like this football team. I like them a lot.
We got a commitment for the 2018 class out of four-star running back Alontae Taylor out of Manchester, Tn, Coffee County Central. I watched film on Alontae and he’s excellent. They use him as a wildcat kind of quarterback and he can really motor. He’s excellent. He’s super fast, got great moves and is a take it to the house player. I know it’s a while before we get Alonte on campus, but this is a superb pickup. As for 2016, the Zaire Jones commit after the Ole Miss game was huge. Zaire is a four-star safety out of Mississippi. One of our best recruiters along with the coaches is the Deuce. Deuce Wallace is getting players very interested in our program and trying to convince them that this is the place to be for school, football and social stuff. Deuce will get us some players to fill out this class along with Coach Mason and the coaches, and we’ve got a chance to have a pretty stellar class. By the way, Deuce is also a heckuva quarterback out of Sevierville, Tennessee. I’ve watched film on Deuce, and he’s one fine player at qb. Great signal caller for the future along with the guys in the fold. He loves Vanderbilt, too, and is doing everything to get our targets to pull the trigger. Deuce is awesome. One key possible commit will happen in early December as 92 four-star cornerback Joejuan Williams will make his decision. Would love to add Joejuan to the secondary with Zaire and the young guys we already have on the team. Would be a huge get for us. Other key guys are 89 three-star cornerback Donte Vaughn out of Memphis, and 6’6″, 300 pound offensive tackle Grayson Stover out of Hudson, Florida. Grayson is also an 88, four-star. Eighty seven three star Jovan Swann, a 6’4″, 270 defensive tackle, is also very interested. Jovan’s teammate out of Greenwood, Indiana, 6’3″, 265 pound defensive tackle Cameron Tidd, is already in the fold. Cameron is an 84 three-star. Watched his film. Cameron’s a disrupter, good player. Would love to see Jovan join him on West End. He’s excellent, too. Eighty three rated offensive tackle Coy Cronk is very interested, too. Coy is 6’5″, 270. And 87, three-star running back Trevor Speights would be also an excellent addition to this class. Trevor is 5’10”, 200 out of McAllen, Texas and he’s apparently tearing it up., Would be good to add Trevor with 86 three-star Sam Brodner in the o backfield. I’ve watched film on Sam. He’s terrific. Hard runner, fast, gets in the end zone. Sam is 5’10”, 210. He’s talented. Derek’s getting good players to come our way. If we keep winning, I believe we’ll secure all these guys and would close out this class as we’re taking about 16-18, a small class because we have so many young players on the current roster, which is also exciting.
So really pumped about what Coach Mason has going. He’s got it going. These recruits will keep seeing these results and should go ahead and hopefully pull the trigger for us. Coach Mason and the coaches are doing an awesome job at building a high quality football team/program.
Pedro and the Bucs are in action tonight in the National League wild card game at home versus the Cubs. Amazingly, and unbelievably, Pedro is not in the starting lineup against right handed starter and Cubs stud Jake Arrieta, I don’t know what else Pedro needs to do to convince Hurdle he is a great player and the Pirates’ best option at first base. Twenty seven home runs and seventy seven RBI’s doesn’t cut it it seems. Instead Hurdle goes with Sean Rodriguez, who’s hitting .246 with four homers and 17 RBIs. Sean’s a good player, but don’t get me started. Pedro will most certainly pinch hit. I’m going to have to live with this decision, but it’s the wrong decision and could cost Hurdle and the team. I watched the Astros-Yankees game last night and the Astros won with a superior performance by starting pitcher Dallas Keuchel and two long balls. In October, pitching and the long ball are what wins games and helps you win the World Series in late October-early November. I’ve yet to figure out Hurdle’s thinking. He’s an old school guy and those kind of guys usually go by the book which would mean he’d start Pedro, a left handed hitter against a right handed pitcher, but he didn’t even do that. I’m not giving up though. Pedro is a critical bat for the Pittsburgh Pirates chances of doing big things in October-November. He wins games. I just can’t understand how Hurdle can’t figure that out. Could cost him tonight. Hopefully, Pedro has a great pinch hitting performance tonight and gets back in his rightful spot in the starting lineup. Pirates-Cubs at 7:07 PM CT/8:07 ET on TBS.
David Price on the hill tomorrow. So pumped for DP and the Jays. What a team. I picked the Jays over the Cardinals in the World Series and you can go to my regular blog and read about it: www.davidhwhite.com David goes against Yovani Gallardo, a right handed veteran for the Texas Rangers. Gallardo went 13-11 with a 3.42 ERA this season. He walked 68 and struck out 121. He gave up 15 homers and had a 1.42 WHIP, which isn’t great. David finished off the season 18-5 with the Tigers and the Jays, with a 2.45 ERA, 47 walks, 225 ring ups, 17 homers and a 1.08 WHIP. David was 9-1 with the Jays after coming over to them in August. He had a 2.32 ERA for the Jays. He was spectacular for a spectacular team. I wrote more about the Jays on my regular blog if you want to check it out. The Rogers Centre in Toronto will be rockin’ tomorrow afternoon at 2:37 PM CT/3:37 ET on Fox Sports 1. It will be electric. They Jays and their fans are so hungry. I have a very good friend who is Canadian and loves the Jays, and he’s totally pumped. Should be fun.
Jay Cut played an awesome game for the Bears last Sunday in their 22-20 victory over the Raiders at Soljah Field in Chitown. Jay was 28 of 43 (65%) for 281 yards and two TDs. He led the team on the game winning drive which culminated in a Robbie Gould 49 yard field goal with :02 seconds left in the game. It was an awesome performance by Jay, who was without star wideout Alshon Jeffrey. Bears at KC Chiefs on Sunday at noon CT/ 1 PM ET. We’re 1-3, so we have to have it. JMatt played pretty well, but the Philly Eagles lost another game, this time to the Washington Redskins, to fall to 1-3. They’re also in a must win situation this weekend with the New Ahlins Saints coming in for a noon CT/1 PM ET kickoff. The Eagles and JMatt have to have this one. Zac Stacy is doing well for the New York Jets returning kickoffs and getting some carries at running back. Will have more on Zac, Casey Hayward and Sean Richardson, who are both playing important roles in the Green Bay Packers secondary, on Monday.
Basketball cranked up practice last Friday. I like what I’m hearing from Kevin. He’s relaxed and looks very confident in his players. With Wade Baldwin IV, Riley LeChance, Matthew Fischer Davis, Luke Kornet, of course Damian Jones, Jeff Roberson, and hot shooting Cornell transfer Nolan Cressler and the four studly freshmen we have on the team, he should be confident. We open play Friday, Nov. 13th vs Austin Peay at home. The game is at 7 PM CT/ 8 PM ET on SEC Network Plus. Will have a more detailed outlook on our bball squad the middle of next week.
We have two excellent commits with 89 three-star point guard Payton Willis from Arkansas and 90 four-star power forward Clevon Brown (6’8″, 215) from San Antonio. We’re hoping for good news from 97 four-star power forward Braxton Key (6’8″, 230 formerly Braxton Blackwell, will check why his last name was changed), 97 four star center James Banks (6’10”, 230) or 94 four-star small forward Richard Freudenberg (6’8″, 190), soon. If they want to be great, they need to commit.
Will have more early next week.