Ralph Webb was awesome, Darrius Sims was stellar, and our defense was lockdown in a 10-7 hard fought SEC victory over Missouri on Saturday at Vanderbilt Stadium.
Ralph rushed for 99 yards on 26 carries and ran like a bull in a china shop and a stallion at the same time. What an effort by our sophomore running back. He had some beautiful breakaways that were close to house calls and got some tough yards on other carries. Ralph had a 46 yard scamper right before halftime that set up a field goal that was unfortunately missed. Ralph was phenomenal. The line opened some pretty good holes and played hard nosed against a very good defense. We gained 304 yards of total offense and pretty much controlled the game throughout. Darrius added 58 yards on nine carries. Darrius and Ralph give us both toughness and speed. Darrius also had a nice catch and run on a wheel route for 24 yards. He and Ralph are weapons. Freshman Josh Crawford is going to be a good back for us. He’s starting to get it and played a good game Saturday. He only had 19 yards, but looked like he’s going to be pretty stellar for us. Josh gives us a third option at tailback. I still believe Dallas Rivers can help us in the running game this season. He’s a good player and can give us some hard nosed yards with his 6’2″, 225 pound frame. Four-star freshman Kyle Shurmur started for us at quarterback and completed 10-of-20 passes for 89 yards with no touchdowns but no ints either. Kyle played fine and has very good potential. Johnny McCrary relieved him and I thought Johnny played very well. Johnny was seven-of-eight for 47 yards and had a nice quarterback run around the right side for 14 yards late in the game. We’ll see what happens this weekend with Houston on who Coach Mason and Coach Andy Ludwig start. Johnny looked good and maybe just needed to sit a little bit and figure some things out. He’s so talented. Just HAS to take care of the football, which he did on Saturday. Johnny was a four star coming out of high school.
The defense didn’t have any individual superlatives, but it was a superlative effort as a group overall. Lock down corner Torren McGaster led us in tackles with five, but we had seven tackles for loss and four sacks. Stephen Weatherly got a sack, as did Darreon Herring, the leader of our defense, Adam Butler had a sack and Landon Stokes had a beautiful sack for a nine yard loss. Torren, Stephen, Darreon, Arnold Tarpley, Adam, Landon and Jay Woods each had a tackle for loss. Darreon had two. Missouri only had 188 yards of total offense. We need this same kind of effort against Houston Saturday. The game is at Houston at 6 PM CT/7 PM ET on ESPN2.
Tommy Openshaw was one of three on field goals connecting from 40 yards and missing from 45 and 32, but Tommy’s a good kicker. He just needs to get one to go through this Saturday and he’ll be fine. His punting was spectacular. He punted 7 times for a 45.6 average. Ryan White, our safety, did an excellent job returning punts, bringing seven back for 71 yards with a long of 15 yards. Ryan looks like he’s capable of taking it to the house. We could use one against Houston.
Game balls
Offense: Ralph Webb
Played a tremendous game and was a key reason we won this football game.
Defense:
The entire group. They were outstanding throughout the game led by Darreon Herring, Stephen Weatherly, Torren McGaster and Adam Butler
Special Teams: Ryan White
Ryan really gave us good field position with his punt returns.
Huge win as we improved to 3-4 overall and 1-3 in the conference.
Houston
We’re a 16 point underdog, but with our defense playing so well, we’ve definitely got a shot here. Houston is 7-0 and is prolific on offense, having just beaten Central Florida, 59-10. Our defense and offense will have to strap their chin straps on tightly to win this game. We need to play hard-nosed on both sides of the ball to get this game. If we get it done it would be a huge boost to this football team. The Missouri victory was huge, but it’s a start for this young and rapidly improving football team. Coach Mason has done a masterful job with the defense and Coach Ludwig is figuring out what works for us offensively. We’ll need good play from our offense, the line, the running game and Johnny or Kyle whoever is in there. I feel better about Johnny now that I saw how he played on Saturday. Maybe Coach Mason and Coach Ludwig use them both again. Whatever will get us over the top is what we’ll need to do. I KNOW our defense will play well. That’s a given this year. We’ll have to get good special teams play as well. All three phases need to click on Saturday. Will have more on Houston the middle of this week.
Awesome victory for Coach Mason, the coaches and the team. So proud of them and for them. Huge boon for recruiting as we had some of our commits and some recruits on the sideline with us. This will certainly give us momentum in recruiting going forward.
Will have more on Houston the middle of the week.