Opinion: BCU pitches game away

By KEN WILLIS, Daytona News Journal

Opinion: MY TWO CENTS

In baseball, a wild pitch can lead to big trouble. In football, it can be death.

Two wild pitches double the chances.

And when it happens, there's no lonelier person on earth than the quarterback. No one unluckier, no one sicker.

"When I pitch it, most of the time I don't see the ball," Bethune-Cookman quarterback Jimmie Russell said. "I pitched it, then I looked. And I was like, 'Awwww.' That's when your stomach goes in your throat."

When the option play is working well, it's a beautiful piece of choreography. But when it's not, there's no uglier clunker. In better years -- with Pa'tel Troutman and Allen Suber at the controls -- the Wildcat offense was worth the price of admission.

Not Saturday, when a whole afternoon of erratic play included two ill-advised option pitches by Russell -- one in the first quarter and another in the third -- led to S.C. State touchdowns.

"One or two plays can make the difference in a game," Russell said. "It just wasn't a good game on my behalf."

On the opposing sideline, senior quarterback Cleveland McCoy knew exactly what Russell was going through. The Bulldogs' option game looked well-oiled for much of Saturday afternoon, but he's been on the bad side of that fine line and knows how bad it can turn when mistakes are made.

"It's tough. It rattles the quarterback a lot," said McCoy, whose offense gained 271 rushing yards Saturday. "Couple of fumbles, and once he makes several bad decisions . . . "

That's the way it goes with an option team. Blocking assignments can be missed left and right (and they were, by the way), but when the prescribed offense includes just that -- options -- the quarterback is expected to find a way. Therefore, right or wrong, Russell was doing the admirable thing by falling on his sword.

MISTAKES ALL AROUND

It wasn't for lack of effort that B-CU managed just 247 offensive yards. It was simply a lack of rhythm, which eventually became a lack of confidence. And once an option team loses control, it's like a pilot trying to recover from a spiral. Very, very tough.

"It's easy to get the confidence back when the offense isn't running smoothly," Russell said. "But when you're the person messing up, it's hard to get your confidence back. I didn't play a good game. I didn't play a good game at all."

If the offense could've found any footing at all, the Wildcats might've found a way to win, because S.C. State spent a good part of the day stepping on rakes -- 11 penalties for 155 yards, three field goals blocked, a fumble after a pass completion that was returned to the S.C. State 12.

"We won the football game, but I tell you, we were a stumblin', bumblin' bunch," Bulldogs head coach Buddy Pough said. "We just did so many silly things to not score points -- blocked field goals, off-sides. Ugly things."

When both sides watch the game film, there'll be plenty of flinching all around. This wasn't two teams at midseason form. For B-CU, the Wildcats will be able to count the ways things went bad. Up in Orangeburg, S.C., the Bulldogs will exhale and be reminded that victory is a great salve.

The Bulldogs go to Columbia next weekend for a play-for-pay date with big-league South Carolina, and while they don't go in with all their oars in the water, things could be worse.

"I feel better about next week because we don't go in there 0-2," Pough said. "We had this game sandwiched between Air Force and South Carolina. I was really worried about us coming down here and either not playing well because we didn't pay enough attention to these people, or we'd just come down here and get beat.

"Last year, you gotta remember how badly this team beat us. I'm happy with the fact that we won the football game. It at least puts us in a good enough frame of mind that we can go into Columbia and be excited about going."