[gorillapittpray]

THE CAMPUS GAZETTE
UAB UNIVERSITY NEWSPAPER

BAD TO THE BONE
SMITH AND COMPANY LEAD BLAZERS PAST MEMPHIS IN ANNUAL "BATTLE OF THE BONES" RIVALRY 45-16

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ASSOCIATED PRESS

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA-- It wasn't quite perfect, but it was impressive. No. 12 UAB jumped to a 24-10 lead after just five offensive plays, then scored two more touchdowns on the Blazers' first five offensive plays of the second half on the way to a 45-16 victory against Memphis on Saturday. With the victory, UAB improved to 8-0 for the first time in school history, while Memphis slipped to 2-5 in front of a crowd of 58,676 the largest to view a Blazer game in school history.

"Playing at home in a hostile environment, I thought it was a good step for our football team," Rhatigan said. "I knew it'd be hard for them to focus, going against a good football team on the road. It's a tough environment to play in and I thought our crowd did well. I thought it was a pretty full effort by our football team also. I liked their approach. Like I just told them, there's still a lot more out there for us, there's still a lot for us to clean up. We have a long way to go as a football team but this was a good step along the way."

UAB rolled up 464 yards of total offense, including 375 in the air. The Blazer trio of Ian Wilson (102 yards, 6 receptions), James Moses. (111 yards, 1 TD, 4 receptions) and Matthew Scott(130 yards, 2 TD's, 18 carries) Put on a clinic for the fans.
Scott went over the 100-yard mark yet again and broke the single season touchdown record with his second touchdown of the day.
The Blazers continued to show their quick-strike capabilities, covering 59 yards on just one play on their opening drive, when true Freshmen receiver caught a Wayne Smith strike and waltzed in the end zone. For the day, Smith completed 16-of-30 passes for 375 yards, including a rushing touchdown.
On UAB's second drive, it took the Blazers just three plays to cover 73 yards, after a 30-yard pass play from Smith to Brown carried UAB to Memphis territory. Smith then dialed up his second of three touchdown passes when he hit Michael Ross for a 24 yard score. Ross caught the ball near the goal line then carried two defenders into the end zone during the play.
Smith hit paydirt on a quarterback dive on the next Series and the Blazers went to the half up comfortably up 24-10
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"EARLY SCORES FROM FRESHMEN MATT FORD (PICTURED LEFT) AND MICHAEL ROSS (PICTURED RIGHT) SET THE TONE."

Memphis tried to stay in the game by forcing Wayne Smith into two uncharacteristic interceptions on UAB's side of the field. But was held to just two more field goals.
After that, it was all UAB.
In the second half the Scott train got rolling., Scott slowly chewed up chunks of yards, 8 here, 12 their, 5 here during the whole second half. He eventually scored on touchdown runs of 7 and 2 yards.

"TEAMMATES CELEBRATE AS SCOTT BREAKS SCHOOL'S SINGLE SEASON TOUCHDOWN RECORD"

Scott's running silenced Memphis portion of the crowd for good, but the Blazers fans still had plenty to cheer about.
"We talked to the players and said we need to make sure and thank those fans. That was pretty special," Rhatigan said. "I don't know how many we had here, probably 50 thousand fans. I heard a comment behind me on the first bus when we were coming in, when we saw all that Green and gold, as we were coming into the stadium, and they said is this a bowl game (chuckling)'
"That just goes to show you the kind of support we get. It's great. At the start of the football game, that place was loud. We've got great fans here and bringing that many people, I think, shows a statement about what UAB football is all about."
While the offense gave the crowd plenty to cheer about , Senior All American defensive end Jerry Bowser got the Dragon Squad to play some inspired ball. He himself led the team with 10 tackles including 2.5 sacks. Bowser just needs two sacks to become the schools All time sack leader. For the season he has 12.5 and for his career he has 34.5 the record is 36.
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"BOWSER CONTINUES TO HARASS QUARTERBACKS, FOR THE YEAR HE HAS 12.5 SACKS, WHILE MARCUS LEAK (PICTURED RIGHT) HAS IMPRESS WITH 6 SACKS OF HIS OWN"

The Blazers secondary, which leads the NCAA with fifteen interceptions through eight games, picked Wyatt on his first attempt of the game, with Nate Davis notching his fourth interception of the season. It was Wyatt's third interception of the year, and UAB converted it into a touchdown just a play later on Ford's game-opening scorer.
The Blazers surrendered just 308 total yards to the Tigers, including just 36 yards on the ground. The Blazers held Wyatt to 15-of-29 passing on the afternoon, RS-freshmen Adam Love also grabbed a pick from Wyatt his third on the year. The defense again notched over five sacks in a game getting to Wyatt seven times. McCray also had 2,5 sacks, Marcus Leak grabbed a sack and Senior Tom Slaughter grabbed his 10th sack of the season.

"FRESHMEN ADAM LOVE GRABS HIS THIRD INT OF THE SEASON"

UAB returns home to attempt to complete its home schedule with Senior day as they take on a struggling Marshall team next Saturday.

BOX SCORE

Memphis (2-5) at UAB (8-0)
Oct 20, 2012 1 2 3 4 F Memphis 10 0 6 0 16 #11 UAB 14 10 14 7 45 Top Performers Memphis W. Smith 16-30, 375 yards 4 total TD's J. Bowser 10 tckl 2.5 sacks UAB C. Ingram 7 tckl 1 int	Team Stats Comparison Mem UAB First Downs 12 15 3rd Down Efficiency 2-14 6-10 4th Down Efficiency 0-1 3-3 Total Yards 308 464 Passing Yards 272 375 Rushing Yards 26 89 Penalties-Penalty Yards 1-10 3-17 Turnovers 2 2 Time of Possession 13:12 14:48