Ran over
Santiago headlines Army rush attack with 188 yards in blowout win
Upon reflection of this game, I keep thinking back to a quote from MLB The Show anchor Matt Vasgersian, in which he famously said "You can't win if you can't score." This works inversely as well. If you can't play defense, you can't win, no matter how bad the offense is. Story of the game right here.
I don't even know where to begin with this one. Army came out and completely obliterated UConn, to the surprise of many, including UConn.
Everything went wrong for the Huskies, who perhaps looked unprepared to face the option. They gave up
188 rushing yards to Army QB Angel Santiago, and the defense just looked lost all day.
The best example of this came right before the half, when Santiago and Army were marching downfield after a punt from UConn. With no timeouts and 11 seconds to go, Santiago scrambled and was tackled for no gain at the 19 yard line. The Knights went no huddle and Santiago heaved to the end zone.
Despite being in a deep zone that should have been well-equipped to stop this, only one guy was in the remote area of the ball's location, corner
Jhavon Williams, who was picked on all day. Williams tipped it, and stopped, thinking the ball had gone out of bounds. Instead,
Xavier Moss came down with it and put Army up 21-0 at the half.
Though UConn held Army through most of the first half (allowed 7 points on a
Hayden Pierce pick 6, we'll touch on that shortly), from then on out they couldn't cover the option, especially Santiago. When they focused on him, Santiago was able to hand off to
Terry Baggett (6 carries, 57 yards),
Tony Giovanelli (3 carries, 53 yards, 44 yard run in first quarter) or fullback
Larry Dixon (5 carries, 39 yards) and gain optimal results.
The Black Knights' top 10 rushing numbers only increased, gaining well over 330 yards on the ground.
Now that we have analyzed the defense, let's look at the anemic offensive performance.
Chandler Whitmer, deservedly earning apologies from the UConn media and fans after his incredible performance vs. Boise State last week, lost all that and more after his second at least 4-INT outing in 3 weeks and subsequent benching in favor of
Tim Boyle in the 3rd quarter.
Whitmer, who was protected not very well by a patchwork offensive line, made poor decisions, not so much throws, and it is believed Boyle will start going forward after a good performance out of him despite 2 INT's which were both tipped.
The only productive offensive player of the day was
Max DeLorenzo, who despite playing for the aforementioned patchwork O-Line, managed to pick up 74 yards on 15 carries.
Again, the Army defense dominated, being in the right place at the right times, and making a total of 6 INT's and two fumbles (8 Turnovers!!). There was just no production out of anyone and it showed.
I'll try my best to put this on the backburner. Stony Brook next. If we don't win this one....
| Army Black Knights at Connecticut Huskies |
| Sep 20, 2014 | 1ST | 2ND | 3RD | 4TH | SCORE |
| Army Black Knights (3-0) | 14 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 35 |
| Connecticut Huskies (0-3) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 7 |
| Scoring Summary |
| FIRST QUARTER SCORING | ARMY | CONN |
| 4:13 | (ARMY) Pierce 41 INT Return (Grochowski kick) | 7 | 0 |
| 1:32 | (ARMY) Schurr 2 run (Grochowski kick) | 14 | 0 |
| SECOND QUARTER SCORING | ARMY | CONN |
| :00 | (ARMY) Santiago 19 pass Moss (Grochowski kick) | 21 | 0 |
| THIRD QUARTER SCORING | ARMY | CONN |
| 4:15 | (ARMY) Santiago 88 run (Grochowski kick) | 28 | 0 |
| FOURTH QUARTER SCORING | ARMY | CONN |
| 6:54 | (ARMY) Baggett 5 run (Grochowski kick) | 35 | 0 |
| 1:01 | (CONN) Marriner 2 run (Puyol kick) | 35 | 7 |
| Army Black Knights | | PASSING | C/A | YDS | TD | INT | | Angel Santiago | 5-7 | 107 | 1 | 1 | | A.J. Schurr | 2-4 | 32 | 0 | 0 | | RUSHING | ATT | YDS | AVG | TD | | Angel Santiago | 17 | 190 | 11.1 | 1 | | Terry Baggett | 6 | 57 | 9.5 | 1 | | Larry Dixon | 5 | 39 | 7.8 | 0 | | Tony Giovanelli | 3 | 53 | 17.6 | 0 | | RECEIVING | REC | YDS | AVG | TD | | Xavier Moss | 3 | 70 | 23.3 | 1 | | Edgar Poe | 2 | 37 | 18.5 | 0 | | Chevaughn Lawrence | 1 | 27 | 27.0 | 0 | | DEFENSE | TACK | SACK | INT | TD | | Jeremy Timpf | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | | Tevin Long | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 | | Chris Carnegie | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| | Connecticut Huskies | | PASSING | C/A | YDS | TD | INT | | Chandler Whitmer | 12-27 | 106 | 0 | 4 | | Tim Boyle | 8-12 | 80 | 0 | 2 | | RUSHING | ATT | YDS | AVG | TD | | Max DeLorenzo | 15 | 74 | 4.9 | 0 | | Josh Marriner | 5 | 25 | 5.0 | 1 | | RECEIVING | REC | YDS | AVG | TD | | Deshon Foxx | 5 | 49 | 9.8 | 0 | | Kamal Abrams | 4 | 26 | 6.5 | 0 | | Geremy Davis | 3 | 33 | 11.0 | 0 | | DEFENSE | TACK | SACK | INT | TD | | Graham Stewart | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | | Jefferson Ashiru | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | | Junior Joseph | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
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(Left) Jhavon Williams was picked on by Xavier Moss most of the day, but he did lay a big hit on him here. (Right) Terry Baggett on his TD scamper.