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Football University: Humanitarian Bowl recap

When I wrote the preview for the Humanitarian Bowl I said that if Fresno State was going to beat Georgia Tech they would need to run and run and then run some more. Well, the Bulldogs did just that and then some. The way that Fresno State controlled the game was the reason that the final score turned out to be 40 to 28 for them.

For me, the key to this game was Fresno State’s first three scores, where they took 32 plays (263 yds) and consumed 14:30 minutes. That’s what I call controlling the clock and the game. Pounding the ball and passing when it was the right time to do so got the Bulldogs well over 500 yards and a 27 to 7 advantage that Georgia Tech could never come back from. It was a slaughter and it was most evident in the end of the second quarter when a couple of shots at the Tech sideline showed the team and its coaching staff almost looking like they didn’t know what had hit them.

The second half saw the Georgia Tech team react, but the reality is they had to use so much energy to get back in it that they didn’t have enough to catch Fresno State. One player I was truly disappointed in during this game was Tashard Choice (69 yds), who I thought would be the X factor for Tech. He didn’t do much in the first half and was taken out due to an injury. His replacement Johnathan Dwyer got two TDs, but 62 yards was not enough to make a difference against the Bulldogs. I will also add this, if the Yellow Jackers qb Taylor Bennett had played the whole game I don’t believe that it would have changed the outcome.

In this game, more than anything, I really think it was the intensity that made the difference. The Bulldogs went at it from the first snap to the last seconds of the game. They were pumped up for every play, as evidenced by the way they were going at the Tech team. The backs would jump right back up once tackled, whether the play was short or long. The defense would swarm on each and every play, they just seemed to be more into this game for the sixty minutes. Most evident in what I am saying are these two facts: in the passing TDs by Tech, both throws were perfect and if they hadn’t been they would have been either intercepted or imcomplete, meaning that the Fresno State defense was playing well even when beat. While for the Bulldogs I found it amazing how many wr blocks the running backs were getting on their runs, showing me once again how well the team was playing for one another.

This was definitely a game whose outcome surprised me. But I was pleasantly surprised by the level of play and in the end I might have gotten the pick wrong, but I was not wrong in taking the time to watch the game.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 1st, 2008 at 11:47 am and is filed under NCAA football, Sports Picks (Football), Georgia Tech, Humanitarian Bowl, News (Football), BCS, Football, ESPN, Fresno State, News & Notes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.