Tigers stiff arm Pack in Missouri
Photo by Amy Beck/Nevada Sagebrush
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Missouri’s offense was so successful Saturday against Nevada that it declined a 15-yard pass interference call in favor of an 11-yard completion.
The extra four yards meant nothing to a Tiger team that moved the ball for 651 total yards and scored 69 points.
“Our defense was never in the game,” Nevada coach Chris Ault said. “I’m disappointed that our guys didn’t show up.”
Nevada lost 69-17 to the Tigers and will have two weeks to regroup before it travels to Las Vegas to play intrastate rival UNLV.
Four plays after Missouri declined the pass interference call, it seemed as though Nevada had actually held the Tigers to a field goal. Missouri’s kicking team came on the field, up 45-17 in the third quarter, and lined up for a kick. But it was a fake and holder Tommy Saunders shovel passed the ball to tight end Chase Coffman, who ran for a 32-yard touchdown.
“I thought it was a slap in the face,” Nevada quarterback Colin Kaepernick said. Kaepernick passed for 152 yards and 17 completions on 31 attempts Saturday. “I felt they really disrespected us.”
Ault said there was nothing to feel disrespected about.
“Oh no, no, no not (disrespectful) at all,” Ault said. “Listen, this is early season and they are trying to do some new things. No, absolutely not. I would be very disappointed if they wanted to go for it and they didn’t.”
Disrespectful or not, the Tigers offense rammed the football down the Wolf Pack’s throat. Missouri scored 12 touchdowns on its first 13 possessions of the game. Tiger quarterback and 2007 Heisman Trophy finalist Chase Daniel threw for 405 yards and four touchdowns. Missouri also had four receivers with more than 98 receiving yards.
“It comes with practice,” Daniel said of his success with his receivers. “I’ve been playing for three years with all of them. You just go out there and have to trust them.”
Tiger receiver Jeremy Maclin acknowledged Daniel’s chances of winning the Heisman Trophy this season.
“I’m doing everything I can to get Chase to New York,” Maclin, who had 172 receiving yards and three touchdowns on Saturday, said. “(Daniel) deserves it. He’s the best quarterback in the country by far.”
Daniel’s offensive line was also able to keep Nevada’s defense from creating any kind of pressure on the senior quarterback.
“So far, yes (I think this is the hardest offense I’ve seen),” Nevada defensive end Dontay Moch said.
Nevada’s defensive pressure was almost nonexistent. Daniel was only sacked once and had plenty of time to dink and dunk to his plethora of weapons downfield. Daniel completed on 23-of-28 passes, including seven of his first eight.
The Wolf Pack especially didn’t have an answer for Missouri’s 6-foot-4, 240-pound, speedy tight end Coffman. Nevada threw different coverage’s at Coffman, but he still reached 127 receiving yards on six catches. Coffman doesn’t give any idea that Missouri is happy with beating the Wolf Pack. The beast of a tight end is looking toward bigger and better things.
“We can’t look at that, it’s in the past now,” Coffman said of Missouri’s success against Nevada. “We’ve done a great job preparing for other teams. Now we’ve just got to keep doing it, keep preparing, keep watching film and keep working hard during practice.”
Emerson Marcus can be reached at emarcus@nevadasagebrush.com
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 at 1:43 am and is filed under Football, Sports, Sports CP.
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.
Print this post
Email this post© 2008 The Nevada Sagebrush
