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Tigers' healthy offense produces in 2009
11/11/2009
By CONOR NICHOLL
cnicholl@dailynews.net
During a midseason stretch against Emporia State University, Washburn University, University of Central Missouri and University of Nebraska-Omaha, the Fort Hays State University high-octane spread offense scored just 2 offensive touchdowns in 12 quarters.
Helped by two defensive scores, the Tigers defeated ESU 40-20 before they scored 14 and 3 points respectively in losses to Washburn and Central Missouri. After just three points in the first half against UNO, Fort Hays scored 28 points in the second half.
In the final three contests, the Tigers tallied 41, 40 and 48 points.
In the end of year news conference Tuesday, head coach Kevin Verdugo said the offensive surge was helped by healthy personnel.
"That changes the way you are in the last three weeks," he said. "The healthiest we have probably been since training camp. ... It helped to get guys healthy."
The offensive change yielded a 6-5 record, including 4-5 in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association. Last season, FHSU was 2-9, 1-8 in the conference. The four-win improvement matched the largest single season increase by any conference team in the last six seasons. Any jump in the MIAA is difficult; the conference ranked as NCAA Division II's second-best, best among conferences with at least five schools, according to masseyratings.com,
"It's a hard conference to have that kind of a jump," Verdugo said. "First of all, I think you have to have coachable kids. Trying to do everything that you ask of them. Then you have to have a great group of assistant coaches that can get that message across to the kids in the right way and help get everybody herded in the right direction."
Plus, it helped to have starters able to play. While the defense had several players suffer season-ending injuries, most notably junior defensive back and captain Michael Walker and senior defensive lineman Charlie Carr, the offense had everyone back for the stretch run. In midseason, junior wideout O.J. Murdock, the team's best deep threat, rarely practiced.
"There was probably a three week span that OJ Murdock didn't practice one day and we got him into Saturdays to play," Verdugo said. "That's a huge difference. Against Washburn, I don't think he practiced that week. When you get guys out there, the timing and the rhythm and everything else (isn't on)."
In addition, junior tailback James Walker had to take the bulk of the carries in midseason because of an injury to senior running back Jacobb Irvin. Senior tight end Beau Gadwood, junior wideout Anthony Smith and senior left tackle Wes Yarbough all were hurt; Yarbough's only two games missed were Washburn and Central.
"James was taking the bulk of the carries, Jacobb was hurt for a fair amount of the season," Verdugo said. "That takes away maybe some different things that you might look at doing. Anthony Smith was gone for three weeks, Beau has been hurt off and on throughout the year."
Irvin returned for the last part of the season and every key offensive starter played in the final game. Irvin scored a touchdown on the final carry of his Tiger career.
"It's great for the kid," Verdugo said. "He has put in a lot of time here, worked hard, been a pretty good kid in the program and for him to be able to finish on his game and have a productive game and that last touch being a touchdown, that is great for him."
Verdugo discusses playoff picture
Because of the conference's strength, generally the top two, likely three, teams in the MIAA enjoy a trip to the NCAA Division II playoffs. However, this season only Northwest Missouri State University earned a postseason berth.
"I think we should always have two. Minimum," Verdugo said.
Four MIAA teams, including Washburn, Missouri Western, University of Nebraska-Omaha and University of Central Missouri, finished in a four-way tie. In the regional rankings, the top 6 teams make the playoffs; the MIAA teams finished 7-8-9-10.
Four teams from the Lone Star Conference reached the postseason, including Midwestern State, Texas A&M-Kingsville, Abilene Christian and Tarleton State. However, those four teams (according to masseyratings) all played weaker schedules and many had rankings slightly above or below the four MIAA schools that missed the playoffs.
At masseyratings.com, a formula that is one of the computers used in the Division I Bowl Championship Series rankings, Washburn finished as the country's No. 5 team, playing the country's 10th hardest schedule (SOS). Central Missouri stood 10th (11th SOS), Missouri Western was 12th (9th SOS) and UNO was 14th (5th-ranked SOS). Fort Hays ranked 31st (7th SOS).
Midwestern State was ranked 11th (51st SOS), Tarleton State stood 17th (48th SOS), Abilene Christian was 18th (30th SOS) and Texas A&M-Kingsville was 19th (43rd SOS).
Verdugo would like to see Division II adopt a format similar to Division I. In Division II, playoff berths are also determined regionally and the top 25 coaches' poll has no bearing on the playoff picture.
"The thing that I would like to see the Division II people do is incorporate the top 25 into a selection process, because right now, it has absolutely no meaning and no bearing based upon our playoff selections," Verdugo said. "If your strength of schedule, your conference strength and then your top 25 throughout the year had some kind of bearing of where you are (and) you could have a formula to incorporate all of those just like they do in the BCS, I think it would be much less subjective.
"Right now, I think there is too much room for human error or people just really being political in what they want," he added. "I think that would help a great deal because right now the top 25, I voted on that for two or three years and you spent a ton of time and realized that it was meaningless."
Scoring up in the MIAA
The scoring average rose in the conference this season to 31.35 points per team. Six teams cleared 30 points a game, two more than last season. In the final NCAA statistics, six conference teams ranked in the top 35 in the country in scoring offense. Last year, four squads stood in the top 43.
"I don't know if the defenses were not as good," Verdugo said. "I know the offenses were much better. There are a great deal of skill players in the conference this year for every team. That made a huge difference. That means a lot of people are spreading the football around. It was not as much of a run-run-pass, downhill, power, iso conference as it has been in the past. There were a lot more people in shotgun throwing it all over the place, running spread, zone reads stuff, which creates a lot more problems for the defenses."
| Scoreboard | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Sport | Date | Opponent | Score |
| SB | 03/08 | Fort Lewis | W 5-4 |
| BB | 03/07 | No. 9 Emporia State | L 13-7 |
| BB | 03/06 | No. 9 Emporia State | L 16-4 |
| BB | 03/06 | No. 9 Emporia State | W 3-0 |
| MB | 03/05 | Emporia State | L 65-61 |
| BB | 03/05 | No. 9 Emporia State | L 10-3 |
| WB | 03/04 | No. 15 Emporia | L 72-66 |
| WB | 02/28 | No. 12 Emporia State | L 87-80 |
| MB | 02/28 | Emporia State | W 94-47 |
| SB | 02/28 | Quincy | L 6-0 |
| SB | 02/27 | Mo Southern | W 9-3 |
| SB | 02/27 | Missouri S&T | L 8-3 |
| SB | 02/27 | Drury | W 17-10 |
| BB | 02/27 | Mo. Western | W 17-0 |
| BB | 02/27 | Mo. Western | W 3-2 (10 inn.) |
| BB | 02/26 | Mo. Western | W 12-8 |
| BB | 02/26 | Missouri Western | W 11-10 |
| MB | 02/24 | Pittsburg State | W 69-60 |
| WB | 02/24 | Pittsburg State | L 78-74 |
| MB | 02/21 | Mo. Southern | L 76-57 |