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News you can use
Football coaches always talk about the importance of executing in all three phases of the game; offense, defense and special teams. But most people just write that off as coach speak with special teams often being overlooked.
Yet, as the Montana State University-Northern Lights showed Saturday, failing to execute on special teams can cost a team dearly.
The Lights, who entered their contest Saturday against the ninth-ranked Battlin’ Bears of Rocky Mountain College as huge underdogs, held their own against the powerful Bears on offense and defense, but when it came to the kicking game, there was no comparison.
For Northern, it was a slew of costly errors. It began in the first half when Rocky blocked a punt and it continued early in the second half when a botched snap cost MSU-N a chance to trim the Bears’ lead to 11-6 early on in the second quarter.
Two mistakes like that is a bad day for any special teams unit but unfortunately for the Lights, thing would get much, much worse.
Still trailing 11-3 late in the third quarter, the Northern offense moved the ball down the Bears 11-yard line before the drive stalled. Facing a fourth-and-two at the Rocky 12, Lights’ interim head coach Jake Eldridge sent out kicker Jordan Rueschhoff for what should have been a routine 29-yard field goal. And what happened next ultimately changed the course of the game.
The Bears charged through the Northern line, easily blocking the kick. Then the ball bounced Rocky’s way, landing perfectly in the arms of Frank Brown, who returned it for a back-breaking touchdown.
Unfortunately for the Northern special team’s unit, the day was about to get even worse.
On the kickoff following the touchdown, the Lights failed to recover a pooch kick and allowed Rocky to take over possession at the Lights 20. And three plays later it was 25-3 and it appeared as though the rout was on.
But as they have done on and off the field all season, Northern responded to adversity. They put together two impressive drives on offense and a three-and-out on defense to get back into the game.
Football is all about momentum and after Zach McKinley scored on a three-yard rushing touchdown to trim the Rocky lead to 25-18 with 9:30 left in the game, the Lights had it. Blue Pony Stadium was rocking and the opportunity to get one of the biggest wins in school history was real.
As the defense waited anxiously for an opportunity stop the Rocky offense again, the problems in the kicking game arose again, and this time there would be no recovering.
It took just two good blocks and one great juke by Rocky return man Cedric Foster to break free and then the speedster was off to the races, returning the kick 88 yards for a touchdown and ending any hope of a dramatic come-from-behind win by the Lights.
Games are won by making big plays when it matters most and no play had a bigger impact on the outcome of the game than Foster’s electrifying kickoff return, which silenced a rabid crowd that could sense something special about to happen.
Foster’s kickoff return capped a day the MSU-Northern special team’s units will learn from but will also want to quickly forget.
That kind of performance is too much to overcome for any team but when it happens to an underdog against the ninth-ranked team in the country, it is a death knell. Northern should be proud of the way it played and battled for 60 minutes against a team many consider the favorite to win the Frontier. Few expected the Lights to give the Bears a run for their money and the fact they did so with all the errors on special teams proves they can go toe-to-toe with anyone in the conference.
Yet, college football is no place for moral victories and when Northern looks back on the Rocky game, it will see a missed opportunity. The chance to earn a defining win was within their grasp, but not being able to execute in the kicking game hurt the Lights chances for that defining win.
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