3 Worst Things We Saw In The G5 In Week 5
With Week Five said and done, our visions of our how things will end up are starting to take shape. There's still time for things to change. We did just begin conference play nationwide, after all.
Some teams are going to need things to change. This week's column looks at a few teams who need to look inward and make said changes to get out of their own way.
Obviously, this is an opinion. Feel free to disagree.
UConn Battles Back...Only To Lose On A Blocked Extra Point
For the Connecticut Huskies, starting the season 0-4 has to hurt. To play your best game of the year, complete with your nose tackle being one of your best offensive players, only to lose on a blocked PAT and drop to 0-5, has to sting particularly badly.
The really frustrating thing: watch the end on the left side of the formation for UConn. At the earliest levels of football, you're taught to block field goals and PATs by blocking your inside gap. The idea is to make it so that if your opponent wants to block the kick, they either have to significantly physically overpower your line, or run all the way around the formation to get in front of the kick before it's snapped, held, and airborne. Do both of those things happen? Absolutely. But if you give them a straight line by leaving one of those gaps unblocked, like UConn did here, bad things are going to happen.
UAB's Win Slipping Away
In the first half of Saturday's UAB-Tulane game in New Orleans, it looked like we might see Trent Dilfer's first win against an FBS team as a head coach. After all, the Blazers did give #1 Georgia a decent game last week. Instead, despite UAB leading 20-14 at halftime, they allowed the defending AAC champions to outscore them 21-3 in the second half.
Down 28-20 early in the fourth quarter, UAB reached their opponents' one-yard line, but quarterback Jacob Zeno lost a fumble, which Tulane recovered.
On the critical following drive, UAB had the Green Wave in a fourth and two situation, but picked up an illegal substitution penalty that allowed Tulane's drive to continue. That resulted in Trent Dilfer having the biggest sideline meltdown we've seen this year, berating his defensive coaching staff. It ended in a missed field goal for Tulane, but that six-minute drive took away a significant chunk of clock in the final quarter.
The meltdown by a head coach who's still looking to accomplish something in his first year at the helm was ugly, but I have a hunch UAB fans care more about the sheer amount of team mistakes that ultimately triggered it.
Brevin Randle's Egregious Stomp
This was bad. Brevin Randle stomping on the neck of an opposing player well after the play was over was unsportsmanlike at best, dangerous at worst.
Louisiana Tech has since acknowledged the incident, that was completely missed by officials initially, by suspending Brevin indefinitely and issued a public apology to UTEP on behalf of the school and program.
Frankly, LA Tech handled the situation correctly. You can't control the behavior of every individual player, but addressing stuff like this right away is how you're supposed to do it.
