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Scots hope to keep one streak
intact in MWC opener vs. Vikings
Release Date: September 6, 2006
MONMOUTH, Ill. — It’s well-known
that the Monmouth College football team entered the season with a
17-game regular season unbeaten streak. But only serious Fighting
Scot fans knew that Monmouth had not lost on the road in 14 regular
season games and that they had not been shut out for 55 consecutive
contests.
Sadly, all three streaks came to a close in Saturday night’s 20-0
loss at Wartburg College, but that was almost not the case.
It was not hard to identify the turning point of the game, which
came midway through the third quarter with Monmouth trailing 6-0.
After runs of six and 15 yards by Dante Daniels to open the drive,
the senior speedster broke through the Wartburg defense and appeared
to be headed to the end zone for a go-ahead score. But Daniels’
45-yard run came to an abrupt end at the Wartburg 7, as he was
stripped of the football by the Knights’ preseason All-American
cornerback, Nick Weber.
“That definitely hurt,” agreed MC head coach Steve Bell. “There’s no
doubt in my mind that if we don’t lose the ball there, we score. He
was stripped by the last tackler. It was a good play on their part
and a bad play on ours. It changed the complexion of the game.”
Wartburg pounced on the loose pigskin, then drove 93 yards the other
way to take a 13-0 lead. After one Scot possession ended on a
three-and-out, Monmouth tried to respond with a solid drive that
featured three plays of 11 yards or longer. But it stalled inside
the Wartburg 10, and the Knights once again drove 93 yards to score
the game-clinching TD with 2:23 to play.
“Make no doubt about it, Wartburg’s a good football team,” said
Bell. “Obviously, we’re disappointed with a loss. It came down to
what we talked about, which was field position, turnover margin and
limiting big chunks of yardage.”
The Scots turned the ball over three times while capitalizing on
just one Wartburg miscue. In addition, they put the ball on the
ground three other times but were able to recover. The “big chunks
of yardage” that Bell would most like to have back were a 33-yard
pass play on third-and-16 during the Knights’ first touchdown drive
and a 39-yard run that set up the final score.
“Defensively, other than those two plays, I thought we played very
well,” he said. “They definitely kept us in position to win the
game. We were feeling very good at halftime, when we just trailed
3-0.”
On the other hand, Bell said, “Offensively, we’ve still got a long
way to go. We didn’t have a lot of continuity. We were pretty
hit-and-miss.”
In his first start, sophomore quarterback Steve Zidow was 10-of-19
for 100 yards and two interceptions. Just 16 of those passing yards
came to senior preseason All-American Evan Haffner.
Up next for the Scots is their home opener this Saturday at 1:30
p.m. against Lawrence. The festive Community Day atmosphere figures
to help the Scots, as does the start of a new season.
“Our guys understand that we don’t play for the non-conference
championship,” said Bell of the Midwest Conference opener. “The meat
and potatoes of our season starts this weekend.”
The Vikings opened their 2006 campaign with a come-from-behind 21-8
victory over Minnesota-Morris on Saturday. Former St. Norbert
running back Aljay Wren rushed for a team-high 106 yards and a TD
and was also the team’s leading receiver with three grabs for 32
yards. Lawrence attempted just 12 passes on the day, completing six.
“Lawrence is very well-coached,” said Bell. “(Coach Chris Howard)
gets them to play hard, and they’re coming off a win in their
opener, so their guys will be excited. They have more talent than
last year, and they’re a year older in their system. I voted for
them to finish higher up than where the preseason poll had them
(seventh).”
A year ago, Monmouth had trouble getting untracked offensively
against Lawrence, finally breaking through in the second half on
three Daniels touchdowns to win 41-13. He finished with 149 yards on
17 carries.
Despite having to start all over again on most of their streaks,
Monmouth is still clinging to one notable stretch of games. The
Scots have won 16 straight conference contests, dating back to early
in the 2004 season.
NOTES: Two items jumped out at the bottom of the Wartburg game
summary. One was the official attendance, which was listed as 5,896.
The other was the game time, which was just 2:10. “It was the
shortest college football game I’ve ever been a part of,” said Bell.
Rule changes that start the clock when the kicker strikes the
kickoff and following changes of possession helped speed up the
game, as did the relatively small number of passes for both teams.
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