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Monday, October 4, 1999
A&M-Kingsville left searching for answers after shocking loss
Breakdowns across the board contribute to Javelinas' first loss to suddenly powerful Tarleton State in last five meetings
By Javier Becerra
Caller-Times
STEPHENVILLE - No one could explain it, but there were plenty of reasons why Texas A&M-Kingsville fell flat against Tarleton State University Saturday night.
Fumbles. Missed blocking assignments. Broken coverage in the secondary. Lethargic running out of the backfield. Poor execution on offense. Breakdowns on the defensive line.
A&M-Kingsville looked nothing like the team that had pounded the Texans in the teams' previous five meetings. This time the roles were reversed in Tarleton's 23-7 win over the Javelinas.
"I can't even call it," said A&M-Kingsville free safety Cephus Scott. "There's no explenation for what happened to us. I felt like we could win it."
Tarleton's offense unloaded immediately on A&M-Kingsville's sluggish defense and opened a 10-0 lead on its first two possessions of the first quarter.
After stopping the Javelinas (1-2 conference, 1-4 overall) on fourth down at the Tarleton 4-yard line, the Texans (3-0 conference, 3-2 overall) drove to the A&M-Kingsville 23 before settling for a 40-yard field goal by J.W. Boren. On A&M-Kingsville's ensuing possession, tailback Derrick Foster fumbled at the Javelina 13-yard line, which Tarleton recovered at the 23. On the Texans' first play, quarterback Steve Kelley hit receiver Chris Chambers in the end zone for the first of three scoring passes by Kelly.
Kelly, a 6-foot-3, 210-pound transfer from Miami (Fla.), finished with 191 yards passing and distributed his 11 completions among four receivers. After seeing film of A&M-Kingsville's performance against Sam Houston, Kelly wasn't sure how the Javelinas' secondary would play.
He knew that wouldn't be the key.
"All we had to do was believe," Kelly said. "People didn't have a lot of faith in us. We needed to show what we could, and we went out there and did it. The key for us was believing. If we did that, we knew we could do it."
Kelly said the Texan's confidence wasn't affected by last season's 42-7 drubbing by the Javelinas in Kingsville.
"We weren't expecting anything from them," Kelly said. "They came out here and thought we were the old Tarleton. We knew we could win. The game was in our hands."
A SHINE OUT: Tarleton running back Eric Shine was taken to the hospital midway though the third quarter with what Texans' head coach Craig Wederquist said was a broken neck. Wederquist said Shine was knocked out of bounds on a strong hit by a Javelina defender and was slow getting up before collapsing on the sideline. The 5-7, 170-pound Shine had 23 carries for 78 yards before his injury. Shine was tackled for a 4-yard loss on his last carry.
A A SIMPLE PLAN: Tarleton didn't have a fancy game plan going into Saturday night's game. Assistant head coach Kurt Nichols said the win was a result of going back to the basics.
"This wasn't the same strategy we used last year against them," said Nichols, also the Texans' linebackers coach. What happened is we went back to fundamentals."
Nichols said a week's worth of working on defensive technique and tackling basics enabled Tarleton to stop A&M-Kingsville's running game.
"There quartebacks have done a great job running the veer," Nichols said. "We knew we had to work on implementing our run-stop defense because we know what they can do with the option."
A BACK IN ACTION: A&M-Kingsville defensive tackle John Todryk made his first start against Tarleton after completing a four-game suspension carried over from last season. Todryk finsihed with just two solo tackles.
Staff writer Javier Becerra can be reached at 886-3734 or by email at becerraj@caller.com
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