Published: April 28, 2008 05:09 pm            

Orange tops Black in final seconds

Ada — East Central University football coach Kurt Nichols refers to sophomore-to-be wideout Gerald Loveless as a “possession receiver”, and the ECU depth chart lists junior Josh Phillips as the understudy at quarterback to 2007 Lone Star Conference North Offensive Player of the Year Marcus Johnson.

But Loveless and Phillips both stepped out of character for the final act of Saturday afternoon’s Orange and Black Spring Game at Norris Field.

Phillips, who started two games as a freshman in 2006 and did a solid job as Johnson’s back-up last fall, found Loveless — a junior college transfer who didn’t play football at all in 2007 — on a 41-yard scoring pass after time had expired, then he hit Nigel Cooper on a two-point coversion to give the Orange a 15-14 win over Johnson and the Black squad in the Tigers’ spring finale.

Saturday’s contest was a split-squad affair played under virtual game conditions with Lone Star Conference officials on hand. The scoreboard clock counted off regulation 15-minute quarters, two field goals were attempted (and missed), and Justin Freshour handled the punting for both teams.

“We had Lone Star Conference and Big 12 officials here for a seminar today, and the game was part of it,” Nichols said. “The new 40-second clock rule (which starts the play clock immediately after the previous plays ends rather than when the ball is set for play) goes into effect this year, and we wanted to play the spring game under those conditions. I don’t think the new rule will hurt us at all.”

Phillips’ game-winning scoring pass was his fifth connection of the day with Loveless, who played one year under Nichols at Cisco Junior College as a freshman, then quit football for awhile after Nichols left Cisco to come to ECU in December of 2005. One of the most promising new members of a receiving corps that lost its top three pass-catchers (Marcus Pitts, Mark Hodges and Kory Dowell) to graduation, Loveless and the rest of the receivers in camp drew rave reviews from Phillips after Saturday’s game.

“He might not be the fastest guy, but he might have the best hands I’ve ever seen,” Phillips said of Loveless, who had a game-high 78 yards receiving. “We lost some experienced guys, but I thik we’ll still have one of the best receiving corps in the Lone Star Conference.”

Johnson and the Black team appeared to have wrapped up a 14-7 victory when, under the rules of the scrimmage (which required each team to punt on fourth down uniless they were inside the red zone), the Orange squad was forced to punt on fourth-and-2 from the Black 49 with 1;47 left.

Freshour’s kick carried to the 12, then Nichols — who coached the Black squad, with new defensive coordinator Robert Rubel and quarterbacks coach Chuck Hepola handling the Orange — did the Orange team a little bit of a favor by calling passes on second and third down after Stratford High product Kyle Wood was tackled for a yard loss by Brandon Hopstein on first down.

After Johnson threw incomplete twice, Freshour punted away with 35 seconds still showing on the clock. Phillips’ first two passes after the punt fell incomplete, then with time running down he scrambled away from the Black team’s pass rush, looked to his left and found Loveless behind the secondary and hit him with a perfect strike in the back left corner of the end one.

“All the flow went to the right, and I just looked back to the left and he was open,” Phillips said.

On the two-point conversion, Phillips got good protection again and threw over the middle to Cooper, who made a nice leaping catch for the win.

Ironically, Loveless beat one of the stars of the scrimmage, Tyrone Gibbs, for the winning touchdown. Gibbs made the defensive play of the afternoon early in the third quarter, when he recovered after appearing to be beaten by Cooper on a long Phillips pass down the left sideline and took the ball away from Cooper on the way to the ground for a highlight-reel interception.

Another new starter in the ECU secondary, strong safety Dionte Dean (who backed up Chris Mims last season), also intercepted a Phillips pass in the second quarter to give the Black squad good field position at the Orange 35, but Wood fumbled two plays later.

For the day, Phillips was a solid 17-for-27 passing for 165 yards, and, although he threw the two interceptions, he also had an 11-yard scoring strike to Chris Ivory in the second quarter in addition to his game-winning strike to Loveless.

Johnson, meanwhile, didn’t have a touchdown pass on the day, but he finished 17-for-29 for 203 yards and didn’t throw an interception. And, with the exception of the Phillips-to-Loveless connection on the final play of the game, he was responsible for the day’s biggest plays through the air.

On the Black squad’s first play from scrimmage, Johnson found Keewan King down the middle for a 38-yard gain to the Orange 32, but that drive died when his fourth-and-1 pass from the Orange 8 fell incomplete. Johnson found Gibbs (who doubled as a wideout) for 25 yards on third-and-15 to keep alive the Black’s drive after Phillips hit Ivory to put the Orange on top 7-0, and a flagrant face mask penalty on the play moved the ball to the Orange 35.

Two plays later, Wood — a transfer from Southeastern who shared snaps at tailback for the Black with another newcomer, Josh Dutton, Saturday — ripped off 34 yards to the 6, and after a fumbled snap lost a yard and a second-down pass was incomplete, Johnson swept left for the game-tying touchdown with 10:22 left in the half.

Neither team scored again until the fourth quarter, when another big pass play engineered by Johnson set up the Black team’s go-ahead touchdown.

A snap over Phillips’ head from shotgun formation on fourth-and-1 from the Black 40 early in the final period resulted in a 20-yard loss gave Johnson and the Black offense field position at the Orange 40 with 13:18 to play.

Johnson’s first two passes were incomplete, but on third-and-10 he scrambled to his right away from the pass rush and found tight end Sterling Headen streaking down the right sideline. Headen made a beautiful catch and was pushed out of bounds immediately for a first down at the 2, and Dutton slid off right guard for the touchdown on the next play. Cory Dozier’s extra point made it 14-7 and set up the wild finish.

The running game for both teams was streaky, but it did manage to produce several big plays against the Tigers’ new 3-4 defense.

Redshirt sophomore-to-be Larry Carter-Holmes had the day’s biggest gainer, a 63-yard burst on a draw play to the Black 11 that set up Phillips’ scoring pass to Ivory one snap later. Carter, one of the stars of the spring, was bottled up for most of the rest of the day, finishing with 82 yards on 17 tough carries.

Wood had a 35-yard run called back by a penalty, but he also had a solid afternoon to wrap up his first ECU spring, finishing with 41 yards on six carries and turning a swing pass from Johnson into a 13-yard gain.

Two plays earlier, former Ada High All-American Craig Roark — in the midst of a huge afternoon that ended on a sour note when aggravated the foot injury that forced him to miss the 2007 season — had recovered a Carter fumble at the White 26. That drive carried to the 8 but ended when a high snap wiped out a 25-yard field goal attempt by Dozier.

Gibbs, King, Headen and Shad Scarborough all made big catches for the Black squad, and Orange team wideouts Cooper, Loveless, Ivory, Justin Goolsby and Blake Barnes were solid all afternoon. Nichols might have also found the big, possession tight end he has been looking for in juco transfer Thurman Sims, who caught four passes for 52 yards, including a 19-yarder for a first down early in the fourth quarter.

Defensively, both teams also had their share of playmakers.

Roark was a force all afternoon, recording three sacks and recovering a fumble, and two other members of the front three for the Black — Maurice Glanclos and Floyd Wafer — combined for three more sacks. Lineback Curtis Niccum (another one of ECU’s stars this spring) was also in on a couple of tackles for loss and recovered a fumble, and Gibbs and Dean were around the ball all day.

For the Orange, Hopstein and Homer Joiner had two sacks apiece (with Joiner getting his on consecutive plays in the fourth quarter), and linebackers Kevin Avey (a converted defensive end) and Jared Ledbetter and lineman Robert Jackson also had solid afternoons, with Ledbetter getting a sack on Johnson in the first half.

“I was very pleased with our effort today,” Nichols said. “We had very good tackling, and our defense picked up the pace in the second half. Overall, I thought we were very balanced.”

ECU opens its 2008 campaign on the road at Sam Houston State on Thursday, Aug. 28. Players will report for the beginning of preseason practice on Wednesday, Aug. 6.

        

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