Published: October 03, 2008 02:33 pm      

Tigers trek to No. 4 Abilene Christian Saturday night

Ada — The East Central University Tigers didn’t have much time to celebrate their first victory of of the 2008 football season. And it was a win that deserved to be savored.

After blowing a 42-28 fourth-quarter lead and surrendering a tying touchdown on the final play of regulation, the Tigers came back to beat Northeastern, 55-49, on a return of a blocked field goal on the Riverhawks’ first possession in overtime. The victory -- coupled with a season-best 539 yards in total offense and four rushing touchdowns -- was the good news.

On the negative side, the ECU defense -- especially the secondary -- suffered through a nightmare of a second half en route to surrendering a season-high 537 yards to a previously offensively-challenged Northeastern squad that had scored just 30 points in its first four games, and this week ECU gets to play David to one of the Goliaths of the Lone Star Conference.

The Tigers left this morning for Abilene, Texas, where they will square off Saturday night (6 p.m. kickoff) against an Abilene Christian squad ranked No. 4 in all of NCAA Division II. Favored in a loaded LSC South Division that currently has two other teams (West Texas State and Tarleton) in the DII top 20, ACU is a team without an apparent weakness.

“They’re pretty solid in every phase of the game,” third-year ECU coach Kurt Nichols -- coming off his first North Division victory in almost two years and his first win in seven games overall dating back to last season -- said of the Wildcats, who are unbeaten, untested and averaging 51 points a game through five weeks. “They’ve got some great skill players. Bernard Scott (the LSC’s leading rusher at 151.5 yards per game) is probably one of the best backs in the nation. Defensively, they force turnovers (13 through five weeks to lead the conference). I think we can move the ball on them, though

“If we could hold them to 400 yards or less and get 350 yards in total offense ourselves, I think that would be quite an achievement,” he added. “If we play well on special teams and tackle well, that would be a good week.”

Nichols’ faith in his offense appears justified, despite the Tigers’ 1-4 record. ECU piled up almost 1,000 total yards the past two weeks in the victory over Northeastern and a 34-24 loss at Angelo State, and junior quarterback Marcus Johnson shattered his own school record for passing yardage with 426 and two touchdowns Saturday en route to being named LSC North Division Offensive Player of the Week for the second time in five weeks. NSU’s Kaelin Woods passed for a career-high 425 yards in just over three quartersw against the beleagured ECU secondary, marking the first time since at least 2001 that two LSC quarterbacks had thrown for over 400 yards in the same game.

In addition to Johnson’s big game, the Tigers had arguably their best day running the football in the Nichols era Saturday, with junior tailback Josh Maldanado rushing for a career-best 111 yards and three touchdowns to run his two-week total to 180 yards and five scores. Senior Alex Woodley, seeing his first real action after battling injuries all season, also scored, giving ECU its first four-touchdown game on the ground in Nichols’ two and a half seasons at the school.

“We’re hitting the hole quicker than we have in years past,” Nichols said of the sudden resurgence of a running game that ranked 11th in the 13-team LSC through three weeks and has generated fewer yards than any in the conference since the start of the 2006 season. “We’ve changed our game where it’s more of a vertical zone that a read zone so we can get our backs into the cracks where they can pop it. We had been struggling guard-to-guard, but we played better last week. We’ve been real beat up at guard.”

Former Ada High standout Craig Roark aggravated a foot injury that kept him out last season in last week’s victory, and his younger brother, Chad (the Tigers’ other starting guard in the season opener) is out for the season with a torn ACL. On the plus side, sophomore Adam Orendac is back this week after missing the first five games with an injury of his own.

Johnson, who ranks third in passing yardage among LSC quarterbacks, could also be only a part-time player Saturday, though, after injuring his non-throwing (left) elbow last week. That could open up some playing time for back-up Josh Phillips and Nichols’ two prized freshmen signal-callers -- Jace Johnson, who rewrote the record book at Bethel High School during his career, and Matt Rome from Sherman, Texas.

“Marcus has a sore elbow,” Nichols said. “He will start the game, but if his elbow flares up, we’ll get some of the younger guys into the game.”

No matter how effective the ECU offense is this week, however, Nichols still has to get more from his defense. The Tigers played 25 solid minutes to close out the first half Saturday after surrendering two early touchdowns that put NSU up 14-0, but Woods did pretty much anything he wanted in the second half, repeatedly victimizing ECU cornerback Gerett Burl (who was beaten for four touchdowns).

“We’ve worked all week on the long ball with the secondary,” Nichols said. “The thing that’s important for us this week is to try to control the tempo of the game to some degree. The long ball is the only thing that killed us last week (the Riverhawks had three receivers with more than 100 yards and recorded *** plays of ** yards or more). It was huge for us to win the game, but those 234 points (NSU) scored on long balls were a fluke. They hadn’t done that all year

“We’ve worked all week on being smarter in the secondary,” he added. “We’ve emphasized turning and looking for the ball. That’s something we didn’t do last week.”

Burl, who Nichols said was playing with a slight injury last week, will be replaced at left corner by Tyrone Gibbs, who third amond ECU receivers in receptions (12) and yardage (197) and has caught two touchdown passes to tie Justin Goolsby -- who had both of his TD receptions Saturday -- for the team lead.

“He played (cornerback) in the spring,” Nichols said of Gibbs. “He can handle it. He’s got a lot of energy.”

Although his secondary was chewed up Saturday by an NSU passing attack that had generated less than 140 yards per game in its previous four outings this fall, Nichols said he was pleased with the play of his front seven against the Riverhawks. The Tigers held NSU to 100 yards rushing (after surrendering more than 250 yards per game through four games) and recorded their first defensive touchdown in almost two years when Brandon Hopstein slapped the arm of NSU back-up quarterback Matt Silcox, causing a second-quarter fumble that redshirt freshman Maurice Glanclos returned 30 yards for the score that put ECU up 21-14 at the break.

“After watching film, our defensive line played their butts off the whole game (ECU recorded three sacks and 10 tackles for loss after having just two sacks and 16 tackles for loss through the first four games combined),” Nichols said. “It was just a breakdown in one area (cornerback), and we’ve had a great week of practice this week.”

One LSC handicapping service has installed the Tigers as a 49-point underdog this week, and Nichols said based on what happened through five games, that’s probably a legitimate line on Saturday’s game. He added, however, that a defeat won’t make this week a total loss for his team.

“We need to go in there with this thought: if we can compete with this team, we can compete with anybody on our schedule,” Nichols noted. “If we can compete down there, that’s going to be huge for us. When you’re that big an underdog, you’re just going in there to try to compete.”