For the first quarter, visiting Sewanee lived up to its reputation as a team that would stick to its triple-option rushing attack, no matter how dire the situation.
In fact, the Tigers made no passing attempts in the opening 15 minutes against the University of Puget Sound.
But from the second quarter on, the Tigers altered their game plan enough to cause problems for the Loggers.
Besides Curtis Johnson and Zeke Wilson both rushing for two touchdowns, Sewanee added some timely passing to score 34 unanswered points to defeat UPS, 34-23, in a nonconference contest at Baker Stadium on Saturday.
“The frustrating thing is in this game you are only judged by the wins and the losses and I want it that way,” UPS coach Jeff Thomas said. “The hard thing is to show all the things we are improving on – the physical play, the fact that our team fought back. We’re making huge progress that’s not showing on the scoreboard.”
The Loggers scored the game’s final 13 points and pulled within nine on George Ka’ai’s 1-yard TD run with 81/2 minutes to play, but failed to get any closer as they dropped to 0-2.
The Tigers used both Johnson and Lee Schurl-knight at quarterback and the duo combined for 9-of-12 passing accuracy for 184 yards. While the yardage seems modest, most of Sewanee’s completions came on crucial third-and-long situations.
“We just did not stop them on third down passing plays,” said Thomas, whose team was outgained in total yards, 402-392.
While the Tigers were selective using the pass, that wasn’t the case with UPS as Ka’ai threw the ball 60 times, completing 36 passes for 311 yards and two touchdowns, with a pair of interceptions.
Thiesen Chang paced the UPS receivers with 10 catches for 81 yards. But the Loggers failed to generate big plays through the air, with only one pass play going for more than 20 yards.
At Cal Lutheran 28, PLU 17: Cal Lutheran quarterback Jake Laudenslayer was 13-for-23 passing for 271 yards and one touchdown, helping the Kingsmen (1-1) roll up 552 yards of total offense in a comfortable win over the Lutes (1-1).
After a close first half finished at 7-3, Cal Lutheran pulled away with 21 third-quarter points before surrendering a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns to PLU’s senior quarterback Zack Halverson – a 42-yard pass to Alex McDiarmid and a 2-yarder to Daniel Herr.
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