DRAGONS MAY PLAY KEEP-AWAY WITH
WILDCATS
Publication: THE
Published: 09/20/1996
Page: P1B
Headline: DRAGONS MAY PLAY KEEP-AWAY WITH WILDCATS
Byline: RICK RYAN
offense and they're well-founded.
The Wildcats' passing
attack is enough to dizzy an opponent.
But the Red Dragons also
have hopes of being able to combat their
dilemma and they're well-grounded.
For several reasons, the
Dragons (2-1) may be relying on their rushing
attack tonight when they visit Underwood Field for a 7:30 showdown
with the unbeaten Wildcats (3-0).
Nitro is flying high behind
sophomore quarterback J.R. House, who has
already thrown for 1,203 yards and 11 touchdowns. That's an average of
slightly more than 400 yards per game and nearly four TDs.
"You have to defend
the whole field,' Townson said of the Dragons'
aerial circus. "Against a lot of teams, you can
reduce it down, but
they spread you out horizontally and vertically. [House] is so
accurate, so poised in there. He doesn't get shook up. If you get to
him, he gets back up and throws it again.'
House threw 61 times in
last week's 28-26 victory over George
Washington, an assault
concentrate on controlling the line of scrimmage.
The ground game became even
more important for
quarterback Vance McCracken was knocked out of last week's game at
DuPont with a concussion. Townson said McCracken's
status for
tonight's contest is doubtful.
"He's been out there
[at practice] in shorts, but no helmet,' Townson
said. "He's just sort of been around.'
averaging 21 attempts and 144 yards passing per game, but Townson
couldn't even venture a guess as to how many times the inexperienced
Young might throw.
"We've been preparing
so much trying to stop them on defense that we
haven't had much time to work with the offense,' Townson
said. "It
puts a lot of pressure on the kid, because he's had no experience
there.'
The challenge of bringing
the House down is a bit different than the
one
two passes all season; Nitro averages a shade over 50 pass attempts
per game.
"I don't know if you
can do that kind of an about-face in two, three
days,' Townson said. "It's
really tough because several of our kids
are playing both offense and defense. It's not like college, where you
can spend four days working on pass defense. Our kids play both
ways.'
Nitro coach Robert Burdette
certainly expects
keep-away with the ball tonight - to both lessen the load on Young and
to possibly exploit the Wildcats' defensive front. G.W. ran for 221
yards on Nitro last week, as both Ryan Blake (110) and Aric
Fulks
(108) went over 100 yards.
"I've coached with
Moe,' Burdette said. "I know him and I know their
kids. I expect they watched that film and they'll run right between
the tackles. They like to do that and then quick-pitch around the end.
"So we've watched that
real close and we've done some things a little
different [preparing the defense]. It wouldn't surprise me to see
George Booker take some snaps and run the option a little. We've
prepared for Young, Booker and Vance [McCracken], too. I just hope we
haven't prepared for too many things and haven't done any of them well
enough.'
Booker proved troublesome
for Nitro's defense in last year's game, a
45-10
times for 75 yards and one touchdown and also caught a 34-yard scoring
pass.
Booker has played receiver
this season and leads
for 191 yards.
Townson, however, wasn't tipping his hand
as to who will play QB or
how much the Dragons will pound the ball at the Wildcats.
"I just don't know
what to expect,' he said. "I don't know how my
quarterback's going to react or how my defense will react. There are
so many uncertain things. I'm kind of perplexed right now. I came off
the field [Wednesday] and said to myself: 'Jiminy Christmas. I don't
have any feel for what's going on right now.'"