Rams Run Out of Time, Playoffs
October 30, 2008
By Greg Urbanoski
Under the light of a full moon the
day before Halloween, the University of Regina Rams showed they
haven’t yet solved the curse of inability to stop the run, and
that meant the Rams lost 42-17 to the University of Saskatchewan
Huskies and their last shot at making the Canada West playoffs.
Rams Head Coach Frank McCrystal
summed up the game succinctly.
"We didn’t defend the run," said
McCrystal. "We haven’t defended the run all season long. We
didn’t score points. Our offensive line continues to make
mistakes and our quarterback almost gets killed.
"There’s nothing else. You have to
tackle, you have to block and we haven’t done those things. We
haven’t done them since game two."
McCrystal referred to an absolutely
devastating hit on Rams quarterback Marc Mueller near the end of
the first half which saw Mueller collapse several times while
trying to get off the field.
"He’s got to get rid of the ball,
but he got killed. He absolutely got killed but he’s tough
enough to stay in there. It’s a disappointing season and a
disappointing year. Maybe they played an ineligible guy and
we’ll get in the playoffs anyway. I guess that’s how it works."
McCrystal said the Rams can drive
the ball between the 20 yard lines, it has been undone by its
inability to score touchdowns. McCrystal singled out Perri
Scarcelli for his work on special teams, saying it was the
offensive highlight. It may even land him a spot with the
Saskatchewan Roughriders who might still be looking for a kicker
to replace the injured Jamie Boreham.
"It is frustrating," said McCrystal.
"If we stepped back and looked at this we probably made some
progress with young players. Out of 24 starters, we have 14-15
who were new starters.
"Is it a process, yeah. Should we
have played better than we did – of course we should. It might
have been two years since we stopped a guy. They are good
players but look at our schedule, if Saskatchewan is three and
Calgary number one, we played them both twice this year. Who
else has done that?"
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