Marcus Post Game

Posted by KT2000 at September 20, 2008

The first win feels great.

The offense played a better game than they did against North Shore and The Woodlands. The Tigers did have a turnover late (interception), but it wasn’t a bad play by the QB Parker Ray. The receiver was wide open at the first down marker but fell down. If Jon Barnette (FB) keeps his feet there, it is an easy first down. Both teams appeared to have footing issues on the WISD field turf. It’s amazing what taking care of the ball will do for a team.  Katy wasn’t hugely improved from a production point of view, but allowed themelves to build a lead by taking care of the ball. Vernon Jeffries (sophomore RB) got loose a couple times late on the TD drive that proved to be the winner.  Senior RB Michael Webber helped seal the game late with strong runs.  The Katy offensive line blocked well late in the game.

The defense shut down Marcus’ bread and butter running game. Katy is the only team that’s even limited the Marauders’ running game so far this season. I haven’t seen any stats, but their RB Hopkins couldn’t have had much more than 50 yards, if that.  Katy did allow a couple big pass plays, but I’m not really worried about those. They caught the Tigers in a mismatch on their first TD.  A fortuitous double pass set up the second Marauder touchdown.  The touchdown pass a few plays later was just a great catch by Marcus senior receiver Joel Free. He laid out for it. It was a great play by Free. The passing game was very much outside of their element, so Katy’s defense had them where they wanted them after shutting down the run.   The run defense was very good on the edges and also stood up to Marcus’ size on the inside runs. They couldn’t get a good push on the Tigers despite a size advantage. The defensive line played great again, and the linebackers certainly looked improved over The Woodlands game.  The secondary made plays on the ball. They’ve just got to make sure they find the ball in coverage, and that they don’t overplay the man.  A Tiger defensive back got caught using his hands too much on the interference call.

The Tigers kept the big execution mistakes to a minimum against Marcus, but there were some adventures early.  The Tiger return men got crossed up, and the one who ultimately fielded the kick elected to run out when he could have just kneeled it.  Marcus helped Katy out of the poor field position with some bad penalties, and the Tiger offense eventually punished them with the long touchdown pass on that drive.   Katy had a snap get away on one of the first few plays, but cleaned that up as the game went on.  It was certainly nothing compared to The Woodlands game in that aspect.

Late in the game, there were some clock management issues.  The Tigers had to burn a couple of timeouts because of the play clock. The Tigers also tried a few passes late when they could have just run and burned another couple minutes off the clock (only 4 left at that point).  Katy was also flagged for two substitution infractions, one was on a Marcus punt (gave them a first down) and the second was on one of their PATs.

The Tigers looked content to sit on the lead late, and that’s why the passes were somewhat confusing.  Marcus got pretty lucky on the INT, but that is a risk taken in the passing game. “Three things can happen on a pass and two of them are bad.” That’s subjective critique, but I’ll admit I scratched my head a little there. I thought we’d just call runs, and play the field position game.  Either way, the team did what was needed to win and that is the most important thing.

We actually had a better crowd turnout than I expected. It was the smallest Katy crowd I’ve ever been a part of, but I expected it given the distance and all that’s happened in the last week.  Congratulations to the Tigers on their first win this season!