2008 Woodie Awards
Still work to do if WCU hopes to be great
Matt Lombardo
Issue date: 9/17/07 Section: Sports
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Ninety-six yards in penalties, an interception, a fumble lost by a tailback along the sidelines following a 54-yard run, three sacks and oh yeah, four fumbled snaps were all committed by one team in Saturday's 49-21 West Chester victory over Clarion.
If you guessed the Golden Rams as the squad tripping all over themselves, trying to give this game away, then you're the winner of today's contest.
For a team that prides itself on playing nearly perfect football week in and week out, while fighting for a conference championship and more, Saturday's blowout win should sound some alarms in Zwaanville.
Saturday's dominant offensive performance not withstanding, the Golden Rams did just about everything they could to allow Clarion to hang around in this game much longer then they had any business doing. The Golden Eagles tallied touchdowns on three of its first four drives. Somehow the game was tied at 21 with 5:23 remaining in the first half.
Luckily, while the defense was sleepwalking through the first thirty minutes of play, the Golden Ram offense was putting on a clinic against the inexperienced Clarion defense. Yes, the offense posted a staggering 572 yards of total offense, including 366 through the air while scoring seven total touchdowns, but at one point, it appeared that even those numbers would not be enough.
Head Coach Bill Zwaan was apprehensive about his team going into this game a little overconfident, and to Clarion's credit, they took advantage of that, at least early on. In the first half, West Chester surrendered 113 rushing yards and a touchdown, while leading 35-21.
"[Our overconfidence] showed, the penalties, the fumbles, just mistakes that aren't our type of football," Zwaan said. "The types of mistakes that we can't afford to make when we start playing teams like Bloomsburg and [California] and those teams, but we know that, so we're going to have to get it straightened out. Our little lack of focus in practice really showed up in this game."
If you guessed the Golden Rams as the squad tripping all over themselves, trying to give this game away, then you're the winner of today's contest.
For a team that prides itself on playing nearly perfect football week in and week out, while fighting for a conference championship and more, Saturday's blowout win should sound some alarms in Zwaanville.
Saturday's dominant offensive performance not withstanding, the Golden Rams did just about everything they could to allow Clarion to hang around in this game much longer then they had any business doing. The Golden Eagles tallied touchdowns on three of its first four drives. Somehow the game was tied at 21 with 5:23 remaining in the first half.
Luckily, while the defense was sleepwalking through the first thirty minutes of play, the Golden Ram offense was putting on a clinic against the inexperienced Clarion defense. Yes, the offense posted a staggering 572 yards of total offense, including 366 through the air while scoring seven total touchdowns, but at one point, it appeared that even those numbers would not be enough.
Head Coach Bill Zwaan was apprehensive about his team going into this game a little overconfident, and to Clarion's credit, they took advantage of that, at least early on. In the first half, West Chester surrendered 113 rushing yards and a touchdown, while leading 35-21.
"[Our overconfidence] showed, the penalties, the fumbles, just mistakes that aren't our type of football," Zwaan said. "The types of mistakes that we can't afford to make when we start playing teams like Bloomsburg and [California] and those teams, but we know that, so we're going to have to get it straightened out. Our little lack of focus in practice really showed up in this game."
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