Friday Night Flames: Blazers Smoke Middies for First Ever Series Victory
Friday night, the Blazers welcome our highly respected Naval Academy to Birmingham. We’ve all seen the numbers, and we know what it’s been like the last few years when the military school plays UAB. It’s not fun, just a steady grind of running the football down our throat. We’ve played Navy 3 times in our history, and 3 times they beat us badly in all those matchups. That was Dilfer’s teams, though, right? This team is different. People don’t come into Fort Mort and give us the business anymore. For the first time in several years, I sat there with a sense of optimism I haven’t had in years. I think we got this one, boys. The story for most of the week was Navy’s QB situation. The way the spread moved was a good indicator that Braxton wasn’t going to play. We’ve seen his numbers; the guy’s electric with the ball. Even though we kept tabs on Lunch Winfield, UAB had historically struggled against a running QB. What was so different this time? Come on, let me take you on a ride.
The first quarter started, and, well, it was very offensively nonexistent. The highlights were Muaaz Byard and Jo Pierce running around popping everyone. Chris Spencer getting a big sack, and Marlon Dean and Jo Pierce splitting a sack. Both defenses were playing great; Navy wasn’t giving up much, and neither were the Blazers. I was becoming a little concerned offensively just because we had no rhythm, and we couldn’t get it going.
As the Blazers drove the ball, ending down the first quarter, Bam was able to scamper for a 10-yard TD at 14:56 in the second quarter. The Blazers had great field position due to an awful 13-yard punt. Good guys leading 7-0.
Navy answered quickly on 7 straight runs for 75 yards. It looked easy. It seemed as though Navy finally found an answer. The Blazers and Navy both answered on the following drives with field goals, and then Ryder got hot. He capped off a 3-play drive, hitting Ty Mims for a 56-yard touchdown pass, pushing the lead to 17-10.
With 1:11 left, Navy drove the ball to the 7-yard line before Jo Pierce came up with a huge sack, pushing them back to the 14 and leaving them to settle for a field goal. Halftime: 17-13 Blazers.
The third quarter was quick. Navy received the kickoff at half and punted, and so did the Blazers. On their second possession, Navy’s Devin Gulley made a nice tackle for a loss to bring it to 3rd and 11. This time, Gutierrez completed a 14-yard pass to convert and scored three plays later, taking the lead 20-17 with 4:18 left in the 3rd.
That’s when the unbearable feeling I’ve felt as a UAB follower the last few years started creeping in. UAB took over, but two costly sacks and a holding call had the Blazers in a hole. Then Ryder made an awful throw over the middle, and it was picked off by G. Sessi.
Typically, with 13:00 minutes left, you don’t hit the panic button, but when playing Navy, that’s nothing for them to bleed out. I was disgusted and mad at Ryder. This was it.
Navy had intercepted the ball, and in 4 plays had it to the UAB 40 when the unthinkable happened. On 1st and 10, Marlon Dean smoked the Navy QB, forcing a fumble, and big Chris Spencer covered it up. Good guys’ ball on the Navy 48.
The very next play, Bam took it 48 yards to the house to give the Blazers back the lead, 24-20, with 10:26 to go.
Navy’s next drive started with success, but that man did it again. Marlon Dean caught the Navy running back in the backfield and forced another turnover, giving the Blazers the ball.
All we needed to do was get a few first downs and milk the clock, and it’s ours. We were doing just that until a sack, which caused a 13-yard loss, forced the Blazers to punt, pinning Navy deep. The Midshipmen couldn’t capitalize and turned the ball over on downs.
The Blazers were able to chew up some clock and make Navy burn all their timeouts and then trotted out UAB kicking specialist Jonah DeLange for 47 to extend the lead to 7. Jonah did something he doesn’t do often and pulled it left.
With 36 seconds left and no timeouts, Navy still had a chance. This is where the real beauty of the game came out. After a sack by Jo Pierce sped Navy to the line for a final play, Marlon Dean did it again, smoking the QB and forcing a fumble as time expired.
Victory in Uptown!!!!!
There’s really so much good for us to take from this game. The defense answered, and the offense did too. They never quit. That’s been rare for us around here for a while, but I’ve seen a new hashtag trending lately saying #NewBlazers. Maybe this is the new Blazers. It’s definitely not the old ones.
Great performance from Bam and Ty Mims, and as angry as I was with Ryder holding the ball too long and taking sacks, he honestly just stays stoic and resilient and has been money on 3rd downs.
As a team effort, we only had 4 flags. That’s a huge improvement. I believe Coach Mort when he’s said he’s going to work on these things, and it shows.
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