I was following the Manteno game on my phone. Saw they had the lead for a bit. How did that game go? Morris just wear them down with the run?
Manteno's game went almost exactly as I predicted. Late in the first quarter I was starting to wonder how good Morris was, as they looked absolutely awful the first quarter. Then the steam started getting hotter, and the locomotive started chugging...
First Q: Manteno received, teams exchanged punts. Then Manteno hit a couple nice passes and scored...missed xp. 6-0 Panthers. Redskins 3 & out, punted. Manteno hit a long TD pass...13-0 Panthers minute left in the half.
But you could see the locomotive was warming up... Couple plays, Q ends with Morris 1st down around the 10.
Second Q: Morris scored first play of quarter. Redskins basically ran for what they wanted off tackle. 13-6, missed xp. Panthers stall, go for it at midfield on 4 & 3, lose ball on downs. I commented to someone that this is a coach who's expecting his defense to fall apart. Morris drives right down to score on a pass, 2 pt xp, 14-13 Morris. Panthers nice kick return, but 3 & punt. Redskin punt return for a TD. 21-13 Redskins. Scooby's thinking, rut roh… Panthers respond nicely. Couple nice passes, slashes up middle, TD pass, miss 2pt xp. 21-19 Morris... hmmm... Redskins 3 & punt. Panthers nice drive, 1st & 10 at 13 with about 1:30 left in half. Get to 4th & 3 at the 6 with about 30 seconds...instead of kicking FG to get lead, run gets stuffed...21-19 at half Morris.
Second half: Redskins take kickoff, hit the locomotive whistle, & march right down field for TD 28-19. Panthers throw interception. Morris overpowers Panthers, march to TD, doink XP off left upright. 34-19. Panthers fumble 2nd play after nice return of short kick, 1 play 65ish yard TD run for Redskins. 41-19. Panthers 3 & punt. Morris 75ish yard TD run on 2nd down..48-19. Panthers get 55 yard play, 1st & 10 about the 10, Fumble recovered by Morris. Another overpowering drive littered with holding flags - 90 yard TD drive, about 150 yards on the possession because of the repeated flags. miss xp. 54-19. Panthers take kickoff, nice drive against the backups, TD. Miss 2pt xp. 54-25 Morris. Final.
To say the Panthers got worn down would be an understatement. They didn't give up, but they sure couldn't do anything to stop the Redskins the second half.
Strangely, the Panthers took a lot of snaps from under center instead of the shotgun. Instead of the occasional run up the middle to keep the defense honest, they ran one back power run type plays a lot & I don't recall any jet sweeps. Wurster had 108 yards rushing, Borkenhagen had 280+ passing. Seems like a complete flip of theory...Panthers have run outside read options & jet sweeps for years, thrown over the middle. Last night they only threw over the middle in the red zone, but mostly ran between the tackles...
