GMC News

NOTE: GMC vs. Univ. N. Alabama (Sept. 18) has been cancelled. The next game will be September 29 in Valdosta, GA against VSU\’s JV. Game time is 7:00 pm.

GMC JUCO to regroup after 9-7 loss to Snow

By Ross Couch – The Union-Recorder
MILLEDGEVILLE – The Georgia Military College Junior College football team arrived back in Milledgeville around 8:30 p.m. Sunday evening after losing 9-7 to the Indians from Snow College.

\”The game certainly didn\’t go how we would have liked it to,\” GMC JUCO head coach Bert Williams said after the game. \”But with the exception of a couple of plays I feel as though we played well enough to win. We just weren\’t able to capitalize on their (Snow College) mistakes.\”

Execution has been a thorn in the side of the \’Dogs during this early part of the season, but Williams said the team did much better in that aspect of the game when they played Snow.

\”We executed much better on the defensive side of the ball and to an extent offensively,\” Williams said. \”We worked on sight adjustments, picking up blitzes and flood blitzes and the guys did a pretty good job doing that, but the number of good things we did wasn\’t enough to make up for the mistakes we made.\”

Mistakes such as an interception inside the 30-yard line, a fumble on a pitch to a running back and an interception late in the fourth quarter put a halt to GMC drives into Indian territory.

\”We did several things really well on offense and we had chances to score,\” Williams said. \”But Ferlando got hit right as he threw the ball and it turned into an interception, we had a botched pitch play fumbled and we had a young guy – who had a great game other than this one play – check into a fade route against a soft corner when he shouldn\’t have. That gave them another interception as well. We can\’t do that on offense and expect to win.\”

But GMC\’s obvious miscues were not the only score-stopping incidents in the game. Two touchdowns were called back when the officials made questionable calls against the \’Dogs.

\”We had one touchdown called back that was obviously the wrong call,\” Williams said. \”Our guy caught the ball in the endzone and was on his back and obviously had control when a Snow player came in a stripped it and it was called incomplete. The other was a holding call against a wide receiver.\”

GMC also racked up four delay-of-game calls with a visibly malfunctioning play clock that slowed several offensive drives.

\”It took three quarters for the refs to take over the play clock manually,\” Williams said. \”The clock was counting down 25, 16, 5 and we were getting called on it.\”

But excuses aside, Williams said his team did not play as aggressively as they should have early in the game, something they will be working on this week as they prepare for their game with Northern Alabama on Sunday.

\”The guys finally came out in the second half (against Snow) and played with the aggressiveness they should have been playing with all season,\” he said. \”But in the first half it wasn\’t there. If the guys had been playing at the level of intensity they had after half-time I think we would be 3-0 right now.\”

Instead the Bulldogs are sitting at 1-2 going into Sunday\’s game. They have yet to receive film on N. Alabama – a team they have not played before – but Williams is not concerned.

\”We should be getting film in (today) and we\’ll know what they have,\” he said. \”We\’ll go out in shells (today) and full pads Wednesday and Thursday. We\’re going to focus on being more aggressive – especially on offense – and work on improving before the game Sunday.\”

To reach sports writer Ross Couch, call him at (478) 453-1465.