Sep 29 2006

Game Balls for the TCU game

Published by legion at 11:10 am under BYU sports

The ol’ cliche about a win being a team effort definitely applies, but some players definitely stood out more than others in taking TCU out back of the woodshed.

Justin Robinson. I am appeased. Robinson had several pass break-ups in this game and never let his receiver get by him. All that against the fastest team on the schedule AND on four days’ rest after spraining his knee. With emphasis.

John Beck. One of the gutsiest performances by a quarterback that I have ever watched. Having walked around on a sprained ankle myself, I can’t imagine how Beck was running around on two of them and throwing a football. His arm strength was on major display last night because he didn’t step into a single throw last night. He was just flicking the ball 40 yards downfield on a rope. It was awesome. Hit all his big third downs and made every play that needed to be made. I can’t imagine how sweet the vindication must taste to him this morning.

Michael Reed. You could tell right away that he was jacked up to play in front of his family and friends. He came in and made big catch after big catch. Let’s hope he enjoyed it enough to keep playing like that the rest of the season.

Curtis Brown. No big stats, just hard runs that took the pressure off Beck. Also had several big catches for first downs. His blitz pickups were also huge.

The Linebackers. Several linebackers made big plays in this game. David Nixon put a whoop on Ballard that caused the fumble in the red zone. Biggest play of the game, right there. General Jensen picked off a ball that effectively ended the game before it was really over. Bryan Kehl was all over the field and had a couple of really nice tackles-for-loss. The linebackers rendered Aaron Brown all but useless, holding him to a paltry 49 yards rushing.

Honorable mentions go to McKay Jacobsen, for some big catches while wearing a DB on his back, and the D-line for getting a good enough pass rush to disrupt several plays and keep Ballard off balance. Coach Patterson said before the game that TCU wanted to throw the ball less than 30 times and run the ball effectively. Ballard ended up with 49 attempts. Kudos to the defensive front for getting TCU completely out of their game plan.

2 Responses to “Game Balls for the TCU game”

  1. # on 29 Sep 2006 at 1:53 pm

    I agree with all of these. Justin Robinson had key,key breakups. There are no words to describe how awesome Nixon’s hit on Ballard that made him fumble was. John indeed had a gutsy performance after talking with Gutsy Performance himself: Robbie Bosco, a couple of days earlier. When the game was still in doubt, Beck completed passes when it mattered, and he put it out of doubt.

    I give a game ball to “put him in a body bag” Johnny “yeahhhhh!” Harline. After a slow start he showed he is running awesome routes, making great catches and not fumbling, which is what was supposed to happen. His one handed grab was replayed in slo-mo on SportsCenter while the anchors were basically saying “No way!”

  2. # on 02 Oct 2006 at 6:30 pm

    I would also present a game ball to the coaching staff for the great job they did in preparing the team for this game and a great game plan!