Continued from Part 1.
This was a cool-looking pic from the team Twitter. I’m going to make little digression before
continuing on with the football game.
Honestly, I’m not sure where to put this, since I’m not doing a
pre-postseason MLB post.
Halftime
Out-of-Town-Scores
The El Paso
Chihuahuas played the Reno Aces for
the PCL Championship on Friday. I was really busy with Month End processing
at work, but managed to listen to some of it.
The Aces won 6-2. The Chihuahuas committed four errors in the
game, though with only one unearned run.
They did have their chances with 11 runners left on base.
As threatened, MiLB
used this game to experiment with a challenge system for balls and
strikes. I’m experiencing physical pain
just typing that sentence. The challenge
system in baseball has been a waste of time, except that it’s allowed
broadcasters to jam in another commercial.
Doing this for balls and strikes is a nightmare in the making.
How did it work in this game? At least it worked quick, but of the three
challenges I heard, two calls by the ump were overturned. In other words, the automated strikezone that
the PCL has been using all season was more accurate than the umps. There’s no point to this challenge system,
when the automated system is being used to check the ump’s calls. Just use the automated system.
The game was held in Las
Vegas in front of over 6,000 fans.
Given Vegas wasn’t playing in the game that was a great crowd. (Reno being reasonably close probably
helped.) Regardless of the outcome, it
was a great season for the Chihuahuas.
Their late-season run to get to the championship was epic and fun to
listen to. It was a team record in wins
and they led minor league baseball in runs.
Broadcaster Tim Hagerty got a
bit choked up doing his end-of-season goodbyes.
I did, too.
Third
Quarter
To reset the game, the Aggies were down 21-7 to FIU. I can sum up the second
half of this game in two words: nobody scored.
I cannot remember the last time I saw or heard of a professional or
college football game where nobody scored for a half. It’s almost impossible in the modern
game.
The End.
One day, I’m gonna do it.
That’ll be the whole post about a game.
It’ll happen and I’ll post it.
(It’ll probably be after a soccer match.) But today is not that day. I’ll continue with the recap anyway, only because
there’s a stinger at the end of this.
The Aggies received to start the half. Diego
Pavia was in at quarterback. Once
again, we’re back to shuffling quarterbacks.
The Aggies got a first down.
During a break, the Cheerleaders
performed in the north endzone. About
half the student section had left. Even
with another quarterback, the play call was still going with another long pass. This almost resulted in an interception. There was a punt and it was a bad one. FIU started on their 35.
Pavia and Gavin
Frakes chatted on the sidelines.
Pavia had on headphones to listen to the coach in the booth. FIU picked up a first down. On the next set of downs, Syrus Dumas got a sack on third down to
force a punt. FIU QB Grayson James was helped off, but was
okay. The Panthers false started on the
first attempt at a punt, but on the second attempt, the receiver let it go and
it was downed on the Aggie 2 yard line.
The Aggies gained a few yards, but went
three-and-out. Again, there was another
fruitless deep ball thrown. Another bad
punt put the Panthers at midfield. On
the sidelines, some kids went down to pose for pictures with the
Cheerleaders. FIU went up tempo again
and quickly moved downfield. On
third-and-goal, Chris Ojoh came up
big with a sack. FIU settled for a field
goal, which went wide. No good. Though the crowd was bleeding out, they were
loud. Give them an assist on the sack
and the miss.
The Aggie offense came back out. Justice
Powers made a catch on third-and-four for 26 yards to continue the drive. That’s what they needed, more mid-level
passing. The short passing game and a
Personal Foul on FIU moved the ball downfield to the Panther 28. A false start and a broken up deep ball
stalled the drive.
Fourth
Quarter
The quarter started with a 44-yard Aggie field goal
attempt that missed. FIU took over and
almost immediately it was third down and they had to take a timeout. Their up tempo style had gotten the better of
them. A pass was deflected on the down,
but a Pass Interference call gave them a new set of downs. FIU rushed the ball with some success, but
were finally stuffed on a third down.
The Aggies got the ball back. Ron was complaining about the length of the
media timeouts, but the game was actually clipping along and the game time was
under three hours. I saw Frakes with his
helmet on. He went around and slapped
some encouragement on the offensive linemen, but Pavia came back out. The Aggies started out with a pass for a
first down, but it was waved off on an Ineligible Receiver penalty. The Aggies got a first down anyway on a
23-yard pass to Kordell David. Jamoni
Jones rushed for another.
Unfortunately on a fourth-and-four in FIU territory, Pavia was nearly
sacked and threw an incompletion.
The Panthers started taking their time on their final
drive with 7 minutes left in the game.
On a third-and-three, Dumas tipped a pass, but it popped right to the
receiver for a first down. FIU drove it
down to 2 minutes before the Aggies took a timeout. They took another timeout on a
fourth-and-one. James made it on a
keeper. The Panthers were in easy field
goal range, but decided to just kneel on the ball twice to end the game. That was sporting of them. 21-7
FIU final.
There was a small scuffle after the final play. I have no idea why. The Aggie defense stayed on field and shook
hands with the Panthers. Inexplicably,
the rest of the Aggie team charged off the field into the tunnel right after
the whistle blew. This seemed like a
breach of etiquette. Other than that
pushing and shoving at the end, I didn’t see a lot of animosity. Moreover, you’d think they might have waved
to fans before leaving.
The combined band continued to play and sing as the crowd
left. A bunch of kids were out on the
field playing. I had my personal
highlight, while I waited for Ron as he went to the bathroom. Wave the
Wonder Dog and his owner came by. I
finally got to pet him! He’s a good
dog. Oh, the love. Well, I suddenly felt a lot better about
coming to the game.
I’m going to pick Syrus
Dumas as my Aggie player of the game, mostly because he made a couple of
good plays. The defense played well, except for that one big play. The offense . . . well, at least they didn’t have any
turnovers.
Leaving the stadium, we heard a PA’s voice at the baseball
field. Driving by, there was a game
going on. Ron wanted to stop, but I’d
had enough for the day. We did not
figure out who was playing. The Aggie Baseball had no notice of a game
that night.
Finally, the stinger.
I called dad when I got home with the score. He said he was sure that he’d heard that the
Aggies were two touchdown favorites in the game. I doubted this, but checked right after I
talked to him. The Aggies were 14.5
point favorites. I had to do a little
digging on that unlikely spread. I had
heard about FIU’s last game briefly last week, because it was a very memorable 73-0 loss to Alabama . . . oh no, wait. .
. it was Western Kentucky? The Hilltoppers? That’s one of their conference opponents
even.
I hadn’t connected the dots to tonight’s game. I didn’t realize it was the same team that
had gotten blown out. The Aggie Coaches Show and the pregame show
(which I didn’t hear all of) didn’t talk about this, or if they did, they only glanced
over it. Needless to say, this makes the
loss even worse. It’s bad that FIU
figured out how to box the Aggie offense (the rushing game) and that the Aggies
had no answer. It is encouraging that
the defense was able to adapt and improve in-game.
I do maybe intend to go to at least one other game this season. Hopefully, we can see another win.
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