UB football hopes bad luck has passed
Published: November 17, 2009, 11:17 pm
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OXFORD, Ohio — The University at Buffalo has experienced just about everything that can go wrong in one football season, and all in the plural: injuries, turnovers, bad breaks and upsets. That the last three losses have come by a total of seven points is cause for some hard thinking among the Bulls.
They think they very well could be 8-2, which is more like what they expected with James Starks and Naaman Roosevelt entering their senior seasons. Then Starks missed the entire season with a shoulder injury, quarterback Zach Maynard played like a first-year starter early on and all the breaks the Bulls received during last season's magical run are going against them this time around.
The Bulls (3-7, 1-5 Mid-American Conference) play on the road tonight at Miami (Ohio), and they will be without Roosevelt, their star receiver. The team said on Tuesday that Roosevelt aggravated a nagging knee injury in last week's home loss to Ohio and will sit out tonight.
UB was officially knocked out of bowl eligibility by last week's 27-24 loss to Ohio but for UB coach Turner Gill and the players, there's still plenty to play for to salvage the season.
The Bulls never have won at Miami, and during the Ben Roethlisberger years, especially, the outcome was generally ugly for the visitors.
"Everybody's attitude is to try and continue to get better," Gill said. "They play with great effort and they've done a lot of good things in a lot of different areas, it's just unfortunate we haven't been able to put it all together in a complete football game."
After Miami, the Bulls' final game of the season is at Kent State on Friday, Nov. 27, which is also the final game for a group of seniors who will close their careers as one of the finest classes in school history.
"The motivation now is finishing out for the seniors, finish the season on a high note and get two wins," said sophomore linebacker Josh Copeland. "Let the seniors go out with two victories. That's the motivation."
Winning seasons at places like UB seem to depend on the fine art of doing a lot with a little, and a certain amount of good fortune, both of which seem to be missing this year.
Some of this season's ill luck has included a ball bouncing off Marcus Rivers' hand and into an Ohio defender's on the Bulls' final drive of the game. In a 30-29 loss to Bowling Green, UB led, 29-23, but allowed the Falcons to score with 39 seconds left. The Bulls list four different tailbacks for this week because all of them have some kind of injury.
"There's the normal disappointment, hurt, disgust, frustration, whatever term you want to use when you aren't happy about the results of a football game," Gill said. "But we've also talked about how we have to continue to get ready for the next week. As long as you have games to play, you can't sulk around, you have to continue to move on."
Bad breaks and mistakes, nevertheless, do not entirely explain it. UB's first win of the season came against UTEP, a team that later beat then No. 12 ranked Houston. The Bulls have shown all season long that they have the potential to beat good teams. The Bulls don't dwell on coulda, woulda, shoulda. But ...
"Anytime you lose, it's hard," said Copeland. "But the way we lost the last two games it makes certain plays stick out more. ... A play here, a play there ... we just have to finish and play four quarters. It's disappointing and it hurts."
As bad as things have gone at UB, things have been worse at Miami.
The RedHawks (1-10, 1-6) started the season with eight consecutive losses before finally winning against Toledo on Oct. 31. They've followed that with losses to first-place Temple, 34-32, and Bowling Green, 35-14. Under first-year coach Michael Haywood, Miami ranks in the bottom 10 in six different categories including turnover margin (minus 1.90, 120th), kickoff returns (15.3 ypr, 120) and rushing offense (71.5 ypg, 117).
"A lot of freshmen and sophomores are playing," Gill said. "Unfortunately for them, they've turned the ball over quite a bit. That's the one thing that has stood out."
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