By Matthew Hickman
The Wasatch Wildcats” defense proved to be the best offense Saturday night, June 5, as they shut out the visiting Northern Colorado Wolfpack, 44-0.
In their first regular season game of Minor League Football Association action, the Wildcats” biggest challenge was itself.
“Tonight, the defense scored as much as [the offense]; it was a shootout,” Wildcats head coach Eric Drage said. “We were trying to see who could score more points, the defense or the offense.”
A safety, a 67-yard interception return for a touchdown and a blocked field goal returned 79 yards for a score accounted for 16 of Wasatch”s points.
Jesse May, who blocked the field goal attempt and ran it in for the score, believes the defense has reached a level of dominance.
“The defense dominated like we usually do,” May said. “We don”t have to worry if the other guy is going to do his job or not.”
On a night the Wolfpack will want to forget, 16 points wasn”t all the defense accomplished. Two of the four touchdowns the offense produced were set up by the steel curtain-like defense. An interception and a fumble recovery deep inside Northern Colorado”s territory allowed the offense to join in on the scoring fest.
The defense never stopped bulldozing. They allowed just 37 net yards rushing, and more than half those yards came in the fourth quarter when the game had already been decided.
The Wildcats offense even recruited a defensive player to fire things up. On the very next play after intercepting a pass, Wasatch”s strong safety and backup quarterback Jeff Wissler threw a 67-yard touchdown pass to receiver Jonathan Olson.
“We stepped it up this week,” Wissler said. “It seems like now everybody knows their roles. Now we are starting to mesh.”
The offense was able to put together some impressive drives, including an eight-play, 61-yard drive on their first possession.
“I thought the rushing game was vastly improved,” Drage said.
Believing that there are always areas to improve upon, Drage continued to sound like a broken record, telling his guys that there is still much to work on.
“I told the guys after the game, 44-0 sounds good on paper, but we should have beat them 80-0,” Drage said. “But we keep stopping ourselves. As soon as we stop making those same mistakes, we will be a good team.”
The Wildcats hope to bring the same swarming defense and progressing offense to Colorado next week as they face the Colorado Wildcats in league action.
