Feature Photo by Erin Douglas
Story by Brett Walker
It was ugly, nasty, gross and disgusting. Some might say that it was horrid, vile and harmful to the eyes.
But a win is a win, and that’s something MTSU football will never apologize for, Middle Tennessee head coach Derek Mason said following his team’s 14-5 win over Kennesaw State.
Tuesday night’s Conference USA matchup between the Blue Raiders (2-5, 1-2 C-USA) and Owls (0-6, 0-2 C-USA) was made for only the most die-hard football fans. While the on-field product from both teams certainly wasn’t pretty, the game was still eventful in its own right. Here are five storylines from MTSU’s first conference win of the season.
Sick Vattiato
Middle Tennessee took the field for the first session of pregame warmups an hour and a half before kickoff. Besides a new uniform combination, nothing seemed unordinary for the Blue Raiders until the quarterbacks came out of the locker room.
MTSU was noticeably without team captain Nick Vattiato in the first part of warmups, with true freshman Roman Gagliano seemingly in line to start. Press box rumblings began to swirl that Vattiato was sick and would not be able to play.
Despite pregame chatter, Vattiato emerged from the locker room in full pads during the final warmup session and started the game for the Blue Raiders. Vattiato finished the game 19 of 34 with 199 passing yards. Most notably, the quarterback didn’t turn the ball over in the game for the first time all season.
After the game, Mason confirmed that the pregame rumors were true. Vattiato woke up violently ill at 2 a.m. and the coaching staff told Gagliano to be ready to start, Mason said.
“I didn’t even think he was going to play,” Mason said in his opening statement. “We couldn’t stop him from playing.”
The veteran’s determination to play after having a 103-degree fever the night before was just another demonstration of why he’s a team captain in the first place. When leadership is called for, Vattiato always steps up, Mason said.
The long wait
For the first time since week one, cornerback De’Arre McDonald was back in the starting lineup. McDonald suffered a hamstring injury in the season opening win against Tennessee Tech and made an immediate impact on a struggling Blue Raider defense.
Late in the second quarter, the Murfreesboro native and Oakland High School graduate read Owl’s quarterback Khalib Johnson’s eyes and jumped a sideline pass to snatch an interception.
McDonald made the play on the field look easy, but the road to getting back on it certainly wasn’t. Amidst countless rehab days, the redshirt senior found himself doubting. But after lots of praying and two to three rehab sessions a day, he was finally able to make it back on the field, he said.
The turnover was the first interception of McDonald’s collegiate career. After five years of waiting for that moment, McDonald couldn’t hold back his joy.
“I caught it, and I just got up and I was screaming, I got it, I got it, I got it, I got it,” McDonald said of his first career pick. “And it was just like, I waited for that. I talked about that to myself, like manifestation. That was really something that when it happened, I was just like, I worked for that. That wasn’t given to me, I earned that. So that was just huge for me, I’m just blessed. I’m happy I did it.”
McDonald’s nearly six-week healing process and years spent working were long, but the interception and the win made it all worthwhile.
Wild wild refs
In a peculiar instance, Middle Tennessee received two back-to-back penalties for “too many men in the backfield” while trying to punt the football back to Kennesaw State.
The strange sequence was mostly forgotten until it happened again on another punt attempt. That particular penalty hadn’t been called on the Blue Raider special teams all year, but the referee crew threw the flag three times for it on Tuesday.
MTSU’s punting unit has been lining up the same way all year, yet there was no indication prior to or during the game that they were lining up illegally, Mason said.
Mason didn’t exactly praise the referee crew on Tuesday night but overall, he felt that they did a good job of sticking to their calls. At the end of the day, the first-year Middle Tennessee head coach just wants there to be less of a disconnect between the conference crews and coaching staff to allow for adjustments to be made leading up to the game or in it.
“We need to have consistency across the board from week to week about what this is going to look like,” Mason said. “You can’t go six games and not have anything called and tonight it’s like this whole comedy of stuff that we need to know about in-game. It can’t happen like that.”
In addition to the punting penalties, the referees threw a flag on what would have counted as a 29-yard Jaiden Credle rushing touchdown in the fourth quarter. The flag was a holding call on MTSU center Simon Wilson. Mason didn’t agree with the call at the time, and once again yearned for consistency.
“I don’t even know what holding is anymore,” Mason said. “I mean all he did was body a dude up and he’s driving and kicking his butt. The ball squirts out and it winds up being a touchdown. I’m not trying to call anybody out, but I’m just saying we look at these plays on instant replay, that’s the difference now with the technology. You can see it right after the play, and it wasn’t even close.”
Despite his grievances with inconsistent calls, the veteran head coach knows that the best way to avoid those penalties entirely is by “flat backing folks” and moving the line of scrimmage, Mason said.
Up in the box
It’s no secret that Middle Tennessee’s defense had a bad week against Louisiana Tech. The defensive unit consistently subbed in late, missed tackles and failed to force turnovers. After the horrific outing against the Bulldogs, Mason and assistant head coach/defensive coordinator Brian Stewart decided it was best to make a change.
During the weekly press conference, Mason announced that Stewart would call plays from the coach’s box rather than on the field starting with Kennesaw State. One game against a winless team is much too small of a sample size to draw conclusions, but for what it’s worth, MTSU touted its best defensive performance of the season on Tuesday night.
The Blue Raiders forced two turnovers in the first half, which is the most in any single game all season and doubles the total for the year (four). MTSU’s defense held Kennesaw State’s offense to three points on the night. Additionally, the Owls’ five-point performance is the least number of points scored in a game in program history.
Being a defensive coordinator previously, Mason has been in Stewart’s shoes before. While he won’t speak for his assistant coach, being able to stay away from the panic of the game and coach from the box makes play calling less stressful overall, Mason said.
“Sometimes man, you’ve just got to pull yourself out of the fray so you can call the game and see it for what it is,” Mason said.
Regardless of opponent or sample size, the change in perspective for Stewart appeared to make a difference. In his first night up top, Stewart did a flawless job of calling the game for what it was, Mason said.
Special teams, special plays, special players
The special teams’ units for both MTSU and Kennesaw State took center stage on Tuesday night. The C-USA foes punted a combined 16 times for a total of 757 yards. For comparative reference, both offenses combined for 518 yards.
True to the spirit of the game, the most explosive play of the night occurred on special teams. With the score at 7-2 in the third quarter Kennesaw State punted to MTSU wide receiver/returner Omari Kelly who picked up the football off a bounce and took off for a 61-yard Middle Tennessee touchdown.
The punt return score was the first of Kelly’s career and first for the Blue Raiders in three seasons.
After Kelly’s rough stretch of plays against La. Tech, including a lost fumble and multiple drops, the Auburn transfer rebounded in a big way via six catches for 77 yards and the aforementioned punt return touchdown.
Following his game breaking play against Kennesaw State, Kelly has the permission of his head coach to really embrace his role as a punt returner.
“He’s back there for a reason,” Mason said. “The dude’s hands are spectacular; I mean I watch him every day, catch punts.”
With his return man having a taste of the endzone, the MTSU head coach hopes that Kelly will think less and react more.
“You can tell sometimes when he gets in his own head,” Mason said. “Don’t be in your head man just do what you’ve always been doing. Hey man, if you don’t feel comfortable with it, fair catch it. But there were a couple of times tonight where I think he could’ve took off on that thing and he could’ve broke it wide open. It always takes the first one to make you hungry. That’s when you start to get greedy. We don’t want to be reckless, okay, but we do want to be greedy.”
Brett Walker is the sports editor for MTSU Sidelines
To contact the Sports and Assistant Sports Editor, email newseditor@mtsusidelines.com
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