Lentils and Football Part 250: Vandals Brush Off Yellow Jackets; Cruise to National Title Game
For those hoping that this would be the week that the high-powered Idaho Vandal offense would finally meets its match, this had to be a tough game to sit through. The Georgia Tech defense came into Saturday’s game ranked #2 in the Nation in both scoring and total yards allowed (trailing only the Vandals in both categories), but unfortunately for them those glowing numbers took some serious punishment over the course of the day. The Vandals rushed for nearly 300 yards for the game and finished the day a perfect 7 for 7 in redzone scoring opportunities, waltzing their way to a 56–0 win over the #10 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and advancing to the National Championship game for an unprecedented eighth straight season.
Welcome to Lentils and Football, an alternate history of the Idaho Vandals. In the early 2010s events began that lead to the Vandals to be the first college football team to voluntarily drop from FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) to FCS (Football Championship Subdivision); Lentils and Football imagines a world where these events went very differently with the hiring of fictional coach Merlin Gibbs. This story is told via the NCAA 14 video game and a bit of imagination.
The dynamic-duo of QB Kellen Myrick and RB Cleveland Goolsby did as they’ve been doing all season long and left little doubt when it came to the outcome of this one.
For all the hype that gets generated by a game of this calibur, the wind came out of the sails very early. The Georgia Tech offense never got out of the starting blocks and were left in the dust when compared to what the Vandals were doing.
Head Coach Merlin Gibbs is no stranger to having his team ready to play in big games, but even he was a little surprised with the hurting his team put on the Yellow Jackets.
“I’m honestly a little shocked that we only scored 56. Damn near everything that could break our way today, did. I’m not gonna say we didn’t earn it, but it felt like the other forces in the universe might have had some serious money on the game today, and they weren’t interested in sweating it out. We got this one put away early and our killer instinct wasn’t gonna give any of that up. There was a lot on the line with this one, so to show up the way we did is really impressive. All the people that are waiting for us to stumble off our perch must be furious right now.”
It took a little longer than you may think for the Vandals to get ahead in this one, but once that first score broke the seal there was no turning back.
Idaho would us up over half of the opening quarter on their first possession, and they needed every bit of it. Coach Gibbs forgoed an early field goal opportunity as the Vandals would convert a 4th and 1 from inside the 10 yard line, then were in jeopardy of getting pushed to the limit again until Kellen Myrick would find TE Vincent Cantrell in the back corner of the endzone with a gorgeous touch pass for a 4 yard TD.
The score wouldn’t stay at 7–0 for long as Georgia Tech’s first possession was over before it started, and another methodical drive by the Vandals would move the action into the 2nd quarter. An errant throw by Myrick was nearly intercepted (a truly gigantic “what-if” considering how the rest of the game went), but on the next play Myrick would a wide open Desmond Novak for a 17 yard TD and the Vandals never looked back.
Georgia Tech’s second possession was even worse than their first. This time around they didn’t even get the chance to punt it away as Senior DE Lance Reed would hammer Yellow Jacket RB Danny George in the backfield, jarring the ball loose. Idaho LB Devin Tatum would zip in for the recovery, putting the offense back on the field with prime field position. Kellen Myrick nearly put the ball in the endzone with his legs on the first play, but was knocked out of bounds just shy of the 1 yard line. Fear not though as Myrick would have an easy toss to Billy Swinton on the next play for a 2 yard TD, and just like that the scored had jumped to 21–0 in the blink of an eye.
Things would slow down after that as the Yellow Jackets managed to control the ball for a little while, but all that achieved was delaying Idaho’s next score as Myrick and Novak would eventually find each other once more. This time it was a 6 yard connection that came with just under a minute to play in the 1st half, giving the Vandals a 28–0 lead at the break that set themselves up to be able to coast their way through the rest of the day.
Coach Gibbs perhaps felt otherwise, though.
“Look, there’s no mistaking that we were in complete control. That’s usually the moment when things can fall apart though. The second you start to feel like nothing bad can happen to you is right about the time when it does, and it’s because you got careless. In a game of this calibur, you have to be serious when it comes to the quality of your opponent. There’s a difference between feeling comfortable and feeling complacent. You can get to a spot where you’re in the zone and the things that you excel at as a team start to produce very naturally, but if you take that for granted then you’re basically begging for trouble. There are parts of what we do that are second nature to us, but the part that I take very seriously is making sure that we don’t come apart. It’s probably easy work because of the level of talent we have, but I’m not gonna slip up when it comes to that.”
After throwin four TDs in the 1st half, Kellen Myrick and the Vandal offense would put up four rushing scores in the 2nd half. They were able to do so because the defense refused to let up. The fumble forced by Lance Reed late in the 1st quarter was the only turnover of the day, but we were treated to some good old fashioned suffocating defense instead. Idaho recorded 7 more sacks on the day, bringing their season total to 80 and all but assuring they’ll surpass last seasons total (82) during the National Championship game.
Georgia Tech offered up nothing different on offense. A sack by Vandal LB Chet Downs late in the 1st half would knock QB Denny Johnson out of the game with a hip injury. It truly was going from bad to worse for the Yellow Jackets.
Another three-and-out followed by a 34 yard punt return by J.D. Nelson had the Vandal offense starting their first drive of the 2nd half in Yellow Jacket territory. A methodical drive wasn’t necessary as Kellen Myrick would get loose for one of his three 20+ yard runs on the day, scampering into the endzone from 22 yards away for his 16th rushing TD of the season.
The train would keep rolling all night long as Myrick would score again before the end of the 3rd quarter with a 2 yard score, and he along with RB Cleveland Goolsby would continue to rack up yards. Goolsby would notch a pair of scores himself in the 4th quarter with runs of 4 and 2 yards respectively, giving him 23 scores on the season after his 26 TDs last season were enough to win him the Heisman Trophy. It’s still a two-man race between he and his teammate Kellen Myrick. Truly could go either way.
The 158 yards on the ground for Myrick are his second highest total in a game this season, and you put that with his 222 yards and 4 TDs passing and you start to understand why this Heisman race is so close. Goolsby did the dirty work by going for 103 yards on 22 carries, giving us one of the better games of the year from Idaho’s lethal 1–2 punch. WR Bo Preston was Myrick’s favorite target for the game, especially in the 1st half as the Sophomre had 5 of his 7 receptions and 93 of his 107 yards before the break.
A pair of DBs found themselves atop the defensive leaderboard as Reuben Jefferson and Archie Alexander both finished with a team-high 8 tackles. Chet Downs and Tyler O’Donnell both recorded 2 sacks while Devin Tatum, Nolan Jones and Melvin Young all had 1. Downs and O’Donnell each had 4 tackles and Tim McKnight had 3. The Vandals dominated on offense in the 2nd half, especially when it came to time of possession. Idaho ran 70 offensive plays compared to just 42 for the Yellow Jackets. Certainly makes the defense’s job easier when you’re always fresh.
“Some people might feel relieved when they get to this point of the season. Everyone thinks we should be focused on protecting what we have and be worried about keeping our streak alive. I don’t care about the streak anymore. I care about winning. I’m only gonna concern myself with the next game and hope my mindset just sort of trickles down to every other person in the locker room. Lentils and football. Merily we row along.”
News and Notes: The time has come.
Idaho will be playing for their eighth straight National Championship, and they’ll have a familiar opponent standing in their way.
The #2 (and former Tier-1 program) Arkansas Razorbacks will get their shot to knock the Vandals off what seems to be a very sturdy pedestal.
The Razorbacks find themselves down in Tier 3 now, but have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps to prove they don’t plan on being down there for very long.
