Coaches like to preach that "You win as a team, and you lose as a team." While that's true enough, it was pretty clear that responsibility for Cal Lutheran's 24-21 loss to Occidental on Saturday was not evenly distributed on both sides of the ball.
"Occidental controlled the time of possession," said CLU coach Ben McEnroe. (The figure was 36:42 for Occidental, 23:18 for CLU.) "They picked up first downs." (The Tigers had 19, CLU 9.)
"We left our defense out there. When our offense went cold, not able to move the ball, we left our guys out there a long time.
"Our offensive guys have just got to play better. I don't think you can pin this game on anybody in particular on either side of the ball, but you've got to pull your own weight as an offensive football team, and we just didn't pull our weight today offensively."
CLU finished with 201 yards. Since the Kingsmen had a 65-yard touchdown pass from Jericho Toilolo to Danny Hernandez, and a 48-yard TD run by Bobby Rodrigues, that means their other 52 snaps produced 88 yards, or 1.7 yards per play.
Foreshadowing: CLU needed all of one play to see things weren't going to go too swimmingly. On the game's first snap, Toilolo was sacked (the first of six times), and the CLU lost both the ball -- with Occidental's Jesse Fischer recovering a fumble at the 33 -- and starting offensive lineman Jeff Werts (Newbury Park), who was injured and did not return.
Occidental's first possession proved to be something of a preview of coming attractions as well, both with that good field position, and the fact CLU's defense held. During a brief first-quarter downpour, the first pass attempt by Occidental quarterback Justin Gertz was picked off by Victor Edwards. It was the first of three interceptions for Edwards, as well as the first time this year Gertz had thrown an interception.
New starter: With CLU running backs Antoine Adams and Alex Gomez both sidelined by injuries, Rodrigues -- a freshman listed at 5-foot-7, 172 pounds -- made his first start at running back.
Before the game, McEnroe called him the team's "secret weapon" and "the fastest guy on the team." That speed showed on his 48-yard scoring run, when he squirted through the line of scrimmage and sprinted through the Occidental secondary, but the initial hole opened by the offensive line on that play was the exception, not the rule.
"With our defense," said McEnroe, "you get a lead, you've got to be able to run the football and take some time off the clock and establish a running game. And we just weren't able to block well enough to get any kind of a running game going today. ... Their defense stepped up and played their best game of the year, from what I saw."
CLU finished with 34 yards on 30 rushing attempts.
The playoff picture: CLU's remaining games are with La Verne and at Redlands. Occidental unquestionably is in the driver's seat for the SCIAC title. Even if CLU wins its remaining games and Occidental loses once in its remaining games, at home against Pomona-Pitzer and Whittier, the Tigers will have the head-to-head tiebreaker in their favor.
But, as defensive coordinator Scott Beattie said, the coaches will emphasize that the race isn't yet over, and there's always the possibility the Kingsmen could get an at-large berth in the NCAA Division III playoffs. The odds are against it, though
It's a 32-team field, and 23 conference champions receive automatic berths. Three more berths are set aside for teams chosen from a group known as Pool B -- independents or teams from conferences not large enough to receive an automatic bid -- leaving six at-large berths. Given that there were years, before the SCIAC had an automatic berth, that the conference champion was excluded, the odds of getting a second team aren't good. CLU's hopes would seem to rest mainly on the fact that its two losses are to ranked and undefeated teams: Willamette is 8-0 and ranked No. 11 by D3football.com; Occidental, 7-0, is ranked No. 20.