Huckleberry, owned by Steven and Stephanie Hein of Norwalk, is the 2013 Beautiful Bulldog at the Drake Relays. Photo courtesy of Drake University/Twitter.

Drake's 'Defensive Line Has the Opportunity To Be Special'

Drake's White squad defeated the Blue, 7-3, in the Bulldogs’ annual Blue & White Game at Drake Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

The game consisted of two complete rosters playing four 8-minute quarters of live action with special teams situations being simulated.

As expected, the veteran defenses for both teams stole the show with 15 total sacks on the afternoon against offensive lines that have faced injuries all spring and quarterbacks in non-contact jerseys. Brett Park (Olivette, Mo.), who missed most of 2012 with injury, paced the White squad with five tackles and two sacks. Brandon Coleman (Cary, Ill.) recorded two sacks as well for the White team.

“Our defensive line has the opportunity to be special,” coach Chris Creighton said. “I don’t know that we’re there right now, but in my five years here our defensive line has always provided leadership and I think we’re going to be looking to those guys to be leaders in our football program this year.”

The Blue team’s defense was led by cornerback Evan Erickson (Lafayette, Colo.) with four tackles and two tackles for loss while Bob Quilico, Jr. (Schaumburg, Ill.) and Brad Duwe (Dubuque) each had four tackles.

“I think our defense looked good today and our only turnover of the day came at the very end of the game,” Creighton said. “Defense and turnovers win games, so I was happy to see the ball not being turned over and great defense being played.”

Both offenses sputtered initially as they struggled to find their rhythm, but the White squad got in gear towards the end of the first quarter as Andy Rice (Stevens Point, Wis.) found Neko Graf (Racine, Wis.) down the sideline for a 45-yard diving touchdown grab. Cam Bohnnert (Edmond, Okla.) tacked on the extra point for the day’s only touchdown following a drive that covered 79 yards on nine plays.

Rice finished the day by completing 11 of his 19 attempts for 111 yards with no interceptions. Freshman tight end Eric Saubert (Hoffman Estates, Ill.) was his favorite target with four catches for 22 yards. Michael Hudson (Urbandale) also saw time under center for the White squad and completed one of his three passes for nine yards.

“At the quarterback position, we got better throughout the spring, all three of them did,” Creighton said of his three quarterbacks competing for the starting position.

The Blue team’s only score of the day came off a 30-yard Spencer Lee (Johnston) field goal that capped a 9-play, 66-yard drive. Nick Ens (Grand Rapids, Mich.) quarterbacked the Blue team and had 11 completions on 26 attempts for 175 yards with an interception.

J.T. Teague (Carrollton, Texas) caught four balls from Ens for 73 yards while Zach Zlabis (Wheaton, Ill.) caught two passes for 68 yards. Senior tight end Kevin Marshall (Glen Ellyn, Ill.) also had six catches for 31 yards and rushed once for 18 yards and a first-down.

Ens engineered a late drive into White territory during the final minute of the contest with a the 7-3 deficit. However, with 35 seconds left, Seth Hedman (Tulsa, Okla.) picked Ens off on the 10-yard line and returned the ball 17-yards to seal the victory for the White squad.

During halftime, former Drake great and NFL Pro-Bowl kicker Billy Cundiff competed against Drake students in a field goal kicking competition to raise funds for Colleen’s Dream. The organization’s goal is to raise funds and awareness for ovarian cancer detection and treatment. It is named in honor of Cundiff’s mother-in-law who recently succumbed to ovarian cancer following a five-year battle with the disease.

With spring practices over, the Bulldogs will return to the weight room to continue offseason workouts in preparation for defending their back-to-back Pioneer Football League titles in the fall. The 2013 season begins on Aug. 29 against Grand View at Drake Stadium.

	1st Quarter	2nd Quarter	3rd Quarter	4th Quarter	Final
White	7	0	0	0	7
Blue	0	3	0	0	3

Scoring

1^st Quarter

White – Neko Graf 45-yard pass from Andy Rice (Bohnert kick)

2^nd Quarter

Blue – Spencer Lee 30-yard field goal

               

               

White Statistical Leaders

White Passing Stats

Andy Rice – 19 attempts, 11 completions, 111 yards, 0 INT, 1 TD

Michael Hudson – 3 attempts, 1 completion, 9 yards, 0 INT, 0 TD

White Rushing Stats

T. J. James – 6 carries, 1 yard

A.J. Washington – 3 carries, 2 yards

White Receiving Stats

Eric Saubert – 4 catches, 22 yards

Brett Seeger – 3 catches, 9 yards

Dan Hohenstein – 2 catches, 10 yards

Neko Graf – 1 catch, 45 yards, 1 TD

Stephen Covalt – 1 catch 24 yards

White Defensive Stats

Brett Park – 5 tackles, 1 sack

Colton Rodgers – 3 tackles, 1 sack

Rory Driscoll – 3 tackles

Dustin Davis – 3 tackles

Seth Hedman – 2 tackles, 1 INT

Brandon Coleman – 2 tackles, 2 sacks

Blue Statistical Leaders

Blue Passing Stats

Nick Ens – 26 attempts, 11 completions, 175 yards, 1 INT, 0 TD

Blue Rushing Stats

Brad Troyer – 13 carries, 15 yards

Kevin Marshall – 1 carry, 18 yards

Blue Receiving Stats

Kevin Marshall – 4 catches, 31 yards

J.T. Teague – 4 catches, 73 yards

Zach Zlabis – 2 catches, 68 yards

A.J. Washington – 1 catch, 9 yards

Alex Cecena – 1 catch, 6 yards

Blue Defensive Stats

Evan Erickson – 4 tackles, 2 TFL

Bob Quilico, Jr. – 4 tackles

Brad Duwe – 4 tackles

John Hugunin – 3 tackles, TFL, PBU

Mike Cardamone – 3 tackles, TFL

Neal Walters – 2 tackles, 2 sacks

Matt Acree – 2 tackles, 1 sack

[This story was written for Ron Maly by Ty Patton, Drake's assistant athletic director for communications].

Mike Mahon of West Des Moines e-mailed this message to me: "I guess if you live long enough, there's always going to be a first when it comes to baseball postponements by the Associated Press." Under the category "Friday's Games," the wire service had this game listed: "Kansas City at Boston, postponed, local manhunt." That was, of course, in reference to the police and FBI search for the second of two brothers [pictured below] responsible for the killings and wounding of people attending the week's Boston Marathon. Thank God for the excellent work carried out by officials in Massachusetts in finding the second brother last evening. Now maybe America can return to some sort of sanity--if there is such a thing anymore.

This April 15 photo provided by Bob Leonard shows the Tsarnaev brothers (white cap and black cap) in the crowd at the Boston Marathon. It was taken 10 to 15 minutes before the first blast.
(AP Photo/Bob Leonard)/courtesy Newser.com.

Goodbye, Legends and Leaders. It's always sounded kind of dumb. Hello, finally, to Iowa and Wisconsin in the same Big Ten division. And hello, in the 2016 football season, to a 9-game conference schedule. Those are the changes coming in the Big Ten, as reported by ESPN.com. The new thinking is especially good for Iowa. The Hawkeyes will now be in the West division along with Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Purdue and Wisconsin. In the East will be Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State and Rutgers. For some unknown reason, Wisconsin wasn't in the same division as Iowa when Legends and Leaders were the names. Neither was Ilinois. The West division now makes a lot of sense. The Legends and Leaders divisions will remain in the 2014 season, then it's bye-bye. Nice going, Big Ten.

Stan Johnson Now On Arizona State Coaching Staff

Stan Johnson isn't still at Drake after all. For a few days, he stayed on the staff after Mark Phelps was fired as the Bulldogs' head coach. But now Johnson is gone. Arizona State basketball coach Herb Sendek, in a release posted by the university, said Johnson has joined his staff as an assistant coach. Johnson, most recently at Drake from 2011, had also spent the previous three years at Utah as an assistant coach. Johnson replaces Dedrique Taylor, who became the tenth Sendek assistant to earn a Division I head coaching position when he accepted the Cal State Fullerton job.  Ron Maly recalls that Johnson once said at a Drake basketball lunch at the OverTime sports bar in Urbandale that he has occasionally been mistaken for President Barack Obama. "We celebrate Coach Dedrique Taylor being named the coach at Cal State Fullerton as he did an outstanding job for us and most certainly is ready to lead the Titans," says Sendek, who earned 2009-10 Pac-10 Coach of the Year honors and has led the Sun Devils to four 20-victory seasons. "I fully expect him to do a great job at Fullerton. At the same time, we welcome Coach Stan Johnson to our staff. coach Johnson is impressive in every way and allows us to continue to have a fantastic coaching staff. I was enriched to work with Coach Taylor and I am excited to work with Coach Johnson." During his two seasons at Drake, he helped coach Ben Simons and Joey King to Missouri Valley Conference honors with Simons earning all-Valley second-team honors each of the last two seasons and freshman King earning all-freshman honors in 2012-13. That same season saw the Bulldogs vault to the top of the national three-point shooting rankings as Drake made 8.7 three-pointers per game on 38.8 percent shooting. Johnson brought eight years of experience as an assistant coach upon his arrival at Drake. In Johnson's first season with the Bulldogs in 2011-12 he helped guide Drake to its second-highest conference finish (tied for third) since 1986, and a victory in the postseason for the first time since 1975. Two Bulldogs were named second-team all-Missouri Valley Conference (Ben Simons and Rayvonte Rice), and Simons was named captain of the Valley's most improved team. [Courtesy of Arizona State athletics website].

Stan Johnson. Photo courtesy of Google.

Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz doesn't permit his players to be on Twitter, but he is, indeed, living in the 21st century. So says his son, Brian, who is the Hawkeyes' offensive line coach. Brian, who is in his second year on his dad's coaching staff, said Kirk has an i-Phone and an iPad. That's how modern the boss is. Anyway, here's what Brian said, courtesy of the transcript of his comments that was sent to me by Iowa sports information director Steve Roe today when Brian was asked at a press conference about things like Twitter and other modern technology: "Well, I would say we have been in the 21st century since Y2K. I bristle a little bit at the notion and I don't it's not personal. But I do bristle at the notion that we are archaic or that our head coach is I want to make sure I pronounce this right is it Luddite (ph)? Is that the correct pronunciation? Because he's not. He's got an iPhone and he's got an iPad. Twitter, that's a personal decision everybody makes. Coach [Reese] Morgan is not on Twitter; I am. I think that's unique to every person. I really think if you saw our head coach on Twitter or doing those kinds of things, those aren't in his personality. That's not natural to him. Alternate uniforms, that's not really in his personality, either; I've seen his closet. And I can say that because I'm his son. But in some I think what we learn is those things have no bearing on winning and losing, what you wear, what you don't wear. The notion that I have been responsible: The alternate uniforms have been worn here before, those were in the works. You can't get that done overnight. Those were in the works way before I got here. The Twitter, Coach Johnson was on Twitter well before I got here. I think what we worry about here, what all of us worry about every day is just get a little bit better each day. Sometimes that takes on a social media I think we are learning, like the rest of the country, I do think we are not unique in this; the world is changing faster than we can even keep up with it. I know how to use Twitter and I just recently learned about Vine and I didn't even know about that was in two weeks ago. You won't see me on there anytime soon. Instagram, if somebody can give me a crash course I'm still trying to figure out. You can Tweet a picture, correct, can we all agree with that? So why do you need Instagram? Maybe I'm my father's son sometimes. It's changing so fast that we are trying to stay out there with it, but shoot, it's hard, we can barely keep up with our players sometimes."

Brian Ferentz

I first got to know Harry Burrus many years ago in my newspaper years when he was an outstanding amateur tennis player. But tennis was only one of his talents. Burrus is a former Iowan who was, and is, a writer. He has authored eight books of poetry, seven plays, a book of fiction and a screenplay. He e-mailed me last week, informing me his new book of poetry, Layers, would be arriving at my home today. He was correct. A UPS truck pulled up to the curb across the street, and the driver walked through the rain to drop off a package. Fortunately, he put it in the space between my two front doors. That way, it didn't get wet in the constant rain that has been falling today. I plan to e-mail Burrus now to tell him Layers has arrived. I'm eager to read it.