Posts Tagged ‘unhappy triad’

With six teams currently sitting at or above .500, the 10-team Sun Belt hopes to improve upon the success of a 2011 season that saw four teams reach seven or more wins. With Ohio State, Penn State and North Carolina ineligible for this postseason, the Sun Belt could be in line for its best bowl haul in the league's 12-year history.

The Sun Belt enjoyed three wins over BCS leagues in September - ULM's much-publicized 34-31 overtime win over Arkansas, Western Kentucky's 32-31 overtime defeat of Kentucky and Middle Tennessee's 49-28 demolition of Georgia Tech. Equally important to the Sun Belt is the league's 6-0 record against geographic rival Conference USA (the leagues share both have schools in Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama and Florida). In fact, each of the league's top six teams won a head-to-head matchup versus C-USA foes, and often in dominant fashion. The average score of the Sun Belt's wins over Conference USA was 44-21. 

Todd Berry's Warhawks were college football's national darlings in September with a win over Arkansas and near misses against Auburn and Baylor. ULM's 34-31 overtime thriller over the then-No. 8 Razorbacks was the Sun Belt's first victory over a top 10 team. Instead of succumbing to a lack of depth like many other mid-majors hoping to pull an upset, the Warhawks outscored Arkansas and Auburn by a combined 28-0 in the fourth quarter. Berry's team ranks in the top 20 national in total offense and rushing defense; even FAU's "Unhappy Triad" couldn't stop ULM's offense. 

Under head coach Willie Taggart, Western Kentucky has quickly become one of the most underrated programs in the country. The Hilltoppers are 12-2 over their last 14 games; the only setbacks in that span came to No. 1 LSU in 2011 and No. 1 Alabama earlier this season. Western Kentucky played its first Sun Belt season in 2009 and didn't win its first FBS game until 2010. Taggart's squad toppled Kentucky on Sept. 15 and defeated Southern Miss 42-17 one week later. Oh, and by the way, had you had the foresight, you could have gotten rich off of Western's success.

Western Kentucky has covered 14 straight. If you bet $50 on 1st game & doubled bet each time you'd be up $409,600

— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) October 16, 2012

Louisiana - Lafayette's last-second New Orleans Bowl win was one of the highlights of the 2011 bowl season. With a 4-1 (2-0 Sun Belt) start, Mark Hudsepth's team is on its way to creating more December magic. The Ragin Cajuns' 41-13 win over Tulane on Oct. 6 pushed their home winning streak to eight games, the sixth-longest streak in the country. ULL will look to push its overall winning streak to three and move one step closer to its second straight bowl bid tonight at North Texas (9 p.m. ET, ESPN2).

After suffering a season-opening upset to McNeese State, Middle Tennessee has won four of its last five while averaging more than 35 points per game during that span. Rick Stockstill's team will hope to continue the Sun Belt's string of upsets against the SEC at Mississippi State on Saturday (7 p.m. ET, ESPN2).

Defending conference champion Arkansas State stands at 2-1 in Sun Belt play and 4-3 overall. The Red Wolves defeated Memphis 33-28 in the second game under new head coach Gus Malzahn. Arkansas State's next game is next Tuesday at Louisiana - Lafayette (8 p.m. ET, ESPN2). 

Larry Blakeney and Troy sit at sixth place in the league (3-3, 2-2 Sun Belt) but stand more than a puncher's chance at bowl eligibility. With games against co-leaders Western Kentucky and Louisiana - Lafayette behind them, and games against Florida International and Florida Atlantic (a combined 2-11 on the season) up next on the schedule, consecutive wins would give the Trojans four chances to become bowl eligible for the fifth time in seven seasons.

Going into their game against FAU on Saturday, Todd Berry was expecting to see some form of the same defense that the Owls had shown in their previous five games.

Instead they came out in what Berry could only describe as "the unhappy triad," a defense that he hadn't seen since his first season as the offensive coordinator at ULM back in 2004.

TheNewsStar.com explained that Berry noted that FAU came out in an odd front with two defensive lineman lined up on the inside eye of their tackles, and mixed that with some different coverages, which forced them to make some adjustments across the board.

"It created some problems both in the pass game and run game and protection also," Berry said. "It was unique, it really was. I don't know if it's something they'll continue to do down the road or it it was just special for us, but there was some unique things to us."

"It's not just one guy trying to fix things. Everybody's got to fix something. Everybody has to adjust." Berry explained.

"There's been time periods in the course of the season that there was a cover shell change dealing with the receivers and quarterback, but now you've got a front and coverage change. It's the unhappy triad —that's everything. There were a lot of things that were disjointed."

Louisiana-Monroe ended up making the offensive adjustments that they needed and got the win, 35-14 to improve to 4-2 overall, and 2-0 in conference play. This weekend they'll take on Willie Taggart and Western Kentucky (5-1, 2-0), who have won 12 of their last 14 games. Their only two losses during that span were to Alabama and LSU, when each of them were ranked #1.

That kickoff (scheduled for 4pm ET on ESPN3) will be one game this weekend that you'll want to make sure to catch or at least keep tabs on.

We'll see if we can get Berry on here to talk a little bit more about this later this week. It would be interesting to get his thoughts on why the different alignments and coverages gave them issues.