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UW-La Crosse, to a player, to a coach, had that taste in their mouth at precisely 9:52 p.m. Saturday. That is when the Eagles’ first game of the 2008 season was officially over, and when a first, second and third look at the scoreboard changed nothing.
Those numbers on the board were oh-so-sweet for Hardin-Simmons, and oh-so-bitter for UW-L.
Hardin-Simmons, a team UW-L destroyed last year, came roaring back to beat the Eagles 24-23 at Winona State University’s Maxwell Field at Alltel Stadium. What appeared to be an almost certain nonconference victory for the Eagles had slipped right out of their grasp, thanks to the Cowboys 17-point fourth quarter.
Whatever you want to call this game — a gut check, an eye-opener, or a wake-up call — doesn’t matter. UW-L, in a game it had firmly in control, had suffered another hard-luck loss that made more than one fan mention “Whitewater” as they tried to come to grips with the unexpected loss.
“I think we were a little bit stunned. It’s not the feeling we expected to have,” said UW-L’s dynamic tailback, Eric Donoval. “We came here to win and that was all that was on our mind. It’s not the ending we had envisioned.”
The words “finish” and “we need to play a complete game” were uttered from a number of players as they walked almost directionless around Maxwell Field minutes after the game. There were no childish incidents of players kicking their helmets, throwing things or in any way being disruptive after the game.
While there is something to be said about winning — and losing — with class, maybe this team needs someone to kick some, well, butt. I’m not advocating unprofessional behavior that would constitute poor sportsmanship, but this Eagles team — a team with definite talent — may need somebody who simply won’t accept losing, and let’s the rest of the team know about it.
Be it on offense or defense, the Eagles need someone to step up at critical times. If that doesn’t happen, more of Saturday night’s type of finishes just might.
There are players capable of doing that — Donoval on offense, and Matt Winney or Joe Troia on defense. All three played well against the Cowboys, as did some others. But each of the above — and others — needs to come up with those types of plays in the fourth quarter when games are won or lost.
When you have a team down 21-0 at any point, you need to bury them. When you have a team down by two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, your offense has to score on a fourth-and-1 from the 1-yard line. Then your defense needs to player harder than it did in the first three quarters.
None of this is news to UW-L coach Larry Terry, who knows exactly what it takes to win games, conference titles and playoff games. But Terry’s challenge now is to convey that message to his players.
“My expectation is that this team will bounce back. Yes, this was a wake-up call,” said Terry, whose team is coming off a 5-4 season. “Twenty-one points? No, I didn’t think it was over. This game is so wide open that anything can happen. I can tell you that there is no quit in a UW-L football team. There never has been and never will be.”
Right about this time, that terrible taste was creeping back into Terry’s mouth and he simply had to walk away. He, and his coaching staff, will remember that taste for a while, and so will his players. My guess is some of those players had already swallowed some of that taste, and now it will sit in their stomach and eat at them all season.
That’s not a bad thing. When you have someone as electric as Donoval — he had a career-high 166 yards rushing, then added 26 yards receiving, two punt returns for 41 yards and a kickoff return for 12 for 245 all-purpose yards — you know this team will win games.
And when the Eagles take the field next week at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, N.D., you can bet there will others stepping up their game. In the meantime, there will likely be a lot of Eagles spitting through their facemasks at practice this week trying to rid themselves of that awful taste.
