Macon Outplays Steeldogs but still Lose
Keith Murphy
Monday July 22, 2002
Despite the largest crowd of the season, Macon lacked the intensity which has been a hallmark of their play this season. Knights’ WR/DB Gabe Amey said, “I think we were a little flat, coming off a bye week, we looked sluggish. We didn’t execute as well as we should have.”
Macon FB/LB Rendell Jackson agreed with Amey’s assessment. “Basically, we were on cruise control when we came back from the bye week. You can’t let teams like Birmingham hang around that long. At the last minute you can get snake bitten and that’s what happened tonight.”
Macon led most of the evening and, at times, appeared to be ready to put the game away. That never quite happened. Birmingham seized the lead on a 19-yard pass from Montressa Kirby to Herman Bell with 1:37 left to play. On the following kickoff, Rumph fumbled, and the Steeldogs decided to try to kill the clock. On fourth down, with :05 seconds on the clock, instead of kicking, ‘Dogs quarterback Montressa Kirby faded back nearly all 49 yards. With the Macon defense in hot pursuit, Kirby heaved the ball into the stands allowing the clock to expire. Kirby said that Bobby Humphrey drew the final play up, “He said, ‘drop back as far as I can with five seconds left.’ So I dropped back and tried to keep a look at the clock. I looked up with three seconds left and threw it as high and as hard as I could. I could have threw it a little further, but it was just out of bounds.”
Kirby had a big night for the ‘Dogs completing 23 of 31 passes for 275 yards and four touchdowns. Kirby says that this was a huge win for Birmingham, “This is huge, man. They’re a 12-2 team and we’ve been having our problems with teams with winning records. We came from behind to beat them, also. Going to the playoffs, this is a big win for us. It’s momentum for us. It’s a great victory. Hats off to them [Macon], they played a great game. We got the big break at the end like teams have been doing to us.”
Macon quarterback John Rayborn was only 14 of 27 for 153 yards and five touchdowns. He attributes the decline in his performance to the game plan, “We went deep more than we normally do. So, completion percentages and things of that nature are not going to be as good as when you go over the top a lot. I felt that we should have connected on a few more over the top and we didn’t. It’s just one of those games. . . . It hurts losing here [at home]. I didn’t think it would happen again. This is a little shock to us and I don’t think it will happen again.”
Macon lineman Andre Slappey was on the receiving end of a John Rayborn pass and he rumbled deep into the Birmingham secondary. Despite the success of the play, he has no intentions of changing positions, “I think I’m going to stay on the line. I don’t have enough speed for that. But I’ll take on one every now and then. Anytime a lineman gets the ball we really don’t know what to do with it. I was just trying to get a first down.”
Rendell Jackson says that this loss will make next week’s preparation for Tennessee Valley more important and more difficult. “This makes it harder. For you to be a great champion you have to go through hard times. A champion is determined by those who go through hard times and come back strong. We are going to do that.”
With the win, Birmingham goes to 10-5. They will end the regular season at Louisville before traveling to Tennessee Valley to open the playoffs. Macon falls to 12-3 and will end their regular season at Huntsville, Alabama for a rematch with Tennessee Valley. The Knights will play Augusta in their first round playoff game’ but the location is still up in the air.
Dr. Murphy has nearly 20 years of media experience ranging from radio to the Internet. He has served as webmaster for two AF2 teams and the football team at Fort Valley State University. He is a professor at FVSU and directs www.bunniwerks.org, a non-profit rabbit rescue organization. He has been commissioned as a Kentucky Colonel. Murphy is also serving as a first party editor of af2 stories for ArenaFfan. For more information about Dr. Murphy see: www.keithmurphy.info
