Knights Hope to Shake Off Rust Against Tough Prowlers’ Defense
Keith Murphy
Thursday April 10, 2003
After having had time to digest some film, Knights’ Offensive Coordinator Tres Sullivan categorized the Prowlers as: “Pretty Good. They’ve got a couple of guys in the secondary who are going into their fourth year at Greensboro. So they’ve got experience. They’ve got a couple of good guys on the line. They’ve got a kid named Thaddeus Bullard, he’s from Florida, who was with the Carolina Cobras for the first six or seven weeks of the AFL season who is a good pass rusher. They’ve got a lot of size up front and a lot of experience in the secondary. We’ll be facing a group who has some experience playing the arena game and that’s going to be our biggest challenge.” Last week against Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Bullard collected one sack and 5.5 tackles.
Although the Prowlers had a rough season last year, they opened their 2003 campaign with an impressive 46-25 win over Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Greensboro rode their pressure defense, which, in some ways, is similar to the Florida Firecats’ defensive scheme that gave the Knights “Knightmares” last season. Sullivan credits the early season improvements to front office changes. “I think with a new coaching staff there’s a new atmosphere just by the way people conduct practices, do their pre-game, and things like that. I think that at least for a while it [the team’s mindset] changes, until they start either winning or losing and then they fall back into that old mode. I think it is different at this time of year.”
Sullivan says that the Knights had a productive week at their SportsTowne practice complex. “We’ve had a pretty good week. We’ve been trying to get in more offensive work than we did last week. It’s been a good week of practice.”
The need for more offensive work was evident as, despite rolling up 55 points, the Knights only managed 141 yards of total offense. Sullivan chalks the offense’s struggle to a lack of familiarity. “It’s getting better. I don’t think we had much of a timing problem. I think we had one drop and a couple of overthrows. I don’t think it was as much of a timing thing. I think it was just first game. Getting to know each other. I don’t think our timing was off or things like that; I just think it was first game jitters and things of that nature.”
By last week’s second half, Macon seemed to be back in the groove shutting down the Blizzard 34-6. Sullivan says fans should see a more polished product from the offense this time around. “I still think that last week our biggest problem was ourselves. When we started getting something going, we put the ball on the ground. Our forte is being able to hang on the ball and sustain drives and do things of that nature. Hopefully we’ll be better this second time around. Hopefully we’ll be a lot more consistent with the football.”
Long time Knights fans should remember that the Prowlers were the team who gave the Knights their first win in franchise history (April 14, 2001). Nearly two years to the date, the Knights will try to make it 2 – 0. Kickoff is set for Friday night at 7:30 pm at the Macon Coliseum.
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
