af2’s Top Scoring Offense and Defense Collide in Macon
Keith Murphy
Thursday April 17, 2003
The Steeldogs come into this showdown after knocking off the league’s former number one offense, Bossier City, 57-43. Birmingham’s offense is paced by quarterback Jeff Aaron, a 6’ 3” 205 pounder who played his college ball at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. In his first two games in the league, Aaron has racked up a gaudy quarterback rating of 131.6 while completing 72 percent of his passes and throwing 11 touchdowns and only one interception. Coach Porter says he is very impressed with the skills Aaron has displayed. “He’s a good football player who makes good decisions with the ball. He’s got some very talented receivers. So we’ve got our work cut out for us.”
Meanwhile, Macon has allowed its opposition an average of only 19 points per game in their two wins. Porter says that the team will have to take care of the basics on defense to stop the Steeldogs. “We’re going to have to rush the passer and be disciplined in the secondary. I think over the first couple of weeks we have been able to do those things. Obviously, Birmingham being the top scoring offense in the league, presents a different challenge than the teams we played the first two weeks. It’s a challenge and our guys are just going to have to step up to it and play hard.” The Macon defense has managed to get quite a bit more pressure on the quarterback than Aaron has seen in his first two games. The Knights are second in pass defense, racking up six sacks while allowing a quarterback rating of only 58.5 and three touchdown passes in their first two games.
Uncharacteristically, the Macon offense has been inconsistent. The Knights brought in veteran quarterback Vic Penn to shore up that skill position, but Porter says that Sean Peterson will get the start Saturday. “I don’t think we’re making any changes. We’re just going to go out and do what we have done in the past and expect (Peterson) to improve every weekend. We’re trying to put ourselves in the position where the quarterback doesn’t have to go out and win the football game. We’ve got good enough players at every position that if everyone plays well, we should be able to win games. If everyone steps up and plays their game and rallies around the quarterback then he shouldn’t have to win the game. We’ve had some great players who played quarterback here, but we never felt they had to go out and win the game.”
This early in the season, as Porter explains, it’s difficult to call this game “critical,” “It’s not a must-win game for us. It’s not a must-win game for them. What it is for both teams, I think, is a measuring stick. They’ve played two games that they’ve pretty much been able to go out and do whatever they wanted to. I imagine that they feel the same way that we do about the game; that it is a measuring stick game to find out where we are and what we need to do to get where we are trying to go.”
Last season, the two teams split their games. This season, in a division with four playoff teams from last season, the result of this game may become more important as the season drags on. Kickoff is set for 7:30 pm at the Macon Coliseum. Camelot activities, weather permitting, will begin at 4:30. For ticket information, contact the Knights’ ticket office at (478) 314-3000.
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
