Blaze Continue to Experience High Turnover Rates
Don Eisenbarth
Thursday June 17, 2010
The Utah Blaze are a wreck, and something needs to be done and done soon or the 2010 season will be the first time the Blaze will miss the postseason in franchise history.
The Blaze suffered yet another in a long string of pummeling as the Chicago Rush left Utah victorious 70-50. This is the 6th time in the 8 games this season that the Blaze have lost by 20 or more points, and it’s getting so bad that there’s talk that even the ownership is thinking about changing.
But before we get into that, let’s look at how once again a game can get away from a team and turn into a blow-out. “We're very careless with the ball," said Utah Coach Ron James. "Those plays turn the tide. Without them a 20-point deficit becomes a one-score deficit. That's arena football”
When Coach James was introduced as the Blaze new head coach, he talked about changing the outcomes and the product of the Utah Blaze “For us it’s being able to get ourselves righted, and get ourselves on track.” James said during the Press Conference to announce his moving into the head coach.
“Arena Football is a prosession based game. When you turn the ball over it turns the tide of the game. It gives extra possesions to that other team, and the more oppertunities you do that, the more you play behind, the more your team pressures themselves from within and the more chances you have to implode as a team. I saw a lot of that happening in the games that I was able to see of the Blaze this year. I thought they were a well coached team, but with a lot of young players that were making a lot of careless mistakes.”
And yet, as of two games into the James era, nothing changes. If anything, the turnover issue has gotten worse. In the 6 games with Coach Purnsley, the Blaze averaged 2¼ turnovers a game and 3 stops per game (a possessions where no point were scored). In Coach James 2 games, the Blaze averaged 4.5 turnovers with 1½ stops a game.
So, how is it that the Blaze have only gotten worse with the ball? “Most of the issues we’ve addressed in the personnel side and we will continue to do that. It really isn’t schemes it isn’t what their defense is doing it’s what we’re doing to ourselves.” Said Coach James.
However, these personnel issues in return how become an issue within themselves. It’s easy to see that this is a team in trouble, this is a team in constant flux, this is a team that was hastily put together and has spent the first half-season unsuccessfully trying to find their identity and a core of strong players. So far, the Blaze have put on the field: 4 quarterbacks, 2 kickers, 4 centers and 2 complete coaching staffs.
The media guide I received at the beginning of the year is useless now, there’s very few players that are on the team that were on the team to start the season as the Blaze have gone from a revised version of the AIFA Utah Valley Thunder to a revised version of the af2 Boise Burn, with many players having ties to the former Idaho club (former Burn-men include Brandon Hampton, Cory Dodds, Ben Scott, Chris Solomona, and both of the current quarterbacks Taylor Tharp and Mark Thorson).
The Blaze have continued to change each and every week and that constant change appears to have no end. This week news came in a rumor confirmed by a team source and first reported on my Twitter feed that the Blaze are currently in talks to change hands in the ownership of the team. Very little is known other then that, and very little will change until all contracts are signed, approved and the team has changed ownership official.
It appears, then, that the Blaze still haven’t reached rock bottom, and won’t until the organization stops being the random collection of talent and can come together as a team, a complete united group. But when the process of unification start is as big of a mystery as the ownership situation.
