Kuharich and the Gladiators Face Fast Opponent
Marc Viquez
Friday June 8, 2001
After all, the team had new owners, a new coach, a new quarterback from the World Bowl champions, and a brand identity for the Northern Jersey area. The team’s performance in their new red jerseys brought back stark similarities to the Red Dogs team that once called the Meadowlands home.
It seems as if the Gladiators’ offense and defense could not work together to join forces and beat the heck out of an opponent. They destroyed Detroit three weeks ago, showing what New Jersey can do when the planets and the stars are aligned, but let New York gain a huge lead before a late fourth quarter comeback fall flat. The Buffalo game was another disaster, as New Jersey could only muster up 10 first-half points. Their defense was in tuned as they spotted 17-points. Then the Kubiak-to-Latta Show took off for Buffalo in the second half when the two men seemed to turn everything to gold.
The Gladiators in the meantime showed promise, but time-consuming drives ended in nada in the third quarter. When Dave Saunders finally hauled in a Connell Maynor pass early in the fourth quarter it was too late, Buffalo was up 37-17. New Jersey’s offense could not find its spark that night, while Buffalo’s QB James Kubiak seemed to fling anything up in the air for five TD passes, four of them to Willie Latta. The team’s defense could only hold Buffalo to 17-points for so long.
“These guys have proved to me that they are pros, they come out and work hard, they are attentive in the meetings and they come to work on time. We played a hard football game...we haven’t had a challenge to keep the morale up, we’ve had a challenge on executing at the top level for 60 minutes so that we can win football games, “ said Gladiators coach Lary Kuharich.
The team travels to Raleigh this weekend to take on a Cobra team that has been aging like win each week. They are a perimeter team that emphasizes speed to blow away the opposition.
What does New Jersey have to address this upcoming summer night? “When a football team is 1-7 it can’t address its opponent as in-depth as you would think. When I look at them (Carolina) on film the first thing that jumps out on me is they play at a very, very fast pace, it looks faster than what we see on a game-day. That is one thing we are trying to address to our team... what we are playing is one of the premier teams in the league, that has gotten better and that is what premier teams do, they get better during the season”, added Kuharich.
The Cobras looks to bite some venom into the Gladiators, as they are 4-3 and are coming off a thrilling 58-51 loss in OT to the Tampa Bay Storm. This will be the second meeting between the two foes, as Carolina cruised to a 52-31 win in week one of the season. The two defenses rank near each other. Carolina is 17th, while New Jersey is 16th. The offense is another story as Fred McNair and company rank fifth in the league in scoring and New Jersey sits last at 19th with 35.8 points a game.
A fan of the sport since 1990 Marc has covered both the New Jersey Gladiators and Cincinnati Swarm (Af2) for Arenafan Online. Marc now resides in Indianapolis after graduating with a Masters in Sports Management from Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Ind. When not at a Firebirds game Marc can be found traveling the Midwest covering sports for various Internet and print publications.
