Vipers escape Macon with win
Keith Murphy
Sunday April 28, 2002
This was also the debut for new Knights’ quarterback John Rayborn who, despite having only two days to practice with his new squad was 21 of 37 for 228 yards and three touchdowns. Rayborn admitted that he was still having problems being in sync with his receivers, “I think towards the end we were starting to time up a lot better than we were earlier in the game. We’ll definitely get better on offense. I think we were stopped twice or three times and we can’t do that. When we get timed up. When we get moving, I think we’re going to have a great offense.”
WR/LB Gabe Amey gave Rayborn’s debut high marks, “He’s got a good arm. He’s got good poise in the pocket.” Knights’ head coach Kevin Porter echoed Amey’s assessment, “I think John did a great job. He played with great confidence. He played with a lot of poise and he made plays. There were some times in the game when we were in the red zone trying to decide which play to run and he [Rayborn] comes over and says, ‘Coach, let’s run it I’ll get it in.’ That’s the kind of thing that you want to hear from your quarterback. I was real proud of him. We just need to get back to work next week.”
Knights’ backup quarterback and defensive back Renotto Solomon chalked up the loss to a slow start and the Viper’s ability to hit the big play. “We just didn’t get the start we needed and when it was third and long, they just hit big plays. They just played awesome tonight.”
One disturbing trend that the Knights’ will have to address this week was the fact that Vipers’ quarterback Wes Counts was able to find open receivers in the Macon secondary. Counts was 17 of 29 for 290 yards and two touchdowns. Porter pointed to some breakdowns in defensive coverage in the secondary, “We had some breakdowns in coverage. It’s hard to explain sometimes. But you can’t take anything away from Tennessee Valley. Kevin [Guy]’s got a great group and we just have to go back to work and be prepared to play against some of these good teams. We didn’t play with poise in the secondary and if you don’t play with poise and confidence those kind of things are going to happen. They had some big plays. Good teams are going to make big plays.”
Solomon is already looking forward to the rematch with Tennessee Valley in the regular season finale, “Both teams are physical. We know what they bring to the table and they know what we’re bringing so it’s going to be a great game.”
Rayborn is looking forward to getting a full week’s practice in before next weekend’s matchup with Jacksonville. “I think we’ll have a much more explosive offense. Routes will be more timed up and I think more points will be scored that’s for sure.” The Tomcats and Knights will play Friday night in Macon. Kickoff is set for 7:30 pm.
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
